PC building with Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz...

[bkraz]

Building a decent budget rig with the Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz ... and I'm not an overclocking guy. So I'm wondering what the smart money is on, here. Do I buy the DDR3 1600 Ram and a board to match (one that can handle 1600 w/o overclocking) ? Or do I stick with DDR3 1333 Ram and a board that can only reach the 1600 mark with overclocking efforts?

I want performance, but I'm trying to be smart about it. Maybe it would be better to stick with the DDR3 1333 and find a CL7, rather than a DDR3 1600 CL9?

 

[tecmo34]

1) I would recommend a motherboard that supports above & beyond DDR3 1600 to give you room to "grow". The best value to performance/features for an AM3 is the ASRock 870 Extreme3. Thus would be my recommendation, if you can budget it in.

2) You would be better off with DDR3 1333 Cas7 than DDR3 1600 Cas9.

 

[Emperus]

The smarter approach will be to go for DDR3 1600 modules.. There will be no performance difference but it will ensure that you've some headroom if and when you decide to overclock (need arises more often than not).. A good set of 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS8 kit will be good.. Check this out -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Products.aspx?Item=N82E16820145290