Post your setup!

[BTGBullseye]

Your system RAM is going to be the slowdown on your system... DDR2 is SLOW. Other than that, you have a very decent rig... Too bad you aren't visiting the USA anytime soon, you could upgrade the entire system (except the video) to beat your current setup, and it'd only cost $420.

[sheridanm962]

Your system RAM is going to be the slowdown on your system... DDR2 is SLOW. Other than that, you have a very decent rig... Too bad you aren't visiting the USA anytime soon, you could upgrade the entire system (except the video) to beat your current setup, and it'd only cost $420.

 

 

If and when I get an FX 6300, the motherboard that I have has DDR3 slots (It's a hybrid of DDR2 and DDR3, making the maximum amount of RAM I can have at one time to be 8GB), I can then have DDR3 RAM, till then there's nothing I can do about it (Hell, it's around $30-$60 for me to get 8GB of DDR3).

 

The CPU I have is a 90W and the 6300 is 95W, so the upgrade is pretty much seamless (I do however need an aftermarket cooler for it though, I hate stock).

[BTGBullseye]

The CPU shouldn't affect the system RAM capabilities... I'd say upgrading your RAM would have a far more significant performance impact than a new CPU, but it's up to you.

[sheridanm962]

The CPU shouldn't affect the system RAM capabilities... I'd say upgrading your RAM would have a far more significant performance impact than a new CPU, but it's up to you.

 

You seem to have misjudged the situation.

 

AM2 based CPU's have an internal memory controller, thus it can only handle DDR2 RAM.

AM3 and AM3+ are the only CPU's that allow DDR3 (aside from FM socket, but that's unrelated now, isn't it?).

 

Without an FX 6300 CPU, I can't have DDR3 RAM.

 

Aside from that, you're completely wrong about DDR2 being slow enough to be of a concern.

 

Let me explain: The GPU renders a scene, now the frame buffer only uses the RAM from the GPU. You're implying that having DDR2 or DDR3 RAM would affect this in a high manner, which couldn't be more farther from the truth. The system's RAM is only responsible for small things that the CPU throws at it, allowing it to move faster since it doesn't need that much power. A GPU is a different story entirely, it has to push a huge chunk of data and cram it into the frame buffer.

 

What you're implying is that a 2FPS difference between RAM Generations are a huge consideration to make at the cost of CPU power (which could affect more than the RAM could, trust me). The only thing to consider with RAM is the size, not the speed. You've taken it in a different turn and failed to see why we have large amounts of RAM in the first place. If we needed so much speed, then why don't we have DDR4 or even DDR5 system RAM? It's pointless at this point. Furthermore, it's not worth upgrading just the RAM. The CPU in question is only a Dual Core, a Dual Core that is many generations behind and yet is 90nm. Are you saying that a 90nm CPU is enough for something like Skyrim?

[BTGBullseye]

If your motherboard has a dedicated memory controller (which many do) then the CPU integrated controller isn't the limiting factor. RAM speeds affect a lot more than you're portraying... Unless you're using lower settings, it significantly affects rendering speeds (up to 15 FPS) due to the system having to load textures into the system RAM instead of the much faster GPU RAM. (with only 1GB GPU RAM, it would likely do so at medium settings on most new games)

 

Manufacturing tech size really only affects the heat generation, and power consumption... Additional cores and higher speeds aren't reliant on the size.

 

The reason we don't have DDR4/5 system RAM is because it costs so damn much to make... Last I checked they were planning on rolling out DDR4 RAM, but it would cost ~$1000 USD for 8GB at 3000+MHz, and current DDR3 at the same speed is only around $550.

 

As I already said, it's always going to be up to you... Whatever you want to upgrade is your choice... It's not like someone's holding a gun to your head and telling you to follow my advice.

[sheridanm962]

You'd see no improvement going from 1600MHz to 2200MHz in gaming, so why contemplate the need for DDR4? It's not like we all have APU's.

 

Also the motherboard doesn't have a dedicated memory controller, it's dependant on the CPU's integrated memory controller. I've never heard of an AMD motherboard that has a memory controller of its own, that wouldn't make sense in having an integrated one now, wouldn't it?

 

I have to get an FX 6300 before I even consider getting 8GB of DDR3 RAM, it's impossible otherwise. I've already considered upgrading both the CPU and RAM, the problem is money at this point, so it's not like I'm saying that I'm not getting it.

 

I'll let you in on something I've already seen first hand as well.

 

I have an AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+ 3.2GHz AM2 CPU and a friend of mine has an AMD Athlon II X2 270 AM3+ clocked way higher (somewhere around 3.4GHz-3.8GHz). He has 8GB DDR3 and I have 4GB DDR2, but his system is slower than mine. Why might that be? Because I have a Sapphire Radeon R7 250 1GB GDDR5 card while he has a Sapphire Radeon HD 6570 2GB GDDR3 card. I took the top priority of what should be in this system, I can't afford to completely upgrade the system just yet and the prices over here are completely different. If I didn't get this graphics card first, I couldn't do anything other than pull my hair out over 9600GT with only 512MB and much slower clock speeds.

 

All that aside, a memory controller on the motherboard would increase latency quite a lot, the only up side would be that I could run DDR3 on an AM2 CPU, but would the performance increase? Nope. Aside from added latency, the RAM would have a hard time keeping up with certain tasks, stressing out as it would have to refresh more often compared to an integrated memory controller.

[BTGBullseye]

I've been doing computer hardware for over 18 years, I think I probly know a lot about hardware... You are entitled to believe what you want, I'm just providing suggestions.

 

If your motherboard is one of the ones that doesn't have a dedicated controller, then yes, the CPU needs upgrading first. My suggestion was based on my experience of there being a memory controller on the moboard more often than not when someone is looking at upgrading something that runs AM2 chips.

[sheridanm962]

I've been doing computer hardware for over 18 years, I think I probly know a lot about hardware... You are entitled to believe what you want, I'm just providing suggestions.

 

Would you like a sticker?

Golden star or smiley face?

 

I think a CPU upgrade would be worth it as well.

[BTGBullseye]

If it's green, a smiley...

[Ross Scott]

The CPU shouldn't affect the system RAM capabilities... I'd say upgrading your RAM would have a far more significant performance impact than a new CPU, but it's up to you.

Unless I'm missing something important here, no, not really. I found benchmarks on it actually:

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1782/amd_phenom_ii_ddr2_vs_ddr3_performance/index.html

 

There is a little bit of difference, but nothing close to the 15fps you're claiming, it's basically the 2fps difference sheridan is talking about. Granted, that's on an older CPU, but it's the RAM that's being tested. RAM really isn't the bottleneck for the majority of programs, especially games.

 

Why might that be? Because I have a Sapphire Radeon R7 250 1GB GDDR5 card while he has a Sapphire Radeon HD 6570 2GB GDDR3 card. I took the top priority of what should be in this system, I can't afford to completely upgrade the system just yet and the prices over here are completely different. If I didn't get this graphics card first, I couldn't do anything other than pull my hair out over 9600GT with only 512MB and much slower clock speeds.

Yeah, a GPU is pretty much the across-the-board performance gain for gaming, outweighing the benefits of a faster CPU and RAM in all but extreme cases. In any event, the money you put into a GPU is generally going to get you much more performance than the money upgrading a CPU (unless it's VERY dated or underpowered). There are exceptions, RTSs in particular, games that have a bunch of physics done on the CPU, a few multi-threaded games can show benefits from more CPU muscle, but by and large the bottleneck is the GPU. This could change in the future however, as the latest gen consoles are focusing on lots of threads, so that may trickle down to the PC side as well. I've read Battlefield 4 is one of the very few games that will really use all the cores you throw at it and actually does put a lot of the load back on the CPU, something that hasn't been the case for a long time.

[sheridanm962]

There is a little bit of difference, but nothing close to the 15fps you're claiming, it's basically the 2fps difference sheridan is talking about. Granted, that's on an older CPU, but it's the RAM that's being tested. RAM really isn't the bottleneck for the majority of programs, especially games.

 

Yeah, also the majority of people that actually need more speed with RAM are those with APU's or Server/Workstation based systems. The latency between DDR2 and DDR3 is also something that kind of makes the argument between the two null void, as the frequency increases, so does the latency. Of course one of the biggest benefits of DDR3 is that it's cooler and doesn't require as much power to run, not to mention that now days it is cheaper to run DDR3... I'm lucky I got 4GB for $40 then

 

Yeah, a GPU is pretty much the across-the-board performance gain for gaming, outweighing the benefits of a faster CPU and RAM in all but extreme cases. In any event, the money you put into a GPU is generally going to get you much more performance than the money upgrading a CPU (unless it's VERY dated or underpowered). There are exceptions, RTSs in particular, games that have a bunch of physics done on the CPU, a few multi-threaded games can show benefits from more CPU muscle, but by and large the bottleneck is the GPU. This could change in the future however, as the latest gen consoles are focusing on lots of threads, so that may trickle down to the PC side as well. I've read Battlefield 4 is one of the very few games that will really use all the cores you throw at it and actually does put a lot of the load back on the CPU, something that hasn't been the case for a long time.

 

That's why I opted to get an FX 6300, which would also require me to upgrade my RAM to DDR3 (of course 8GB would be nice). I idle at around 800MB-1GB, if that? I hardly ever multi-task (unless I really need to) and I don't see the need for 16GB or even 32GB personally (or even anything over 1600MHz).

[BTGBullseye]

Yes, amount of RAM really never needs to go over 8GB unless you're doing a lot of high-RAM programs, debugging something (because everything needs to be loaded into the RAM), or doing high-end video editing. 1600MHz is a good high end for most people, though I personally have seen as much as 5FPS difference by going from 1600 to 2400 in an otherwise unchanged desktop system. (56 FPS to 61 FPS average in a Far Cry 3 Benchmark)

 

As for the benchmarking Ross found... That was with older games that were designed for systems with 4GB RAM max, and their 'high-rez' textures showed it. Modern games are loading as much as 2.5GB of textures in mid-high settings... (if you use high-rez textures, some are addon packs, some are just enabled in the settings) And if you don't have the VRAM to handle it, it loads the textures into the shared system RAM, (DirectX automatically does it, mine doubles the actual VRAM of my GPU to 4GB) and THAT is when you notice the RAM speed. (not really before) So if you're not planning on using high-rez, or high settings games, the RAM will not be the biggest slowdown.

[Ross Scott]

As for the benchmarking Ross found... That was with older games that were designed for systems with 4GB RAM max, and their 'high-rez' textures showed it.

Well out of all the old games to pick, it was Crysis on very high settings, which is about the most punishing benchmark you can possibly get from the time (Crysis is still more stressful on a system than many modern games). It was also done on Vista 64 bit, so it could definitely address more than 2GB. As for what you're describing, that's true, but again, that comes back to the GPU. You WILL see a performance difference if you're loading so many textures that it spills over past the VRAM, but at that load, the performance is likely to drop more dramatically elsewhere without a lot of GPU muscle anyway and would show much more performance for the dollar from having a card with a larger buffer rather than worrying about the RAM.

 

I don't know man, I just feel like a lot of the arguments you're making for gaming seem more like fine-tuning performance on an already performing system rather than primary considerations. By that I mean what you're saying is correct, but if you're on a budget, it's sort of the last step to be worrying about, since you have rapidly diminishing returns on performance for the dollar compared to the GPU. Stuff like memory controllers, RAM speeds, CPU power (with a few exceptions mentioned), you worry about AFTER you have the beefiest GPU you can handle. Otherwise, you might have a more rounded-out system going your way, but you'll have lower FPS in games.

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah, but he was comparing the RAM to the CPU, not the GPU... He said he already has the GPU. And yes, if he didn't have that one, I would recommend it above all else. (though I would recommend a 2GB RAM version instead of the 1GB he has)

[sheridanm962]

Yeah, but he was comparing the RAM to the CPU, not the GPU... He said he already has the GPU. And yes, if he didn't have that one, I would recommend it above all else. (though I would recommend a 2GB RAM version instead of the 1GB he has)

 

Over here, the only 2GB version of the card I can get is DDR3...

The GDDR5 2GB Version seems to be only for certain regions, I think.

 

I would get a 260X, but that's $230 over here (plus $10 freight), it could be something to look forward to when I get the other upgrades.

 

Stupid 15% GST! (Goods and Services Tax)

[Ross Scott]

Oh okay, I misunderstood. I'd even say you won't see THAT much of a performance upgrade for upgrading the CPU / RAM in gaming, unless it's a RTS, uses lots of physics, or is specifically multi-core. 4GB of system RAM is fine as long as you're not running anything else big at the same time as your games. BTG is right though, the 1GB of VRAM is probably your biggest bottleneck towards gaming performance more than anything. That's part of the card however, so you can't exactly upgrade that without getting a new card and it sounds like you have an okay midrange one as it is. The main thing that will impact is how high the texture resolution you use is, and your non-shader-AA performance. Also if you do like AA on the cheap, you might want to look into the "FXAA injector" rather than the MLAA that AMD includes. I don't know if this is still the case, but FXAA has traditionally had better performance than MLAA.

 

Also BTG, you mentioned SMAA, I have mixed feelings about that. While it DOES give a sharper pictures on edges it handles than other shader-based AA methods I've seen, I think it creates more of a contrast effect also, because it draws my eye to the parts that it misses, making them stand out more for me. FXAA tends to be a tad blurrier and more inclusive than SMAA, which for me personally makes the problem areas a little less noticeable, but it's a personal preference thing.

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah, price is prohibitive... Maybe I should start being a middleman, and shipping things from the US over to you guys on the cheap...

 

Well SMAA is based on motion... If it isn't moving at some point, it won't get any AA added. FXAA just applies a slight blurring effect anywhere it can detect an edge. (thereby being more comprehensive, yet far blurrier)

[Prominer44]

Here's my specs:

 

CPU: AMD FX-8320 (3.5GHz)

CPU Cooler: NZXT Respire T40

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3

RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory

SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB

Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 500M

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

[BTGBullseye]

Not a bad setup. If you're interested, 2TB HDD from Seagate is only $88 on Newegg... 4TB for $165...

[sheridanm962]

I just got an Athlon II X2 260 @3.8GHz. Since it's AM3, not AM3+ it supports both DDR2 and DDR3. The CPU was hardly used and a friend of mine said I could have it. I am able to upgrade to DDR3 soon, the CPU being free really helps in that regard. Also I'm not seeing the lag I'd get with my AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ which is a nice bonus as well as the temperature isn't going to go to 62 degrees when gaming with DayZ as well as being more playable than before.