Being as the LAN is almost upon us, im looking to upgrade a few components. I am looking at memory, a SSD hard drive and a new PSU (currently have a 650w)
My motherboard has 4 memory slots ive been thinking about:
Kingston HyperX Genesis 12GB (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-110-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1389) - £77.99
or
Corsair Vengeance 12GB (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-294-CS) - £105.59
Would there be much of a difference between these 2 or should i try and get 4 memory modules and fill my slots?
OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-075-OC) - £77.99
Looking to run Windows 7 and probably steam so would need at least 60Gb?
windows 7 will run fine on the ssd, but to have steam running on it is not really an issue as its just the interface for the games, what you need is the games on the ssd, but as we all dont have £2800 to get one of these 960gb ssd (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-083-OC&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1427) then i would suggest the above but with a good fast sata drive for steam and your games like this Seagate barracuda (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-248-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279)
Whats your full spec?
IMO 8 to 12 gig will make Naff all difference to a gaming PC but it depends on your chipsets arch. If you were running Multiple Vm's or 4 instances of a program that is memory heavy then fair enough =) you will need more than 8 gig.
SSD will make a huge difference but if you are intending to use steam then all of your games have to be on the same drive. It may be worth investing in a bigger drive for gaming =). There is a hack to get round this so that some games can be on the SSD and other on another drive...
Install Steam on the traditional HDD and use junctions to make a virtual link to your SSD where the games files are stored. You can do this from the command prompt easily and still have alot of space on the SSD for your newer games and have the older games on your Magnetic platter HDD.
I do this currently and it works a treat for BC2 and BO as they alone are on my 128gig SSD. I have another 500gig of games on my 1tb WD.
Will post up a guide if you want me to =).
DZ.
the steam hack guide is on here, its stickied in the tech section here steam spreader (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?32041-Steam-hard-drive-run-out-of-space) last post is an automated tool, no coding does it all itself
Probably be better off not getting those Ram sets as they are triple channel and meant for X58 chipsets.
8Gb will be plenty, Ive got 6 in my rig and have never used anywhere near that.
I wouldn't bother with more than 6GB either, you're very unlikely to need all that RAM.
650W is more than adequate unless you want to run an SLI/Crossfire setup. Even then, it's probably powerful enough.
I've got a 60GB SSD in my rig. I only use it for my W7 installation and apps, which leaves about 10GB of free space. If you want something for Windows and games then you'll almost certainly need alot more capacity, and for an SSD that can get really pricey. It's also worth considering the fact than an SSD won't make a game run any faster. The load times would be quicker, but in terms of frames-per-second you won't see any difference.
My reccomendation: Install Windows 7 to a 60GB SSD, and install Steam/Games to secondary convetional hard drive. 1TB drives cost naff all these days, so you could even buy a couple and RAID 'em for extra speed and/or resiliency.
Thinking of buying a laptop for gaming been looking at this asus model
Asus (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/173-asus-n73sv-tz193v-led-core-i5-23ghz-2410m-6gb-640gb-hdd-blu-ray-webcam-nvidia-gt-540m-hdmi-win-7)
TBH im starting to use a fair amount above 6Gigs on mine, but thats cause i limited the pagefile to 1Gb on a ramdrive on my stationary pc ;)
But that Asus does a good job, i just bought one with similar specs.. and its running everyting i throw at it fine :)
i5 2410, 6 Gig, 540M 2Gb... does a really good job