4gb ddr 2 on a q6600 at 3.6gHz where do I got from here?

[Farooq]

Hello I have 4gb ddr 2 on a q6600 at 3.6gHz where do I got from here? I currently have a x48 rampage formula with 4x1gb corsair xms2 at 400fsb.
Its been stable and excellent for many years however since BF3 im seeing mem usage of 3.8 gb making me think im deep into my page file. I think causing some minor choppyness it maybe miccrostutter from my 3870x2? cant tell. This could however be due to my 3870x2 not cutting it as it has only 512 mb available for each gpu and I hear BF3 eats up video ram. so do I buy 2x 2 gb of ddr 2 at high prices compared to ddr3 hoping that 6gb will be plenty or buy a new video card. I cant afford a full motherboard and cpu change at the moment and I feel the cpu is still fine for my gaming needs in benchmarks performs same as phenom 6core which is still respectable if not in sandybridge land. If you were in my shoes what would you do?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there,

First thing, 4GB of system RAM should be fine for BF3, though BF3 is very intensive on video RAM. As you say, DDR2 is very expensive and if its not the limiting factor then please don't spend any money on it. Instead, put it towards a new graphics card, SSD or into the pot to save up for a shiny new mobo/RAM/CPU.

As you mention, it is really your graphics card holding back your performance in modern games like BF3 and your CPU really should be OK for the time being (looking here pretty much any quad core runs BF3 great).

The big conundrum I see is what graphics card to get and when. The main issue is that AMD are expected to release their shiny new 28nm process cards (current cards are 40nm) in January, but up until then you are stuck with 40nm AMD HD 6000 and Nvidia 400/500 series cards to chose from.

If you think you would be missing out on a lot of gaming over the next month or so without a new card then I say just bite the bullet and buy a card now. The January 28nm cards will be faster for the same money - but they won't give you you a month worth of fun shooting people. With this in mind, I would recommend this MSI HD 6950 2GB card.

 

[Stav_13]

Hello I have 4gb ddr 2 on a q6600 at 3.6gHz where do I got from here? I currently have a x48 rampage formula with 4x1gb corsair xms2 at 400fsb.
Its been stable and excellent for many years however since BF3 im seeing mem usage of 3.8 gb making me think im deep into my page file. I think causing some minor choppyness it maybe miccrostutter from my 3870x2? cant tell. This could however be due to my 3870x2 not cutting it as it has only 512 mb available for each gpu and I hear BF3 eats up video ram. so do I buy 2x 2 gb of ddr 2 at high prices compared to ddr3 hoping that 6gb will be plenty or buy a new video card. I cant afford a full motherboard and cpu change at the moment and I feel the cpu is still fine for my gaming needs in benchmarks performs same as phenom 6core which is still respectable if not in sandybridge land. If you were in my shoes what would you do?

Hi, sorry to hijack but what memory are you using in your setup to achieve 3.6 on the CPU as I'm building my system with similar specs.

Thanks

 

[Farooq]

Hi, sorry to hijack but what memory are you using in your setup to achieve 3.6 on the CPU as I'm building my system with similar specs.

Thanks

I use corsair xms2 twinx the ones with the domminator heatsinks aka the tall ones its ddr 2 pc6400 4x1 gb sticks at 400 fsb at tight timings my cpu is at 9x400 = 3600 it takes 1.5 v tho but not a issue tho as im on custom water cooling witha 3x120 radiator and my temps are very low. Its been running happily at 9x400 for many years monster chip that has been serving me well.

As for what to do I think ill hold off buying ram and just get a gfx card 7 series amd in january 7950 looks nice and probably a ssd 120gb or above I currently have a samsung spinpoint 200gb and a western digital caviar black 1tb. Ill drop the samsung and get a ssd.

That should tide me over for next few years gaming. hopefully untill intels next tick codename haswell/broadwell. in 2013

I am worried that 4gb wont be enough tho if games go the way of bf3 in 2012?