Questions about Hardware.

[Dayon]

Trying to come up with the grand list of the components I'm looking for to build a fantastic, probably insane rig.

I need to decide if I want to go from a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system. I know that 64-bits handle RAM better, but a friend of mine is suggesting that I stay at 32-bit. I want to hear from the community about this.

My end goal is to run a computer that can support surround gaming on three 1080 displays, HD 3D. The business.
I was looking at either two GTX 580s up until I found out a single GTX 590 would be less expensive, but the GTX 590 only has two display slots. Do I need to use two cards to hook three displays up?

I'm going to be using an Intel processor.

Thanks.

[Deleted]

if you're building a rig with more than 2/3gb RAM then yes, you will need 64bit, as if you have a 4/8/16gb kit you will only be able to use just over 3.5gb or something along those lines. can't really see a reason to stay 32bit nowadays.

[Arslay]

Go 64 bit... 32bit can only use 4 gigs of RAM total. (Vram+ normal RAM) In order to get 3 screens from Nvidia you will need to SLI. Also, a 590 is 2 underclocked 580's. Go for the 2 580s. 1000W PSU. i7 2600k. Get an SSD blahblahblah.

Best cooled GTX 580.

[Dayon]

if you're building a rig with more than 2/3gb RAM then yes, you will need 64bit, as if you have a 4/8/16gb kit you will only be able to use just over 3.5gb or something along those lines. can't really see a reason to stay 32bit nowadays.

Really? I heard the most RAM a 32-bit can use is 8gigs.

[Yohassakura]

Really? I heard the most RAM a 32-bit can use is 8gigs.

Basically, a 32 bit OS can only provide addresses for up to 4GB... (which is 2bits^32). At that point the OS doesn't have any more addresses due to mathematical limitations.

2^32 = 4294967296 bytes = 4194304 kilobytes = 4096 megabytes = 4 gigabytes

[Deleted]

Really? I heard the most RAM a 32-bit can use is 8gigs.

Nope, on windows 7 32bit you can only effectively use 3,5gb's of ram.
Compatibility issues with 64bit are long gone so all the reason to go for 64bit.

[Dayon]

Righto, now I just need to get some questions answered about a three-monitor setup with a single GPU. Is that possible?

[ispano]

GTX 590 has 3 DVI ports....

[Yohassakura]

Righto, now I just need to get some questions answered about a three-monitor setup with a single GPU. Is that possible?

http://www.amd.com/us/products/techn...eyefinity.aspx

"AMD Eyefinity Technology enables a single GPU to support up to six independent display outputs simultaneously."

[Dayon]

GTX 590 has 3 DVI ports....

Yeah I'm pretty dumb. Sorry, I assumed it only had two.