quick question

[twleung]

hi its my first post, im new but i have been lurking for awhile now

so, i have a passed down motherboard that supports up to 2 gigs of ram

ddr667-pc5300 240pin

would u get 2 sticks of 1 gb or 1 stick 2gb? is dual channeling mem sticks a lot faster?

the mobo is asrock 4coredual-sata2

also another quick one:
the pci-e is x4 would that bottleneck gpu's from ati 4800 series and on..

[sswilson]

Guaranteed there would be a bottleneck. I had a bottleneck with a 1950pro on that board's younger brother.... Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA review. (Damn that's a long time ago.... ;) ).

I think the minimum for a recent card would be an 8X, and even with that you'd be facing a possible bottleneck. That said... what are you moving up from? Could be that you'd still see an improvement depending on your current setup, and you could always move up to a better board in the future.

[twleung]

oo sorry i didnt post my current computer, i have been using this setup for about 3 years

its small and quite useful to lugg around, and I'm quite happy with it, i play left 4 dead 2 with it and it run fine.. but it can be much better =)

matx mobo: msi rs480m2, paired with athlon 64 3000+ (1.79ghz)
hdd:1tb wd black
gpu: geforce 7600gt
ram: 1 gb ocz

so for the above question, its all free but i just need ram.. and i was thinking of getting a new gpu and should last me another couple years? maybe until diablo 3 and starcraft2 ? what are your suggestions?

[Rison]

to answer the first question, the msi rs480m2 supports dual channel ram, so two 1 gigs would theoretically be faster. In real terms, you won't notice any difference tho.

Edit: the 4coredual-sata2 from Asrock also supports dual channel. :)

[Rison]

as for the second question, if you're looking for a video card for the MSI machine (Amd 3000+) any of the newer 260+'s would be overkill imho.
It all depends on your budget, but a GTS-250 is the most i'd put in that machine for running games. Can probably find one used easier when the new gforce lines come out.

[twleung]

Originally Posted by Rison

as for the second question, if you're looking for a video card for the MSI machine (Amd 3000+) any of the newer 260+'s would be overkill imho.
It all depends on your budget, but a GTS-250 is the most i'd put in that machine for running games. Can probably find one used easier when the new gforce lines come out.

Thanx for the advice!! So am I doing the wrong thing here?? Is my msi a quicker machine?? I was going to give the msi to my mom and move onto the asrock setup.
So my thoughts are the best gpu for that mobo that would cost under 150$
what do u say?