Combo Gaming Deal... to good to pass up

LOL... will do!

Well... Thanks for the second opinion, it helps.

OK, one last dumb question folks... with the Mobo + Cpu + Ram coming and fine, you guys cornered me into keeping it , looking at the system specs of my home PC... would I be doing me a huge disservice if I were to just swap the new combo hardware and still try to use the same OS instead of having to install a new one.

Of course, I would uninstall all of the drivers first, shut down my pc, swap components, connect everything and start the OS... hoping it will let me get to the desktop where I will install all newer drivers again.

I don't usually do this, I am usually the opposite but, this time around I don't feel like doing so because I just went through a new install a few weeks back when my old drive took a dump and I had to do a fresh install.

The specs were Intel i5-4670K + ASRock Z87 Extreme 6, the I purchased the ram because I was bullied into it by some people here...

Hmmm, yeah I had forgotten about the part that changing a Mobo + CPU would trigger an activation because I thought since I would use the same OS drive, it wouldn't. Besides, an activation is not really my issue, even though, this would be the 3rd time I do it so I know for a fact that it will want me to call and that is a pain in the ass.

I'm expecting the RAM to hit my doors today or tomorrow and there is not more Football (soccer) or Basketball to watch so I may do the swap by the weekend... I will call it my Birthday Present even though my B-D is not close yet!

smarteyeball said:

What RAM did you opt for? The G.Skill Ripjaws?

Looks like a great combo you've got and will be a hell of a noticeable improvement :)


As I said, despite being a PITA - do fresh install mate. Really. It's essentially a brand new system and you'd be glad you did.

Typically I back up my steam games, copy my entire C:\Users directory and make sre I have all chipset, video, sound etc drivers ready to go.

linnemeyerhere said:

As suggested above I too think the smartest course is to clean install as well. Just revel in the newness of all the components the new rig will be vastly quicker and a pleasure to use and work with.

Yes, Ripjaws and I am a little taken aback by what I saw in the manual though... I was under the impression that I needed to use A1 + B1 (1st and 3rd rail) for dual channeling but the manual said to use A2 + B2 so that's what I did.

Went ahead and I even purchased an SSD, since I was forced by you guys to do a clean instal :) ... I gotta say, I am not overly impress by it, startup time seem fast (but my old build was fast at the beginning as well). I have not done any major gaming over the weekend but the mundane stuff I did seemed no faster than with my old rig. I am hoping that I am wrong and once I start playing I will notice the difference, otherwise, I will be one upset individual! :)

You can put it wherever you want. If there is a video card, cooling, or something else in the way A1 and B1 are fine.

It's not Dual Channel, but Dual Channel is a negligible difference. You won't actually notice a performance difference between the two.

I have my Ram in A2 + B2 and a friend has his in A1 + A2 because of space constraints. [Our identical cooling covers part of the Ram slots.] We have nearly identical computers. Well, mine is multi GPU and his is single. [I actually built his. My Ram fits under my cooling and his does not.] There is no noticeable difference in performance between the two PCs when running on a single GPU.

There is literally almost no difference in performance between dual and single channel Ram configurations. It's not worth worrying about. The only real difference between dual, tri, and quad channel Ram is how many cards are sold in a pack.

It's literally not worth worrying about one way or the other. Whatever the most convenient setup you want to use is fine.

There is an extremely slight difference between the two and Dual comes out barely better on some of the benchmarks, and performance is completely identical on others. So I'd suggest setting it up in dual channel barring something being in the way if you're currently building or inside the case for another reason. However, if you didn't already it's not worth opening the case and switching them out over. You won't see any difference.

Check this out to see what I mean. Test Results: Single Vs. Dual Channel RAM - Parallel Processing, Part 2: RAM and HDD