# How much does the Motherboard Matter, Also how much Ram is overkill?



## sealey booth (Dec 20, 2009)

I am going to upgrade my CPU, Motherboard, and RAM.

I wanted to get an AMD CPU , because i don't have the money for a Intel CPU, and the way i see it all around is AMD is better bang for the buck. I Have pretty much desided on either the 

AMD Phenom II X4 965
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

Or

AMD Phenom II X4 955
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX
( This one is 20$ Cheaper and is only .2 Ghz slower. So i think i am going to buy it as this is a budget upgrade.)


I was Pretty sure i was going to buy this RAM But the RAM in the sudjested builds in your Sticky made me ask myself if i really need 8Gb, but the price is very good. Especialy with this sale where i can get it for 75$

CORSAIR XMS 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1600C9

The Questions i had on this was...
1) Is it worth it to buy the extra 4Gb of RAM? I will be using this RIG for gaming, as high end as i can get, but i need to play on ULTRA settings Vs. HIGH settings. I mostly care about Frame Rate.

2)Its Speed says DDR3 1600 How much of a difference is 1600 vs 1333?

The Motherboard... Ok i don't know a lot about motherboards. I was looking at this one. As i found it somewhere else for 60$ which is a good price. Also it has USB 3.0 and supports the processor i want. 

MSI 870A-G54 AM3
Newegg.com - MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard


Just overall Also i was hoping someone could look at these, give it a second pair of eyes, make sure everything is compatable, or im not making any huge mistakes. 

Thanks in Advance.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Asus & Gigabyte are the better choices for a Mobo.
4GB of RAM (2X2GB matched pair) is more than enough, no games and few apps can utilize over 3GB, unless you are doing intensive graphics/data work.
For that MSI Mobo, OC'ing the RAM would be required to attain the 1600MHz speed so I would use 1333MHz RAM.
Memory Standard DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600 (OC)/1800 (OC)/2000 (OC)


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## KD5EEJ350 (Apr 19, 2011)

The way computers are today, you would not be able to tell the difference between XYZ cpu and ZYX cpu that is 200mhz faster without the use of benchmarking utils.


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## sealey booth (Dec 20, 2009)

So based on what you guys said and some other research i desided to go with 4gb of RAM. 1 Last question

What is the difference between 

7-9-7-24 timing

and 

9-9-9-24-2n Timing?

what is timing in general?


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Memory Timings: Memory timings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In general, the lower the latencies the better. With the speed of modern CPU's and RAM you won't "see" a lot difference.


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## sealey booth (Dec 20, 2009)

Thanks for all the help, now that i am saving 30 dollars more, i would like to know weather it would be better to upgrade to the second CPU i posted above, or a similar CPU by AMD Below.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT55TFBGRBOX


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## Markgg88 (Jan 7, 2011)

There are no games that take advantage of 6 core CPU's, I'd stick with a Quad Core.


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## Amd_Man (Jan 27, 2009)

^
Ditto! I have the x4 955 and it flies and has handled everything I've thrown at it with ease. Put the savings into a quality power supply.


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