New build Questions

[Blackmage]

Today I order this having not had a major upgrade for about 3 years, i decided that i would take the plunge.

Intel Core i7-2600K
OCZ Agility 3 60GB(Preorder)
MSI P67A-GD65 (B3)
700W Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5830 Extreme

I have 8Gb of this sitting around "Elixir M2Y2G64CB8HC5N-CG" 4*2GB Modules

1. Are sandy bridge overclocks still effected by have 4 ram modules in at the same time?
   
2. Will DDR3 1333mhz be enough or should I buy some DDR3 1600+?
   
3. Should I turn my page file off?
   
4. Never owned an SSD before; what are key ways to maintain one?
   
5. Do you think a 5830 will be adequate for gaming at 1920*1080(Half life, Portal, maybe crysis)?

[MattBee2k2]

Today I order this having not had a major upgrade for about 3 years, i decided that i would take the plunge.

Intel Core i7-2600K
OCZ Agility 3 60GB(Preorder)
MSI P67A-GD65 (B3)
700W Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5830 Extreme

I have 8Gb of this sitting around "Elixir M2Y2G64CB8HC5N-CG" 4*2GB Modules

1. Are sandy bridge overclocks still effected by have 4 ram modules in at the same time?
   
2. Will DDR3 1333mhz be enough or should I buy some DDR3 1600+?
   
3. Should I turn my page file off?
   
4. Never owned an SSD before; what are key ways to maintain one?
   
5. Do you think a 5830 will be adequate for gaming at 1920*1080(Half life, Portal, maybe crysis)?

Answer to question 1, they should be, don't see why it would make a difference
Answer to question 2, 1600Mhz would be better probably for overclocking too but not too sure but quite a bit lol
Answer to question 5, the 5830 will definitely be fine for gaming at 1920x1080 on those games, especially the first 2.

[Tattysnuc]

Answer to question 1, they should be, don't see why it would make a difference
Answer to question 2, 1600Mhz would be better probably for overclocking too but not too sure but quite a bit lol
Answer to question 5, the 5830 will definitely be fine for gaming at 1920x1080 on those games, especially the first 2.

1. Are sandy bridge overclocks still effected by have 4 ram modules in at the same time?
I've not experienced any difference between using 4 stick of DDR 1600 (from my X58 setup) and 2 sticks of Vengence. I bought Vengence to free up my memory for another build. Managed the same stable overclocks on the CPU, but have not run the memory significantly overclocked.

2. Will DDR3 1333mhz be enough or should I buy some DDR3 1600+?
The CPU speed is all you need to overclock. There is not a significant difference in real world apps to warrant overclocking the memory on Sandy Bridge. CPU multis all the way! See Bit-Tech's guide for how to overclock the MSI board.

3. Should I turn my page file off?
No. Some software actually requires it. If you have a dirth of memory, you can create a ram drive and put your page file there for optimal performance.

4. Never owned an SSD before; what are key ways to maintain one?
If it supports trim, you need not do anything. DON'T defrag it as that's not necessary. Have a look at http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/31...ide/index.html for more details and a handy tool to optimise your settings.

5. Do you think a 5830 will be adequate for gaming at 1920*1080(Half life, Portal, maybe crysis)?
Half life and portal should be fine. Crysis depends on the settings - it will be playable in the most, but there will be slow downs in some of the larger more open battle arenas/scenes.

[Attila the Bun]

That PSU is a bit of an overkill for your new setup.
Unless of course you are aiming to upgrade to a monster GPU anytime soon.

I suggest you spend your money on a better quality 500w.
Check here on your selected choices and check who actually makes them.
Seasonic are always good.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page541.htm

[Phage]

Given the two near-new 6870s for sale here at £120, and the overall upgrade you're doing, I would probably go for a tad more power than a 5830 for games.

[Attila the Bun]

Given the two near-new 6870s for sale here at £120, and the overall upgrade you're doing, I would probably go for a tad more power than a 5830 for games.

And a 5850 is on TO at Scan today (remembers to include price) at £125.

Here is techpowerup's review of Asus's 5830
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...irectCu/9.html
You might find crysis a problem and anything other than the lowest settings

[Blackmage]

Given the two near-new 6870s for sale here at £120, and the overall upgrade you're doing, I would probably go for a tad more power than a 5830 for games.

Doesn't the 5830 not out perform the 460GTX? I could add another card if the worse came to the worse.

And a 5850 is on TO at Scan today (remembers to include price) at £125.

Here is techpowerup's review of Asus's 5830
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...irectCu/9.html
You might find crysis a problem and anything other than the lowest settings

In that chart it is using MSAA, I'll Just have to give it a nice overclock and see what happens. With No AA things may'be a tad better.

As I've already ordered

[Attila the Bun]

Doesn't the 5830 not out perform the 460GTX? I could add another card if the worse came to the worse.

I think your mixing up the 5850 and the 5830
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rectCu/11.html

There are other factors of course but every review of the reference cards

has the 5850, then the 460 then the 5830, in terms of fps etc I would imagine that the 5830 is the most frugal card in terms of power consumption

[Blackmage]

I think your mixing up the 5850 and the 5830
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rectCu/11.html

There are other factors of course but every review of the reference cards

has the 5850, then the 460 then the 5830, in terms of fps etc I would imagine that the 5830 is the most frugal card in terms of power consumption

The reason I got the 5830 was that I got it for the bargain price of £71.99, I'm more of a console gamer but have decided that I would rather play the PC version where possible.

[Attila the Bun]

The reason I got the 5830 was that I got it for the bargain price of £71.99, I'm more of a console gamer but have decided that I would rather play the PC version where possible.

So you've already ordered and paid for the items on your list?

[Blackmage]

So you've already ordered and paid for the items on your list?

Yeah I haven't built it yet; so I'm thinking if i should return the Graphics card!

[Phage]

You can indeed under DSR.

[Attila the Bun]

Yeah I haven't built it yet; so I'm thinking if i should return the Graphics card!

Do the psu as well

[Blackmage]

Do the psu as well

Why do you reccomend this?

[Attila the Bun]

Why do you reccomend this?

Because you don't need that level of power for your setup even if you change the GPU for any other single card. If you look at my setup I have a 650w, which I based on my projected needs plus 20 percent for unknown factors. Even with 3 more HDDs doing raid and adding another 5850 I still won't use 650w...at most I will hit 500-550 running it full blast. At the moment I max out at 400w.

So save some money on a £100+ 750w psu...aim at a quality £60ish 500-550w and spend the difference on a newer, higher spec GPU (6870 for example) that will let you play all the games you want at higher settings.