Upgrade question

[Airmage]

Hello, i have small budget available and i was wondering wich of the next two should i choose for an upgrade: 12 gb RAM or SSD.

 

The major problem is that in multiplayer the game freezes alot, and above 30 players on a server it becomes impossible for me to play. HDD also sounds like crazy.

 

I thought either more memory, or a faster hard drive would solve this problem.

 

Actual specs:

 

Intel core i7 920 @2.7GHz -2010 model

6GB DDR3

ATI R9-270X 2GB

WD 320GB HDD.

[BIGNEWY]

Upgrade RAM first, your Current RAM is below minimum

[Airmage]

Thanks.

[Konovalov]

G'day Airmage,

 

I have a similar X58 board based system per my sig. I did see some gains moving from 6GB tri-channel RAM to 12GB tri-channel. However I would definitely save some cash to put towards the cheapest SSD that you can get. Even if it is a smaller capacity one to put your operating system on and key applications/games.

 

One final thing I would try overclocking your I7 920. You should be able to attain overclock easily to 3.5 Ghz. I have overclocked my I7-950 to easily up to 4.2 Ghz and have even pushed it as high as 4.3 and a bit. Given you are on a budget overclocking is free assuming you have decent cooling.

 

DCS loves good clock speed so if you can push you 920 up by another 800mhz to 1ghz happy days.

[Jumbik]

The hardrive sounds crazy because it's swapping all the time due to not enough memory.

 

Upgrade RAM first. SSD will only make loading times faster and remove possible stutters but will not help with freezing.

 

Although SSD will make your overall "windows" experience a lot better, RAM will help you with DCS more.

[BitMaster]

G'day Airmage,

 

I have a similar X58 board based system per my sig. I did see some gains moving from 6GB tri-channel RAM to 12GB tri-channel. However I would definitely save some cash to put towards the cheapest SSD that you can get. Even if it is a smaller capacity one to put your operating system on and key applications/games.

 

One final thing I would try overclocking your I7 920. You should be able to attain overclock easily to 3.5 Ghz. I have overclocked my I7-950 to easily up to 4.2 Ghz and have even pushed it as high as 4.3 and a bit. Given you are on a budget overclocking is free assuming you have decent cooling.

 

DCS loves good clock speed so if you can push you 920 up by another 800mhz to 1ghz happy days.

 

That i7 series does only overclock by raising FSB. If you buy new RAM, you should consider, if you can afford, to buy the fastes 12GB of DDR3 you can afford, like 2144 , 2400 or even higher,

as that will most likely allow better overclocking.

 

You should NOT mix RAM with different speed if you intend to overclock, the slowest ones will be the weakest link in chain and spoil it.

[agentdarnell]

I am also running an older x58 chipset. The ram upgrade and overclocking the CPU would be the best upgrade.

[Airmage]

i7 920 only uses the memory at 1066. It won't matter how fast the new memory will be.

[BitMaster]

I run a X58 in my sons rig , Asus P6T6 WS Revolution that allows RAM up to 2000MHz,and despite I havent worked on that machine for some while I have put it together and remember that with my 2400 RAM the CPU went directly towards 4.2 GHz with FSB/RAM overclocking. With the 1600 DDR3 that is in there right now oc does not work that well. As I said I havent worked on it for months but do remember that your limits in oc is coupled with RAM speed on that mobo and cpu.

I am not sure what the RAM speed was when I had it beyond 4GHz ( watercooled ) tbh, but it dod not work on standard 1600.