First solo pc build

[1Smeghead]

COOLER MASTER Storm Scout Case
ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 Motherboard
Intel Core i5-2500K OC @ 4.8Ghz
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB @1866
Antec High Current Gamer Seriesb 750W Power Supply
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 OC to a 6970
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Cpu Cooler
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III Solid State Drive

It runs great but I have a couple of questions. My version of windows supports 16g ram which I have but my video card has 2g on it, so is that wasted ram? And this question should probably go in another forum but I haven't been able to overclock my ram at all without it crashing, would anyone know some safe settings for the ram and mb I have? Thank you for your time

 

[1Smeghead]

Sorry here's the link to my ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231456

 

[WR2]

Hello 1Smeghead;

System RAM vs Video RAM (VRAM): Think of your video card as a completely separate system. It has it's own version of a CPU and RAM. VRAM is used a 'frame buffer' where screen data are stored before they are sent off to the screen.
VRAM does not affect your main system RAM totals in any way and isn't useable/accessible by your system's real CPU/RAM.

 

[WR2]

You might stop by the Overclocking or RAM sections of the forum and ask about RAM tuning.

 

[1Smeghead]

Thanks for your quick reply, some guy was trying to tell one of my friends this"Just as an FYI to everyone, 32-bit Windows will only address 4GB of RAM total so that is the limitation. This includes the memory on the video card also, so if you have a discrete card with a decent amount of memory on it, there really isn't a need to install 4GB of ram." I thought that he was wrong and wanted to get some clarification. I figured that video card ram and the ram installed on the pc had nothing to do with each other.
And I'll post a new thread asking about ac my ram in another thread, thank you again.

 

[WR2]

I figured that video card ram and the ram installed on the pc had nothing to do with each other.

This is true.
But there is a relationship between the graphics card and 32bit Windows 4GB RAM.
It's memory address space limitation of 32bit OS that means some address space must be reserved for hardware. And of course, not an issue in 64bit OS.

 

[geofelt]

The current Intel nehalem and sandy bridge cpu's have an excellent integrated ram controller. It is able to keep the cpu fed with data from any speed ram.
The difference in real application performance or FPS between the fastest and slowest ram is on the order of 1-3%.

Synthetic benchmark differences will be impressive, but are largely irrelevant in the real world.

Fancy heat spreaders are mostly marketing too.

Only if you are seeking record level overclocks should you consider faster ram or better latencies.
Read this Anandtech article on memory scaling:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3/1
---------------bottom line------------
Don't anguish over overclocking the ram.