Rate this comp build

[Greg]

Also, you shouldn't drop to 8. 16 is the sweet spot right now. I regularly use well over 8gb in physical memory, often into the 12-14gb range., even when not particularly heavily loaded.

My desktop PC is a lovely piece of 2009 (Phenom II X4, baby!) technology, but it does have 16 gigs of RAM. It still feels fast.

Having enough RAM is the first thing to look for, wrt a good computing experience. And simply having a lot of web browser tabs open eats a ton of RAM.

[Yogimus]

2x8 or 4x4 for ram?

[Draven]

Depends on which processor you choose. If you get the 2011, you need to go with 4x4.

[Yogimus]

I update every 4 years or so, and when I do it is mobo, chip, ram renewal time

[Draven]

and the next 'new ram' cycle has already begun...

[Draven]

Note even their enthusiast level pc has only 8 GB, an unfortunate shortcoming.

In my case, I'll be waiting for a GTX 960.

[JohnOC]

Note even their enthusiast level pc has only 8 GB, an unfortunate shortcoming.

Agreed, though they make note that its basically the nice round budget number holding them back from it, and they talk in each section about stepping up the RAM. I don't think they assign quite as much priority to it as they should.

[Draven]

The same kind of thing is going up at Tom's... the $600, $1300 and $1800 machines are up, the summary article is coming.

[mekender]

Got my 970 in yesterday... Man this thing is quiet! Looks like it will work nicely as a replacement for my 560Ti

[Yogimus]

Waiting to pull the trigger, as it were. I have been cycling parts through my wishlist, trying to get the most bang for my buck, as it were