[Isileth]

Hey! Im building a budget gaming PC only £500ish to spend and i would like to know what would be the best RAM to get. Im looking at getting an opy 144-146.

 

[tuchan]

just get 2 sticks of 1 gig of the cheapest ram you can get, I can get it for only 240 aussie dollars, the better brands are starting from around 370 here so its a fair bit cheaper. spend as much as you can on a video card, that is where lies all the gaming performance. If you can sacrifice 1 gig and only go for a total of 1 gig then spend the extra on the GPU, you will be better off. you can always get another gig at a later date but when you get your vid card: it is a replaceable item that cannot be upgraded, you will then have to remove it and just get another one. Spend ya money on the GPU is what im trying to say and not on expensive ram at all. If you want to sit around and overclock then by all means go the good ram but if you just want to game on then go the best GPU you can afford.

 

[Xavier1421]

If you plan on getting the opty, then you must be overclocking, and the best way to do that, is find high speed ram. PC4000 should do, and I imagine you could find it relatively cheap if you dont mind the relaxed timings (which shouldn't be an issue for a budget gamer)

 

[Isileth]

Yeah i would like to overclock it but since im only on a small budget i dont expect the top stuff. Mind you anything is better than what i currently have so i wont be complaining!

 

[Isileth]

Whats better to get 2x 512 or 1x 1GB?

 

[Xavier1421]

For an opty system (or any socket 939 AMD system) dual channel is best, so 2x512 would be better than 1x1gig.

***EDIT

I dont have any good UK e-tailer sites on this rig, otherwise I'd be throwing together the baddest system you can buy for the budget :-\\

 

[Isileth]

Hehe no problem your helping me enough as it is!

 

[tuchan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isileth Whats better to get 2x 512 or 1x 1GB?

but Im thinking what if he wants to do an upgrade to 2 gigs in the future, maybe better off with 1 x 1gig stick?? sorry I didnt know you wanted to do some overclocking, dumb me, this is the place after all:withstupi

 

[Isileth]

Well the motherboard im looking at has 4 slots and i doubt i would ever need all 4GB it can take. Im quite happy with 1GB because i generally dont do anything to demanding apart from gaming. My main problem is that the price tends to sky and clears my budget with leaps and bounds every time i try to plan a build. thats why this time im trying to get very low budget stuff and then see what cash i have spare to make some changes.

 

[soloz2]

well your RAM choice will largely depend on your mobo choice. so you need to pick a motherboard before you choose your RAM.

since you are on a budget and want to oc I would recommend you get 2x512 rather than 2x1gb. 512mb sticks oc better than 1gb and you'll be able to get better ram for less. You can always use a dividor and get by w/ some value ram... but try to shoot for something w/ tight timings. 2-2-2-5

 

[Xavier1421]

Solo, I told him that tight timings wouldn't be an option for a budget system.

I think a high FSB relaxed timing ram would be the right choice. You don't buy an opty to not overclock it.

I found some DDR433 ram on novatech.co.uk for about 55 (incl VAT) per 512. Expensive yes, but thats only about 1/5th his budget...so far.

I think it was hyperX too, so decent ram for a good price.

 

[tuchan]

Gaming is the most demanding of all pretty well, 2 gig of ram will benefit you now and in the future, if you do go the 2 x 512 sticks that is still fine, you can just put 2 more in the other slots to make up the 2 gig in the future, that will just limmit your ram overclock and at stock it will be running slower than the ram specs but you can sort that out easy enough, so I am going with what is mentioned above now, go 2 x 512 sticks, I just dont want you to have the grief with 4 sticks like I have got.

 

[Isileth]

What sort of specs should i look for on the mobo? I obviousely cant afford sli but what are the important figures to make sure it has?

 

[tuchan]

have you anything in mind at all yet, sorry for no links but im on my laptop in bed an have nothing bookmarked

 

[Xavier1421]

nForce4 chipset, PCI-E slot(s), onboard audio and lan (saves money, and onboard components are getting better), and then the rest is up to you.

Sata1 and Sata2 support really depends on you, I still like my old IDE drives (lol), you really have a TON of motherboard options that fit into this category.

 

[Isileth]

I thought i did till i started getting all these suggestions from other people!

I like to think i know a bit about computers but generally i dont. I can tell when somethings better than something else but i generally cant say why or whats the important thing.

Currently looking at http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/prod...de=MBG-K8NMF-9

 

[tomasro]

go with a set of good ram and a good cooler (Big Typhoon or XP-120) and silverstone fan. get your temps low and sound bearable enough so you can OC some more if you really want it. Also, get a better vid card...maybe 6600gt or 6800gs depending on how much money you have left over.

 

[tuchan]

have you got a shop in mind that you might get this from, have you got a link and we could suggest something maybe from there?

 

[Isileth]

Im mostly searching around all shops and reviews for good suggestions then finding them as cheap as i can on a UK site. As long as the site is UK or will deliever to UK for no extra charge its fine.

 

[tuchan]

there is some good priced asus boards that will do the job no worries, there is the lower vcore problem for some but with an opty you will be sweet.