Hello, i am building my first gaming pc and need some ram advice.

[Mpyra]

Hello,
my build will be as follows:

i7 920 OCed
Rampage II Extreme
3x275's OCed or 3x280's OCed

(I have 3 of each and intend to test them both on Crysis at 1980x1080 with and without AA in order to decide which set to keep.)

From what i have read, RAM makes little difference to gaming performance, however the most significant factors in choosing RAM are the timings and latency, which is something i don't know anything about.

Apparently the frequency of the ram makes little or no difference compared to the latency and timings and overclocking ram or using ram at high frequencies just increases power consumption and heat for little gain.

Aside from this i have some questions about to use a 32 bit or 64 bit version of windows 7.

Basically i had read that Windows 7 32 bit can only address 3.5 GB of memory and that video memory is included in this.

So when i am testing my 3x 275's and 280's to see what's better could a 32-bit OS bottleneck gaming performance, as there would only be an extra 500 mb of system memory available?

 

[Teifiterror]

Have you considered ATI graphics cards?

 

[Marvin]

You definately want 64 bit, there's no reason to go 32 anymore (used to be some driver problems with XP 64 and Vista 64, but it seems that everyone has caught up for 7).

You've got those graphics cards already? Why get two sets of 3 of what are very similar cards (performance wise)? One GTX280 is enough for most gaming at maximum settings at the moment, so why 3 were needed is beyond me.

Timings do appear to make more of a difference, though it is also worth having a higher frequency if you can. Look for around CAS 7 and 1600MHz+, then you'll have some excellent RAM.