A-data 2x4GB DDR3 1333MHz (9-9-9-24) any good?

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felagund

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Jan 15, 2011
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Hi guys

I'm a first time builder and I decided to make a slightly modified version of the $500 PC Builder's marathon December choice.

Now I've stopped at
ASUS M4A77T/USB3 socket AM3 Motherboard (if u go to the asus website check the specs page as for some reason the overview is for a different mobo)
an MSI GTX460 1GB factory OCed card and an
AMD Athlon II X3 445 AM3 I intend to OC and in 1-2 years replace with a Phenom II x4 or x6 or whatever the mobo can handle (will research it when it gates too outdated but hopefully not too soon as I value my money)
1x WD Caviar Blue (will later grab 1-2 more for RAID)

I plan on getting an A-data 2x4GB DDR3 1333MHz (9-9-9-24) kit,

my questions are:
1.) Will the memory kit be good enough?
2.) Is it the right choice if I intend to grab a newer CPU later and to OC the current one or will it be a bottleneck of some sort?

Somewhere I read that corsair/ocz over-clocker's ram is actually no good. I don't see any other 4GB 1333 DIMMs in any stores nearby and I don't want to pass on the 2 dimm 8GB total DDR3 1333MHz ram for ~$100 offer.
I know the 2x4GB option might be an overkill for now but I have the habit of leaving applications open while Im playing games and when I play Oblivion I manually configure the game to utilise 2GB (possibly more) RAM so I think I can utilise it (and TES5 is coming out in 2011).

3.)I don't plan on OCing the memory so I guess it's not a good idea to grab Arctic Cooling Arctic RC heat-sinks for the DIMMs am I correct?


I'm planning on building this rig in about a month or so (anyways I gotta get my next paycheck first



Any help or advice is more than welcome as I am a first time builder as I said in the beginning.

Cheers,
Felagund



PS:

All the specs on the RAM I could find are:

Specifications
Memory: 2x4096 MB
Memory type: DDR3
Form factor: 240-pin DIMM
Bus clock rate: 1333 MHz
ECC: No
CAS latency: 9
Memory voltage: 1.5 V
 
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felagund

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Jan 15, 2011
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My other option will be Transcend JetRam 8GB DDR3-1333 Kit (2x4GB, PC3-10666, 9-9-9-24, JM1333KLN-8GK)

for about $120
 
buzznut

buzznut

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I have good experiences with A Data. It seems to be a reliable value product.
I have had problems with other sticks, corsair being one of them and crucial ballistix being another. I would research the reviews on the particular kit you're looking at. In my experience, its best to look at the kit itself to detirmine reliability and overclockability.

I don't recommend a raid setup for a first time builder, or most folks for that matter. Unless you work in IT, I doubt you'll reap many benefits. If you are simply looking for speed (as in raid 0) you're better off getting an SSD.

You can OC the CPU without messing with the ram. However if you really want to OC an AMD CPU, you can do so with a black edition CPU and forego messing with the reference clock altogether. I recommend not counting on upgrading the CPU with that motherboard down the road, the next CPU's from AMD will have a different platform. For now I really think you should consider an X4 955. Unless you can find an X3 black edition, which for games would be almost as good. There are becoming scarce though.

4 gigs is good, 8 is better and why not at current prices?
 
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felagund

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Thank you buzznut! I really appreciate your input.

I have also observed the fact that Transcend is a good flash drive manifacturer but still a bit new on the RAM market so I'll go with the A-data kit ( I couldn't find any reviews on the particular kit)

An SSD drive would not be an option as I don't need such great speeds - I prefer capacity to speed and if I'm making a raid I'll most likely make it a Raid 1 mirror array first for safety and then gradually move to a raid 1+0 or raid 5+1 or something like that. Yeah call me mad but I'm already spreading my data and pictures over a bunch of different drives hoping I won't lose it all in a single drive failure.

The Phenom x4 955 fetches double the price of the Athlon X3 455. While It would probably improve compilation times on my Gentoo I doubt it will be such a great performance improvement for any Games on Windows but I'll see if I can extend my budget a tad further ('bout $70 further) and include a Phenom ii x4 955 black edition to be a bit on the future proof side. It's sad but there are no X3 BE's to be found in the Bulgarian stores. I can find Phenom ii x2 BE cpus but I'd prefer to go with a 3-4 core one.


Once again thanks for your input! I really appreciate it!
 
buzznut

buzznut

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NP. Knowing that, I would go ahead and get the X3. Be aware that AMD will be bringing out a superior platform (Q2) this summer. The X4 is not worth x2 the price, here it is a matter of about 30-40US.
You won't be able to order from there, but you might find useful reviews at newegg.com for your hardware parts.
For me, I have opted for the external drive. I have an SSD boot drive, and a 500GB data drive, I have the external drive for backups. Since the OS is not typically using the external drive except for backups, it will last longer and I am not so worried about early failure. My data is safe, or as safe as I can expect.
Raid is not for the average user, it is not as simple as simply sticking two or more drives in and reloading the OS. We are not in my area of expertise here, but I have seen many struggle with this. But where's my sense of adventure? This may be a challenging and rewarding experience for you.
 
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felagund

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Jan 15, 2011
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Once again thanks for the advice!

For me all the work on getting stuff working the way I want it to is half the joy of it as solving such problems is kind of a hobby of mine.

Regarding the hard drives I also have exetrnal 1tb and will probably get some more drives up on my server machine.
(hence when I had like a month's worth of experience with Ubuntu I went ahead to try Slackware and settled with Gentoo linux so I could struggle with it more and actually learn something)

One more question (the topic is taking a different turn so I'm not sure if I should start another one instead)
but do you think a 500W PSU will be enough for the OCed X3 Athlon (possibly unlocked to deneb if I am incredibly super lucky) + 2 120mm fans, a Hyper 212 cooling for the CPU and an OCed Nvidia 460 GTX MSI Hawk card, 1 optical and 2 hard drives (not green) ? I've got my eyes set on a Fortron Saga 2 500W PSU (will have to check compatibility first of course but the question is aimed at the power it can supply as I won't be doing sly and aparently I'm not likely to upgrade the CPU or GPU .
 
buzznut

buzznut

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Sep 26, 2007
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Here's a link for a PSU calculator:
http://www.antec.outervision.com/index.jsp

The OC CPU and GTX 460 should be alright. I don't know much about the Fortron unit. I can recommend PSU's from corsair, seasonic, and Antec. The Earthwatts 500 is a solid buy. In your position and with an eye toward future upgrades, I would look at the Antec TP 650 new or something similar. While a 500W may be sufficient, it will not run its most efficient at 400-500W loads. If efficiency is not important to you that is fine, but I always caution folks to not skimp on your PSU. You will find plenty of other places to save money, get a quality PSU and you won't need to replace it for 5 years.
 
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