Advice for RAM for GA-990FXA-D3

[GillesR]

Hello,

I would like expand my RAM on my pc: I notice that 8gig is not enough anymore to run the newest games smoothly. I am a bit overwhelmed by all the possibilities and feel like I don't know enough on the subject to make a solid choice.

Motherboard: GA-990FXA-D3
Processor: AMDFX-4100 quad core
RAM: 8 gig of DDR3 (takes up 2 slots, which means I have 2 free slots).

Your thoughts? 🙂

 

[CountMike]

Get same RAM as you have now, that should give you 99.99% chance of upgrading without problems.

 

[GillesR]

It's a "Kingston 99U5471-054.A00LF 8GB".

Is that still available? Can't seem to find in webshops.

 

[CountMike]

My first search found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239288

 

[anwarov]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from GillesR : "Your advice for extra RAM please."

Hi guys,

I notice my PC is having more and more trouble to run newer games smoothly. I only have 8 G of RAM at the moment, and would like to increase this. But I'm a bit overwhelmed with al the existing suppliers and models. Maybe you guys can advise me what to get? 🙂

Motherboard: GA-990FXA-D3
Processor: AMDFX-4100 Quad Corde
Ram: 8 GB DDR3 NB Freq: 2000 - takes up 2 slots, so I have 2 free slots.

Any advice?

Get an identical kit of RAM. Same brand, same speed, same model. Mixing RAM can cause system instability.

However RAM is not your issue, the CPU is. It is too weak for modern games. I'd recommend upgrading to an FX 8140 (if you can find one) as it's the best CPU your motherboard supports.

Get an identical kit of RAM. Same brand, same speed, same model. Mixing RAM can cause system instability.

However RAM is not your issue, the CPU is. It is too weak for modern games. I'd recommend upgrading to an FX 8140 (if you can find one) as it's the best CPU your motherboard supports.

mr kagoris, i have a gtx 970 on a asus p6t motherboard and core i7 920, and 6 gb ddr3 ram. is my cpu the bottleneck as well? which cpu can my motherboard support or should i just get a new motherboard as well?

 

[CountMike]

There's no need for FX 8140, that MB can take up to FX 8320e - 8370e without a hitch.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

I checked the CPU support list, the new AM3+ CPUs are not officially supported.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

mr kagoris, i have a gtx 970 on a asus p6t motherboard and core i7 920, and 6 gb ddr3 ram. is my cpu the bottleneck as well? which cpu can my motherboard support or should i just get a new motherboard as well?

I'd say you should upgrade to Skylake. An i5 6500 with a H110/H170/B150 motherboard and 8GB of DDR4 RAM would work fine.

 

[CountMike]

I checked the CPU support list, the new AM3+ CPUs are not officially supported.

Check again, http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3900 all Bulldozers are supported even 125W, 990FXA chipset supports Vishera too.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

I checked the CPU support list, the new AM3+ CPUs are not officially supported.

Check again, http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3900 all Bulldozers are supported even 125W, 990FXA chipset supports Vishera too.

...

I don't see the 8350 or 8370 anywhere in that list.

 

[CountMike]

Those list are usually way out of date, made before some processors were out. My is same as that one except it's UD3 and only difference is cooling on VRM. If it's version is higher than v1.0 it already has right BIOS too.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Or maybe the BIOS for your board has support for the newer processors while this one doesn't. I'm not about to advise someone to buy a processor when the official CPU support list for their board doesn't say it's supported.

 

[GillesR]

Hey guys,

Thanks for your responses.

@ CountMike: thanks for searching, but that website does not ship to my specific country.
@ Mr Kagouris: thanks for your remark about the CPU. Indeed, I was planning on changing it.

I've done a lot of reading and conclude that my hardware is 'passed it', so to catch up I would need a new CPU and a new Graphics card.

At this moment, I was thinking about a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970.

Apparantly, the graphics card I currently have only has 1 gig over dedicated memory. I think this is the cause for lag, and not the RAM per se. Can someone confirm this?

I've read that it needs a double slot, which is provided by my motherboard.

I'm afraid my CPU won't be able to make the most of the Geforce GTX 970 though... Wat do you advise oh mighty internetmen of wisdom?

 

[CountMike]

MB version is marked at lower left corner and BIOS version can be found by CPU-z for instance. FX 8320 would be a good match for GTX 970. Amount of VRAM can be important with stronger card but on bottom end cards would do nothing for performance. That GPU could easily use even 4GB and what they refer to as "Double slot" is that it takes space of two single cards but it's installed in one PCIe x16 slot.
On that MB that means that it would cover that PCIe x1 slot and render it unusable, that's all.
Another concern would be PSU, if it has enough power for GTX.
All that would be cheapest way to get desirable performance, for anything better you should be looking at Intel and most new parts.

 

[GillesR]

Thanks!

PSU is okay, the card requires at least 500w and I can provide that.

I presume the GTX 980 will work with my AMDFX 4100 (even though not at full potential)? So I can upgrade the CPU later when I have saved up some more money?

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Yes but buying a GTX 980 (unless you're thinking used) is a waste of money with Pascal hitting the market in two days, and unless you have an R7 250 or something at the moment you won't see any significant improvement because your CPU is simply too weak.

 

[GillesR]

Thanks, this was all very helpful!

 

[Tradesman1]

I'd go a;long with Mr Kagouris on the CPU support, yes it's a 990 chipset, but it a 4+1 power phase design and lacks cooling of the VRM, many boards like this didn't get updated support for the upper end FX chips, and the list looks as if it's been updated they added the 6300. A 980 would be bottlenecked by your current CPU. If you, I'd either wait and see if Zen delivers when released or move to Intel. Your mobo isn't really up to a upgrade (a worthwhile upgrade anyway) and current CPU isn't really up to a higher end GPU