PSU requirments for my build

500watts would be fine, 600 is more than enough. I recommend you dont cheap out on a power supply, post your budget for psu and i will recommend something if you want.

Your GFX card will determine POSU size in 99.5% of cases:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

Thermal and Power Specs:
98 C = Maximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
145 W = Graphics Card Power (W)
500 W = Recommended System Power (W)**
2x 6-pins = Supplementary Power Connectors

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http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_review,7.html

Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:

GeForce GTX 970 or 980 - On your average system the card requires you to have a 500 Watt power supply unit.
GeForce GTX 970 or 980 in 2-way SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have an 800 Watt power supply unit as minimum.

If you are going to overclock your GPU or processor, then we do recommend you purchase something with some more stamina.

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That 800 is a bit off as 500 + 145 comes no where near 800 watts

A 750 will do just fine, even overclocked.

Your system would require just under 400watts to operate. Nvidia recommends a 500w unit. However, I would strongly suggest a good 550watt unit to give you that extra headroom for any future upgrades (you can even run a 980ti off 550watts), and also because most PSUs at 500w or below drop in quality.

Here are 3 excellent quality PSUs with more than enough wattage to power your system safely and efficiently:

- EVGA SuperNova GS 550

- XFX XTR 550

- Seasonic G550

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It is always worth reminding people of this; WATTS ARE NOT EVERYTHING. It is only one factor in determining what PSU you should get. What else in important? Brand, Efficiency rating, the components used and reviews, to name a few.

If someone buys a cheap, unbranded PSU to use on their powerful gaming rig because it has 'enough watts', I can guarantee you that it will eventually, if not immediately, fail and could damage your entire system.

Stick to units from trusted brands, with good efficiency ratings (your bills will thank you), and solid reviews - or pay the price later.

Not sure if what youre looking at is good? Check this list: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Your build will work perfectly
Why not get a 16GB ddr4 ram??

Depends what the OP is using his system for. Looking at his components, I'd say gaming will probably be the most intensive use.

If so, he doesn't need more than 8GB.

The vast majority of games dont even use 6GB, let alone 8 - let alone 16!

Back in 2010, 8GB was deemed enough ... in most cases

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-9.html

Based on our measurements and impressions (and taking falling prices into account), we thoroughly recommend a minimum RAM size of 8 GB. Using 12 or 16 GB only makes sense if you're planning on using 4 GB of more of this higher amount as a RAM disk, helping accelerate the reading and writing of temporary files. This applies equally to file compression, video encoding, and heavy image editing.

Other than this, you might want more RAM so the graphics card can allocate more system memory for its own use. We saw this pay dividends in GTA IV, for example. You won't see an overwhelming performance increase unless you're using very memory-hungry programs, but you will get a system with enough RAM for the foreseeable future.

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Today's games however presents a different story ....

Witcher 3 sees an increase of about 6 fps average (84 => 90 is @ 7%) / 3 fps (6%) on mimimum
GTA V shows a lil bit less. You can see several videos on youtube on the topic.

7% may not seem like a lot but for $35 investment in system cost, that's just $5 per % improvement. OTO going from a 970 to a 980 gets you a 12% improvement for $160 or $13 per % improvement

Of course, only today's newer games will show such an improvement but safe to say that 2 years down the road, Witcher 3 will be considered "light loads" compared with 2018 games. Best to go for 2 x 8Gb now methinks then to hope that when ya buy a 2nd set of 2 x 4GB 2 years down the road, they will play nice together.

RAM speed also has an effect... going from 1600 to 2400 w/ DDR3 showed and increase of as much as 10% in some games, and 0% in others.

Kind of off topic but do you know why games that dont use close to 8gb of ram still perform better with 16gb? I have never really understood this maybe the size of the page file or something? For example in witcher 3 or gta v both will not push over 8gb in use, on my system with gta v at close to max settings I use less than 6gb in total including my OS, yet I have read that some games perform better when you have 16gb even though said game doesn't use close to that much ram.

Can anyone provide any links to evidence for this 'more RAM than needed = performance boost' theory?

Genuinely interested!


EDIT: Just checked out this video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDkKDqThyBo - He tests Witcher 3 and GTA:V in 1440p
Im assuming thats where you got your figures from @JackNaylorPE?

That video does back the theory up, but then go to the next video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPenpMMJYEI
Which shows no improvement, including in GTA:V.

It seems it CAN help, but doesn't always. In the UK, the difference between 8GB and 16GB is about £40. For that amount, there are plenty of other things that are more important than maybe getting one or two frames in a few games... maybe.

After looking into it, I'd conclude this: No budget restraints? 16GB it is then! If not, use that money somewhere else.

Every system is limited by something. If you have a GTX 950 and a 6700k w/ DDR4-3000, expect the system to be limited by the GPU. The same might still hold true for say a 970 with DDR3-1600 and 4690k; but then jump to 970s in SLI and now the GPUs are no longer the bottleneck, RAM is now the bottleneck. The reason you see so many folks claim that it doesn't matter or it does is because a) more than likely, they tested it w/ just 3 games and b) their system, is being gimped by something else.

Other common PoV's that are misrepresented or at least misinterpreted occur when fps goes up by just 1 fps .... well if that's from 20 to 21, isn't that also 5 % ?. THG tested two games, one went up 0%, one went up 10%..... so there's conflicting info in the same article. Again, did the article consider minimum fps or average ... what's more important, going from 34 to 40 minimum fps or going 67 to 79 avg ?

The other thing which oft leads to the wrong conclusion is this example... when DDR3 was relatively new, reviewers didn't say that faster speed / lower CAS RAM didn't produce different performance.... they said the performance increase (say 3% average) wasn't worth the 100% increase in price. Again, early in the DDDR3 cycle, when yields of hi speed modules were low, you might pay $120 for DDR3-1600 and $240 for DDR3-2400. So everybody said not worth it. But I have 2 problems with this.

a) It's not a two-fold increase in cost because it's not just the RAM that goes faster, it's the whole system that goes faster. So on an $1800 build, that extra $120 is not a 100% increase in price, it's a 6.7% increase in price. Is it worth 6% to get 3 % ... maybe... more than ya'd get going from a 6600k to a 6700k in gaming.

b) Over time that price differential shrunk to as little as $10 but is back up now to about $20... with a 0.5 to 1.0 increase in system cost, is it still not worth it ?

So the question of does it matter, will depend very much on what system you are testing it on and what games you use to do the testing. Back in 2010, when that article was written 4 GB was the norm and 8 GB recommended. Today I think 8Gb is still on the tailing edge of being the norm, so while I think 8GB for 2010 - 2014 was appropriate for that time, 2014 to 2016 was kinda a transition period where an argument can be made for both and finally, I thnk many gamers and enthusiasts today see 16 GB as appropriate for 2016 - 2020

here's some tests I bookmarked over the years

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2792/12

22.3 % (SLI) increase in minimum frame rates w/ C6 instead of C8 in Far Cry 2
18% (single card) / 5% (SLI) increase in minimum frame rates w/ C6 instead of C8 in Dawn of War
15% (single card) / 5% (SLI) increase in minimum frame rates w/ C6 instead of C8 in World in Conflict

Also see http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2011/01/11/the-best-memory-for-sandy-bridge/1

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6372/memory-performance-16gb-ddr31333-to-ddr32400-on-ivy-bridge-igp-with-gskill/14

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?166512-Arma-3-CPU-vs-RAM-performance-comparison-1600-2133-up-to-15-FPS-gain

To summarise your reply and to quote myself: "It seems it CAN help, but doesn't always."

The OP has a mid-to high end system with a single 970, hardly SLI 980ti.

For example; if it came down to £40 on 8 more GBs of RAM, or £40 on a good CPU cooler that could enable a good overclock, or combine with another saving to go from a 960 to a 970, I know which one I'd chose.

Again, if youve got the money, then sure why not. But right now, if your trying to keep within a budget, there are other things worth considering.

Using that logic i might say "I can sometimes safely cross the street w/o looking both ways and not always get killed". True but hardly something I'd want to rely on.

It might and it might not matter but the simple fact is there's no way to be more exact w/o OP providing more information. I don't know what game series he plays, what his planned upgrades are or how else he might use his PC. If for example, he plans to record his gaming sessions and edit those videos then 16 GB is an immediate "no brainer".

He can certainly play most of today's games w/o issue but it is just as certain that the games of Xmas 2017 will be impacted. This decision can not be made in a vacuum... if there is a reasonable possibility that he will be in a position where he will want to add a 2nd 2 x 4GB 2 years down the line; **then** I would strongly urge to invest now rather than later as matching two different sets is oft problematic.

Yes, "if it came down to £40 on 8 more GBs of RAM, or £40 on a good CPU cooler" I might agree but he already has chosen a CPU cooler which should get him 4.5 or even 4.6 Ghz and I don't know that he wants to go any higher.

Yes, "if it came down to go[ing] from a 960 to a 970", I might agree but the reality is he already has a 970.

It also, in fact, doesn't come down to £40 as the difference in cost is not that much. And as we've seen no mention of budget, I wouldn't want to limit the discussion in any way until OP makes an inference in that regard.

Simply put, we can readily show from the above THG link that 8GB was deemed enough for gaming in 2010. But we are now talking a system that will likely be in use from 2016 thru 2020. Are there any other system components from 6 ears ago (CPus, GPus, storage) that you'd say will also be fine in 2020 ? . Lets look again at what THG said way back in 2010.

Other than this, you might want more RAM so the graphics card can allocate more system memory for its own use. We saw this pay dividends in GTA IV, for example. You won't see an overwhelming performance increase unless you're using very memory-hungry programs, but you will get a system with enough RAM for the foreseeable future.

Click to expand...

Back in 2010, most GFX cards had 1 GB, now everyone likes to claim 4 GB isn't enough, a four-fold increase. And as they also said in 2010 adding more RAM now "allows enough RAM for the foreseeable future". With an expected usage life of 4 years, I am certain that 8GB will be lacking foor all one's needs come 2020.

We have done only 1 user build in the last 2 years with 8GB, and that was with 2x4GB of DDR3-2400 CAS 10 ... it was just $5 more than DDR3-1600 CAS 9. In the last 2 years we have noticed that more and more users come in having done their homework. Four outta five want SLI or CF and the one that doesn't wants an SLI / CF capable MoBo / PSU. Other than the one build above, (office build for Quickbooks, light gaming ... mostly web based... on off hours). She didn't even want a GFX card but I threw one in that I had lying around.

I appreciate the OP has already gotten both of those things; but that was precisely my point - if the only reason he has already decided on those parts is because he could afford them by dropping down from 16GB to 8GB, then it was a good decision. If its not and he can afford to go up to 16GB anyway, then he should go for it.

This is DDR4 RAM here, not DDR3. The cost of your average 8GB kit is £40. The cost of your average 16GB is £79. It may be different in the US (hardware prices are usually 20% lower after exchange rate).

I was not using DDR3 but the DDR4 RAM OP selected. The cost difference for the RAM he chose is not £40, its £31

£71.82 http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-memory-hx421c14fbk216
£40.91 http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-memory-hx421c14fbk28

In 2010, 1 GB GFX cards were matched with 8GB or RAM. So GFX card recommendations warrant a 8-fold increase while system RAM stays the same ? What other PC component recommendation from 2010 can you expect to be "just fine" in 2020 ?

Budget is certainly a consideration, but for example I'd spend £30 on more RAM before I'd even think about an SSD. The point is, **if budget is an issue**, then spending that £30 can be done in any number of ways:

-Moving from a 970 to a 980 .... not enough money
-Moving to a better MoBo ... don't see anything worth getting that's available for £30
-Getting a better cooler ... worth considering **if** 4.6 Ghz + OCs are a goal
-Getting 16 GB ... worth considering, as system likely to be RAM starved well before 2020, immediately if recording / editing gaming videos
-Getting an SSD over an HD ... worth considering for 50% gaming improvement.
-Getting bigger PSU ... worth considering if future SLI will be used to extend system life by 24 months. Actually w/ the GS550 at £64.99 and the B2 750 usually at £70 in UK (not listed om PCPPsince Jan 1), I'd get the b2 750. Scan uk has it for £79 and they rarely the cheapest.