Witch ram to get

[PVT-Oliver[75thR]]

I am building a new gaming computer im going with p4 3.0 prescott and asus p4-800Edelux* mobo, i aslo plan on oc'ing it to around 3.3 or 3.4 but i not sure witch ram to get i plan getting on 2-512mb sticks in ddr.here are the options witch one would do better for the oc i am strickly iterested in game performance
I want to run 100+ fps in Americas Army i also have a 9800 126mb pro from sapphire
choice 1-http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...145-420&depa=0


choice 2-http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...156-010&depa=0

witch one would do better in my situation?

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Witch ram to get

I'd suggest you change the processor choice if you haven't bought it. A 3.0 is a terrible gaming CPU for it's price (most Intel processors are, in fact) to someone who can buy hardware from the U.S. (assmuming you are even stationed elsewhere, anyway). Even with some pretty extreme overclocking, there are much better choices available from AMD (and even Intel itself) at this price range. But if you already own it, oh well...

The other thing is FPS. There's little point in going over 72 FPS as you probably can't tell the difference, and there's absolutely no point if your monitor doesn't support a refresh rate of over 100MHz. Plus, that depends on what resolution and setting you run it at. I can pull way more than 100FPS on my P4 2GHz with a Radeon 9800 Pro if I run it at, say, 640x480. At the same, it would likely be unplayably slow at 1600x1200.

To answer the question, PC3700 is the absolute minimum for someone who wants meaningfull overclocking on an 800MHz FSB Pentium 4. Even quality PC3200 won't overclock enough (although there is one type from OCz that overclocks amazingly well; look for "enhanced bandwidth" RAM). If you already own the board and CPU, get some good PC3700 or PC4000 and a good cooling system. Manually overclock and run the CPU and RAM at the same FSB.

BTW, unless you have overclocked the video card well beyond XT speeds, this won't mean a damn, anyway. Sure, a 3.0E (or an Athlon 64 or 3.0C, for that matter) will mean a lot more performance than what you have now, but you'll need a new video card to get the kind of speed you seem to want. A 9800 Pro will hold that processor or a price equivelent back, a lot.

[PVT-Oliver[75thR]]

Re: Witch ram to get

I dont know to much about amd what would you recomend me getting in that same price range,I have not bought Any parts yet

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Witch ram to get

An OEM Athlon 64 3000 and aChaintech VNF3-250 would be in that price range and are much better for gaming. You'll want a heat sink/fan unit to go with that CPU and some thermal compound. For this, I'd recommend a Thermaltake Venus 12 and Arctic Silver 5. The Corsair you picked out would actually be perfect for this. You should be able to overclock it pretty far; at least enough to get the kind of performance you're going for. You can expect to run this between 220 and 230MHz (440-470DDR), which will allow a very good overclock for your processor without getting really expensive RAM.

After that, you would have to replace the video card to get incredibly good performance in America's Army at high quality settings. You can sell that 9800 Pro for somewhere around $150, I'm guessing (it retails for $200). I'd suggest getting at least a GeForce 6800 (retails about $280), but an X800 Pro or GeForce 6800 GT (both around $400) would be even better, if you can afford it. With one of those three and this system, you could run AA at 1600x1200 with high settings and get great framerates.

BTW, this little picture will give you an idea of how that would perform with the 9800 Pro:

America's Army is based on the same engine, so you should see fairly similar numbers. With a new video card, expect that at 1600x1200 with high settings. That's not even taking overclocking into consideration...