New Mobo and Ram - 32GB

[slyfox2151]

Hello...



so im looking at buying the ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=970 extreme3 to replace my currectly dead gigabyte board.
EDIT: cheapest motherboard i could find with some form of VRM cooling, i plan to overclock to 3.7-3.9

as you can see i currently have 4gb of ram, however im thinking of selling those sticks for $50 and buying 4x 8GB of Ram. you may be wondering how im going to use that much ram? well i want to create a massive ram drive .

now i hate waiting for things to load and in MMOs, there is a lot of items maps and textures to load all the time. currently WoW is my mmo of of choice, its install size is 22-24GB atm and thus would easily fit into Ram and leave about 8gb spare.

the price for 32gb of ram seems to be around $200-$250.




Now the other option is to buy 16GB (10GB for cache) of ram for $75 and another Vertex 3 SSD ( $100 ) for raid0. total price $175.



EDIT:
this is the software ill be using to cache wow with 16GB of ram.
http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/

i have not decided what im going to use for 32GB...
maybe something like Dataram Ramdisk.


EDIT 2:

this is also a bit of an experiment i have wanted to do for a long while. (run wow from a proper ram disk)

 

[kajson]

I suppose you've read the review on

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/romex-fancycache-review-ssd-performance-at-13gbs-and-765000-iops-in-60-seconds-flat/


I've been fiddling with the same idea, except for me the choice is between the m3 pro 128GB SSD, the crucial M4 50 GB caching drive or going for 16gigs instead of 8 gigs ram and making such a ramdrive.

The negatives though of loosing everything that is at that time cached on the ramdrive when a BSOD or powerfailure occurs, scare me a little bit. Though i would think it doesnt matter much in the case of WoW.


Anyhoe I'll be following your results closely, especially the performance gains in wow.

GL!

 

[Disparia]

I think the 4GB is holding you back, not giving Windows enough room to cache. Which of course, can benefit all apps. Not just those installed on the RAMdrive.

Before my upgrade (system in specs), I had 8GB and LOTRO loading times were decent. At one point I needed to RMA two sticks, leaving me with 4GB. That week I spent waiting for the new sticks was hell! A noticeable decrease in performance from all apps.

Now I have 16GB and an SSD with load times in the 1-2s range. Probably could get it sub-second if I had a RAMdrive! On the other hand, I don't have to wait for a RAMdrive to load/save during system reboots.

 

[caleb]

You do remember that you need to load it every time you boot up...

 

[slyfox2151]

You do remember that you need to load it every time you boot up...

yes this is fine i know how it works.

if i use'd fancy cache i would not need to wait, it would load data as i played.


with something like a proper ramdisk, then yes you do have to wait for the image to load once per disk mount.

grid based power failures could be avoided with a UPS, but im not worried about the data integrity of the ram drive as i will have a backup on my SSD.... worse case, Copy wow / re-install windows.

 

[LifeOnMars]

Hello...



so im looking at buying the ASRock 970 Extreme3 Motherboard http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=970 extreme3 to replace my currectly dead gigabyte board.

as you can see i currently have 4gb of ram, however im thinking of selling those sticks for $50 and buying 4x 8GB of Ram. you may be wondering how im going to use that much ram? well i want to create a massive ram drive .

now i hate waiting for things to load and in MMOs, there is a lot of items maps and textures to load all the time. currently WoW is my mmo of of choice, its install size is 22-24GB atm and thus would easily fit into Ram and leave about 8gb spare.

the price for 32gb of ram seems to be around $200-$250.




Now the other option is to buy 16GB (10GB for cache) of ram for $75 and another Vertex 3 SSD ( $100 ) for raid0. total price $175.



EDIT:
this is the software ill be using to cache wow with 16GB of ram.
http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/

i have not decided what im going to use for 32GB...
maybe something like Dataram Ramdisk.

Huh? I play alot of Wow on my rig with mechanical HDDs and max details(even added Ambient Occlusion), loading times are insanely fast and no stutter in game. An Intel CPU would give youmore performance in WOW, for some reason it doesn't like AMD Cpus.

 

[slyfox2151]

Huh? I play alot of Wow on my rig with mechanical HDDs and max details(even added Ambient Occlusion), loading times are insanely fast and no stutter in game. An Intel CPU would give youmore performance in WOW, for some reason it doesn't like AMD Cpus.

this is very true, but i dont want to upgrade my platform just yet, i do plan on getting a second hand 2500k at some point, when the price is right.

unless you can find me a CPU/Mobo for $250 that will clock to 4.5-4.8ghz. cheapest i have found so far is $170 for the CPU.

i have edited my first post again to say this is more for experimentation rather then performance gains.
in the end i lose nothing as i can keep the ram or SSDs when i upgrade or sell them.

 

[Athlon2K15]

+1 who uses AMD anymore?

 

[LifeOnMars]

this is very true, but i dont want to upgrade my platform just yet, i do plan on getting a second hand 2500k at some point, when the price is right.

unless you can find me a CPU/Mobo for $250 that will clock to 4.5-4.8ghz. cheapest i have found so far is $170 for the CPU.

i have edited my first post again to say this is more for experimentation rather then performance gains.
in the end i lose nothing as i can keep the ram or SSDs when i upgrade or sell them.

Oh for sure I think more ram and SSDs are a sound investment regardless. I hope it goes well for you bud and that you see an improvement.


@AthlonX2 - Naughty D

 

[slyfox2151]

+1 who uses AMD anymore?

i fully agree haha...


its looking like either Thursday or next Thursday to buy. will keep this updated.




one question i do have, does ram speed really have any moderate to significant effect? all my research says no and i should just stick with slower cheaper ram.

 

[Cotton_Cup]

well for now I'm looking forward to how will your 4x8gb ram's will work, in a few days my ram would arrive a 8x4gb on my system and well all i need is 26gb but well I don't think i can mix and match with it and not have any problems and soon I'll be able to get my hands on a 8x8gb ram and wanted to see how your 8gb sticks will perform, well i know 64gb and i wont even use anything pass 32gb but well I'm getting it for free so it's might as well use it. but wanted to know if your 8gb rams are stable.

 

[slyfox2151]

BUMP BUMP BUMP



so i decided to stick with AMD for the time being. buying this mobo: Asus M5A99X-EVO $125
http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=182&bid=2&sid=78946

this Ram buying 2 sets of Geil 1600mhz 9-9-9-24 4x8GB @ $260
http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=153&bid=2&sid=88472



Ram is currently out of stock and money has not reached my account yet.. so build will either be later today or tomorrow by the looks of it.

 

[slyfox2151]

update

new hardware should arrive in 6 hours.