Build questions

[Wetbyte]

At what point does additional memory no longer make sense for gaming? 4, 6, 12 GB?

If I order overclocking from cyberpower and end up doing a fresh os install a year from now will that wipe out the oc settings? Or are those all set hardware side?

If I get liquid cooling what is cooled? Just the processor or the video cards too?

Is it worth getting a cheap nvidia card dedicated to physx for gaming? Or is that just a gimmick?

Playing at 1600ish widescreen resolution would an nvidia 570 1.2 GB card be enough say for BF3?

Is buying the upgraded gigabyte mobo with the KillerNIC on board worth it if I'm just hooking my pc in to a router and a cable modem anyway?

Is there any real benefit to getting a dedicated audio card? Or would the on board audio on the gigabyte mobo be fine?

 

[hunter315]

If you are getting an LGA 1366 processor like the i7 9xx series, get 6GB of memory, otherwise get 4 or 8, as most games are 32 bit they show no advantage with 8GB over 4GB since they can only use up to 2GB, but if you like to multitask or run 64 bit applications they will appreciate the extra memory, and ram is pretty cheap these days.

Cyberpower does the OC settings on the motherboard BIOS like any good OC should be done, so if you reformat the hard drive it wont lose those settings, however resetting the BIOS will reset those back to stock settings.

The liquid cooling systems that cyber power sells are closed loop CPU coolers similar to the Corsair H50, they are about as effective as a good air cooler, and a great air cooler will easily out perform them, but liquid cooled CPU sounds and looks cool so they are able to sell more of them that way.

Depends what games you play, if you intend to play many things that make use of GPU accelerated PhysX it might be worth it, otherwise no, either way i wouldnt suggest having them put it in unless its going to be super cheap.

A 570 will be plenty for that resolution, im running at 1920x1080 and my 4850 still does reasonably well.

I feel like the KillerNICs are a scam, the biggest determining factor in your latency is how long it takes for the signal to get to a fiber line, if its running into your cable line, then into the street, then up the street a bit to hit a fiber transmitter thats going to be the biggest factor in your latency, having your NIC take 4 ms off that isnt going to help a ton so i wouldnt pay for it.

The onboard audio on my ASUS board is just fine, i have a nice pair of speakers hooked up to it, and its actually better than the Audigy SE sound card i had in my old system, so unless you are getting an epic set of speakers and going to pay $100 for a great sound card its just wasting money.

 

[rolli59]

4 to 8Gb is plenty for gaming depending on 32 or 64bit OS.
Overclocking is on the hardware site (BIOS)
Depends can be both
To me a gimmick since few games support it.
Yes
To me No
Depends on the rest of the sound system no need for a dedicated card if the increase in quality disappears in cheap speakers, integrated HD is pretty good these days.

 

[Wetbyte]

Great stuff thanks guys! I've got a few more now:

When buying memory I see a choice of speeds. Is it worth buying the faster ones? How can I tell which ones will work with say an i7?

If I later on want to buy a second 570 card for sli does it have to be the same brand? Or will any 570 work?

Is there currently a 'best' motherboard for gaming?

 

[hunter315]

I wouldnt pay for any more than 1600MHz, above that wont provide any benefit outside of memory benchmarks and it gets quite a bit more expensive. Most memory kits these days will be 1.5 or 1.6V and will work just fine with i7s, everyone started making DDR3 with higher quality chips that didnt need 1.9V to hit 1600MHz once the i7s first came out so most kits these days will work just fine.

You can SLI it with another 570, brand is unimportant since the GPU on the card is the same regardless.

Not really, the motherboard only plays a small role in gaming performance.

 

[Wetbyte]

Best answer selected by Wetbyte.