Hey, I'm going to be building my own PC pretty soon, and I wanted to know if it will run certain games well with and without F.R.A.P.S , on max settings.


CPU: T/TAKE CASE AGUILA VD1000BNS BLACK

Motherboard: ASUS SKT-AM3 M4A77T S/L 5200MT/s

Case: T/TAKE CASE AGUILA VD1000BNS BLACK

GPU: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

PSU: Antec High Current Gamer 620W Power Supply

RAM: Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G)

HDDs: Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322GJ)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/775/1155/1156/1366)

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-D163C/BEBE SATA 16x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM

Full Price: €608.34


Alright, so will this PC run smoothly, on max settings with these games?

Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, GTA IV, Portal 2, Crysis 2, Crysis 1, Half Life 1, Killing Floor, L4D2, Metro 2033.

Thanks.

You're putting together an AMD build the same year they're releasing Bulldozer, I would wait to see how the release goes or use an intel build.

4 gb of ram seems low for a new build, and costs almost as much as 8 gb, so you can help 'future proof' your build by going 8 gb.

I'm leaving the Build as it is, the current price is very cheap for what I'm getting so I end to keep it that way, I also don't want to go over € 650, but I may reconsider with the RAM.

Okay, what about this RAM?

Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) [CMX6GX3M3A1600C9]
---
8GB is overkill I feel, 6GB is enough.

So, what about now?

Triple channel is less stable than dual channel (if you're overclocking), and we have a different view of this matter since it is +/- $20 USD for 6 gb to 8 gb, including better stability. Ram prices are low right now, strike while the hammer is hot.

Socket AM3 and AM3+ are dual-channel platforms, so triple will do you no good anyways. Either 4GB (2x2GB) or 8GB (2x4GB). Triple channel is atm only for Socket LGA 1366 on Intel's side of things.

Tig Ol Bitties-

What happens you try to run triple channel memory on a platform designed for just dual? Is it straight-up incompatible memory, or do the timings just suffer?

Alright, instead of paying more for ONE 8GB RAM stick, I got two 4GB sticks of this:

Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G)
---

So now the price is at €650, which is reasonable considering the GPU and CPU.

Alright, so how far can I push this system? (in terms of gaming, I will be OC'ing the GPU, and CPU)

Speaking of GPU OC'ing, I don't have a GPU cooler, do I need one or is my CPU cooler and my two case fans good enough?

Well, if you got 2 of those, you now have 4 x 2 gb sticks. And I would never suggest getting a single 8 gb stick, if such a thing exists, but 2x4 gb.

Its been my experience that FNV is more CPU bound than GPU.

When it comes to OC'ing headroom for your system, there is no a priori way to tell, its empirical. The best way to judge prior to actually testing it is to look in the OC forums (Hard OCP, Overclock.net, etc) for people with the same hardware to see what they get out of it.