Random Questions

[Lascard]

im gonna be making a thread for advice on a new build soon but I have a few questions that could affect what pieces i get before i create it.

1. when comparing i7-2600k vs i5-2500k the difference is hyperthreading, my question is will games make good use of it anytime soon or its not worth it?

2. on all 2nd gen intel processors, it says it should use 1333mhz ram, if i use anything higher like 1600 or even above will i encounter problems?

3. 8gb vs 16gb, many say that 8gb will suffice but my friend has a brand new pc with 8 gigs and his ram usage while he had 4-5 simple firefox windows open was hitting near 15-20% (stable % not jumping around). is that normal?

4. pcie 3.0 vs 2.0, will backwards compatibility exist between the two or am i screwed if i buy a mobo with only 2.0 on it?

5. hdd question, what is the difference a 32mb vs 64mb cache?

[Keller]

1. Nope.jpeg

2. Nope.gif Just make sure you've got adequate timings.

3. 8 gigs will suffice. I have 60 tabs in chrome on 4, No problems. Unless you're going to do some serious photoshopping, then get 8gb.

4. Honestly no idea on this one.

5. 64 MB is better, if the price difference isnt large, get the 64. Also, if you're going to use an ssd, then just save yourself some cash and get 32.

[Nellah]

1. Yes, but only in VERY limited future cases. I think BF3 was stated to benefit from 8 cores / 4 Hyperthreaded cores. That's the only game I've heard of that would, though.

2. See my sig. Ivy Bridge chips will be rated for DDR3-2133, and will (unless Intel screws with us again) fit in existing LGA1155 sockets as well.

3. My 8GiB has supported WoW, three instances of EVE Online, World of Tanks, Starcraft II, a virtual machine running Diablo I in Windows XP, Firefox with 63 tabs open, Chrome with 16 tabs open, and still had a gig free. 8GiB is fine, and will be for a while.

4. PCI-E 3.0, 2.0, and 1.0 are all backward and forward compatible.

5. The difference is slightly faster burst transfers. 32MiB is fine, 64MiB is ever so slightly faster.

[Lascard]

alright i have a few additional questions in mind after reading both of your replies, im gonna number them accordingly to the original.

2. @keller; what does adequate timings refer to? (im not a pro :/)
2. @nellah; if we get ivy bridge chips and put them into a current 1155 mobos will i suffer performance decrease compared to the mobos that will be
released around the same time ivy bridge will come out? btw your sig says your using 2000mhz im guessing you arent running into problems if you told me to look there.

4. @nellah; similar question to ivy bridge, lets say i buy a gpu in the future but im on 2.0 and it should be used in 3.0, i will suffer a decrease in performance correct?

btw your help is much appreciated.

[ispano]

Timings, the lower the better. So if you can get lower timings for a similar price, or not much more, go for it.

For example the memory in my sig runs at 7-7-7-20 but there are very similar sets, even from Corsair that were 8-8-8-24 and the like. Both being 1600.

[Nellah]

alright i have a few additional questions in mind after reading both of your replies, im gonna number them accordingly to the original.

2. @keller; what does adequate timings refer to? (im not a pro :/)
2. @nellah; if we get ivy bridge chips and put them into a current 1155 mobos will i suffer performance decrease compared to the mobos that will be
released around the same time ivy bridge will come out? btw your sig says your using 2000mhz im guessing you arent running into problems if you told me to look there.

4. @nellah; similar question to ivy bridge, lets say i buy a gpu in the future but im on 2.0 and it should be used in 3.0, i will suffer a decrease in performance correct?

btw your help is much appreciated.

2.1: When you buy a stick of memory you will see timings listed for the stick (if you don't, don't buy it). Mine are rated for 9-10-9-28 timings, which are decent for sticks rated for this speed. They're running at DDR3-1866, Sandy Bridge doesn't support DDR3-2000. Good timings to look for are in the 8 range if you're getting DDR3-1600. Also, you always always ALWAYS want to get memory rated to run at 1.500V... mine are rated higher, but I run them at 1.500V anyway, much higher than that and the Sandy Bridge memory controller runs the risk of dying.

2.2: Maybe. No way to tell, as new boards aren't out yet. Probably not though, as if the board is of decent quality it'll be the CPU that determines memory speed anyway, and PCI-E 2.0 isn't even being saturated by today's GPUs yet.

4: See 2.2. PCI-E 2.0 x16 offers a barely testable performance increase over PCI-E 2.0 x8 for modern GPUs. PCI-E 3.0 x16 is going to offer twice the bandwidth of PCI-E 2.0 x16, but will offer a likely even smaller, if measurable at all, real world performance increase.

[Cyanotical]

im gonna be making a thread for advice on a new build soon but I have a few questions that could affect what pieces i get before i create it.

1. when comparing i7-2600k vs i5-2500k the difference is hyperthreading, my question is will games make good use of it anytime soon or its not worth it?

2. on all 2nd gen intel processors, it says it should use 1333mhz ram, if i use anything higher like 1600 or even above will i encounter problems?

3. 8gb vs 16gb, many say that 8gb will suffice but my friend has a brand new pc with 8 gigs and his ram usage while he had 4-5 simple firefox windows open was hitting near 15-20% (stable % not jumping around). is that normal?

4. pcie 3.0 vs 2.0, will backwards compatibility exist between the two or am i screwed if i buy a mobo with only 2.0 on it?

5. hdd question, what is the difference a 32mb vs 64mb cache?

1, no, atm very few programs at all take use of more then 4 cores

2, 1333 is the suggested standard, however 1600 runs fine, there are issues with 1600+ when installing more then 16GB

3, 8gb is what 99% of people can utilize, however, right now, ram is cheap, there is nothing wrong with getting 16gb

4, there will be backwards compatibility, you just won't see the same performance as a pcie 3.0 card in an x79

5, (64>32)<SSD

[Lascard]

alright perfect many thanks to all of you for the help ill be making my thread for the build review soon