Usb 3.0 card on an i7 & DH55HC board

[samrat_rao]

Hi,

My supervisor is planning to get a new system for me. Some specs under consideration are:

Intel i7-870, DH55HC board, 4 X 2Gb 1333MHz DDR3 rams, 512Mb graphics card.

I think that in the next 2 years usb 3.0 and sata 6.0 will become standard. Could a card be inserted later on the board that will give usb 3.0 capability? Also is 512Mb graphics card enough or is 1Gb a better option? Which graphics card do you suggest? I will not be playing any games nor will i be running high graphics oriented packages.

I'd like the system to be good/decent for the next 2-3 years at least. Any other specs that you guys suggest would be useful. Thanks.

 

[guanyu210379]

PCI card you mean? then Yes as long as you have not used all the free slots.

The "same" GPU with higher RAM performs better than the one with less RAM.
What GPU are talking about.
Different GPU with higher RAM? You can not put it the same way.
Example :
512MB HD4850 < 1024MB HD4850
1024MB HD5850 > 4048MB HD3600 (if there is even a 4GB version on HD3600)

 

[samrat_rao]

PCI card you mean? then Yes as long as you have not used all the free slots.

The "same" GPU with higher RAM performs better than the one with less RAM.
What GPU are talking about.
Different GPU with higher RAM? You can not put it the same way.
Example :
512MB HD4850 < 1024MB HD4850
1024MB HD5850 > 4048MB HD3600 (if there is even a 4GB version on HD3600)

Hi,

The graphics card seems to be pretty basic - nvidia 512MB 8400GS. Do you recommend any other card in the similar or slightly costlier range, preferably nvidia.?

 

[guanyu210379]

Well, 8400GS is usually more than enough for normal office work.
What kind of work do you do? Normal excel, normal databank, powerpoint, or any special activities involving professional graphic software?
Are you using 2 monitors or perhaps more?

 

[samrat_rao]

Well, 8400GS is usually more than enough for normal office work.
What kind of work do you do? Normal excel, normal databank, powerpoint, or any special activities involving professional graphic software?
Are you using 2 monitors or perhaps more?

Hi,

Thanks for replying. I'll be using Linux mostly with little/no special activities involving professional graphic software and a single monitor. I'll be using the cpu more extensively as i need to run programs. So i suppose as you are hinting that the 8400gs should be sufficient for me. I was just enquiring whether in the future any OS will come that will require more graphics capabilities.

 

[guanyu210379]

In the office, I have to work using an aero-disabled win7, and I think almost every company will do so..
8400gs is more than enough for office work.

 

[samrat_rao]

Hi, one last question,

Instead of filling the DH55Hc mobo mem slots with 4 X 2Bg rams, isn't currently 2 X 2gb is a better option. After 1 - 1&1/2 yrs one can put 4bg rams in the remaining two slots.

Do you think that in the next 1 yr 4gb rams will be a lot cheaper?

 

[guanyu210379]

It depends on your application, for normal office work (ms. office, internet, etc.) 4GB is definitely much more than enough.
For HD-video and picture editing as example, the 4GB is minimal, more is better.

Hmmm...hard too say..I think it will drop a bit but not much...but can't say for sure..

 

[samrat_rao]

Best answer selected by samrat_rao.