[LtStinger]

Okay question here is about my sig rig, I need some help understanding and deciding what to do.

In my mind, the biggest two problems holding me back are DDR2 RAM and lack of SSD. But about the RAM...

What exactly am I losing here? I keep doing searches and keep reading on DDR2 vs DDR3 and it goes equal distances in both directions. It's driving me crazy! Some say they would prefer DDR2 if they could do it with the AM3 CPUs, well my board happens to do it due to a bios upgrade allowing AM3 on an AM2+ board. I know my timings seem a lot quicker than the specs I read on DDR3 sticks (mine atm are 4-4-4-12) however I just get the feeling I'm now allowing my CPU to reach its full potential.

I'm pretty satisfied with my graphics card, maybe in the future I could add another of the same one.

System hard drive I believe is slow. It needs an upgrade bad, so I was considering going SSD.

I just need help understanding this rig I built myself here...an AM2+ board with a bios update and AM3 cpu....DDR2 Ram....Am I better off putting money toward a new board/RAM combo, or is this setup fine and money would be better spent on the SSD? Someone please shed some light on this rig.

Thanks in advance

 

[DrSwizz]

Fast RAM is not nearly as important as it used to be thanks to the large caches that are present on modern CPUs. Consider overclocking your your NB/L3 cache if you have not done so already, a few hundred megahertz higher frequency on the L3 cache is going to increase system performance allot more than faster RAM ever will.

The performance difference between having your OS & applications on a SSD drive versus having them a slow harddrive is huge. You will be much better off buying a decent SSD.

 

[LtStinger]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1068616&CatId=5300

This just went on sale today, and I'm ready to jump..since my board is Sata2, there is no reason to buy a SATA3 drive, correct? Or is the drive I listed still under SATA2 capabilities and I would be better off spending money on a SATA3 drive?

Should I make a new thread for this? This seems like a good drive for what my system needs..

 

[LtStinger]

Still uncertain. Need more knowledge.

The spec analysis should have included that my board was SATA 2.0. It is apparently a factor, and I want to get a feel for where my bottleneck is going to be here.

-Will it be the processor with a 3.5-3.8GHZ overclock quad?
-The 800MHZ of Ram?
-Or will using SATA 2.0 for my solid state drive, limiting me to 300MB/s transfer rates be the weakest link? Would this CPU/RAM setup even allow for 500MB/s transfer rates, or would I max out my processer and/or RAM before ever touching SATA 3 speeds anyway?

Please provide insight. I'm probably going to order this drive today.

P.S. I already had my NB overclocked as suggested. I am not sure if this is one and the same, or different from L3 cache.

 

[Speced]

SATA 2 or SATA 3 won't make much of a difference.
You won't notice much of a difference unless you copy like 20GB video files to the SSD.

4K Random is what matters most of the time.

If you want SATA 3, just wait til you need a MB.

 

[LtStinger]

Well after an entire day's worth of research, I ended up with an M4. It was between that or Intel's 320 for reliability, and I had to give Crucial my business, as they have treated me with exceptional service in the past.

Thanks for the help. +rep to both of ya