Right amount of memory for 1920x1200

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execut1ve

execut1ve

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Feb 18, 2011
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Hello all,

I'm in the midst of putting together a new (gaming) computer build. I've settled on just about everything except the graphics card (which I thought I had decided already). The list:

ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Motherboard

Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Case

Antec EarthWatts EA-650 GREEN 650W Power Supply

Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

EVGA 01G-P3-1371-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) FPB EE 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Everything but the video card is pretty much set in stone at this point. My computer budget just got a little boost though so now I'm looking at the 560. I worry that the 460 will suffer at 1920x1200 with only 1G memory and that a 2G 560 (maybe ti) might do better. I'd like to spend not much more than $250 on the card. Any thoughts/opinions appreciated
 
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jyjjy
Yeah, you definitely want to go for a Sandy Bridge system. What you want is an i5-2500k. It is by far the best value for the money. Excellent at stock but it can overclock a huge amount. Here is a comparison with the i7-950 you are considering;
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=100
As you can see it wins all but a handful of the tests but that is only at stock speeds. The i5-2500k usually has no problems getting to 4.5+ ghz with a decent cooler and at that point there's simply no need for anything better.
It is currently on sale for just $205 on newegg at the moment(over $50 cheaper than the i7-950.) I'd snap one up;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
As for the video memory question 1gb is ok...
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no, those remain to be purchased. so far I have the case, psu and ram. this has actually been in the works for a while now, those are the pieces I happened to pick up as they went on sale/I had funds lol.
 
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Well this build was good a year ago but has long been obsolete imo since SB came out in the beginning of this year. (It is also getting replaced in the next month or so) Another big issue, is the build is heavily cpu lopsided, games need more graphics power, the cpu only needs to be good enough to support the gpu. Get the i5-2500k and 560ti. 2gb vs 1 makes no difference at that res, completely disagree with cizzle, let me find some benchmarks. Since you already bought the ram, you could either try to find one matching stick or use 2 sticks for dual channel or deal with single channel.

 
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makes good sense k1114, I assume SB = sandy bridge as yyk above was saying? sorry to be ignorant, I'm a converted hardcore amd processor fan, still not 100% familiar with the intel lineup
 
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just after a cursory examination, the sandy bridge route seems to be a good bit cheaper, which is always nice. however I would also have to pick out a motherboard... choices choices
 
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looking at the boards for the sandy bridge, I don't see any with dual x16 slots for sli, which would seem to limit future upgradeability. also using the older socket would seem to limit ease of upgrading as well
 
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Yeah, you definitely want to go for a Sandy Bridge system. What you want is an i5-2500k. It is by far the best value for the money. Excellent at stock but it can overclock a huge amount. Here is a comparison with the i7-950 you are considering;
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=100
As you can see it wins all but a handful of the tests but that is only at stock speeds. The i5-2500k usually has no problems getting to 4.5+ ghz with a decent cooler and at that point there's simply no need for anything better.
It is currently on sale for just $205 on newegg at the moment(over $50 cheaper than the i7-950.) I'd snap one up;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
As for the video memory question 1gb is ok for the moment however if you may move to a higher resolution/3 monitor setup or want to Crossfire/SLI in the future than a 2gb card would be the way to go. Here is a 2gb HD6950 for $230 after rebate;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150530
 
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Solution
you have me convinced on the sandy bridge. I don't mind at all picking up an aftermarket cooler and overclocking either.

as for the vid card, I'd prefer to go with a geforce... just a personal preference. ergo the 460 or 560 I was considering, or a third option?
 
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The easiest comparisons was the 6950 1gb vs 2gb, you can see the only noticable difference is crysis warhead frost bench at 2560x1600.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/02/24/amd_radeon_hd_6950_1gb_performance_review/3
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/331?vs=293

I will take note of that actual memory usage article, but all that matters to me is actual fps.

As for 16x/16x, imo is a waste of money, I know you said for future upgrade but 8x isn't limiting now. But they do exist: Asus P8P67 WS Revolution. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131714

Don't confuse the 560 with the 560ti they are different cards.
 
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I realize the 560 and 560ti are separate, I was for short just saying "560" but meaning to include all the variations.

I seem to remember seeing that cards were just starting to saturate the 8x interface a couple years back, though I could be in error. I thought the 16x would be even more important with beefier graphics cards
 
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I guess AMD and Nvidia cards handle VRAM differently...or maybe lower VRAM cards are more conservative with their usage.
 
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What k1114 said 😀

1gb is totally fine, your limiting factor will definitely be the actualy core power. A 560 Ti is a good card, as is the 6950 1gb. They will play any game at high settings (if not max). The 1gb is not going to be an issue until you push massive resolutions. Even though some games will load up more than 1gb of stuff in the VRAM, that doesn't mean there's going to be a noticeable difference with less VRAM. For one, Win Vista and 7 can share system memory with the GPU, so you get just a slight performance drop due to the "lag" of swapping info (for the most part, you'd never notice this). The other thing to consider is that the video card with over 1gb might not be flushing the old info (textures, etc) - say, if you enter a totally new area with completely different scenery. I don't know exactly how it all works behind the scenes, but my guess is that in this case you'd maybe save a couple seconds at loading if you return to the old area and that's about it. An SSD would make it all much faster than the extra VRAM 😉

Anyway, that's just my thoughts. I know it's possible to exceed 1gb of VRAM in some situtations but it's not really a reasonable thing to consider since it requires massive amounts of resolution and Anti Aliasing.
 
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It dosent matter regarding the bus there is nothing that makes a difference you will notice at your planned resolution and card selection.
The i5-2500k is an excellent chip for what you want and you can basically team it with the best GPU you can afford with out worry.
Looking to the future with one eye is always a sensible idea as far as im concerned but to be honest what games that are due out will trouble even 2 year old tech ?
Go sensible with the recommended CPU and keep the GPU to 560TI/6950/6970 area.
That should cover most games at high end graphics settings for the near future.

Mactronix :)
 
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Glad to see the boy's got you turned! Cant beat cheaper and faster!
 
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