Been many a year since I built a PC, advice on selection.

[Shaydow]

Title. Looking for advice on my current selection. Currently does not include a mouse / keyboard / monitor. I know I will need a new monitor, but my budget was $2,600 USD. Monitor will have to come later. Besides, while I know my current monitor won't be able to take advantage of the card, I kinda like it, so will be keeping it for a 2nd monitor no matter what.

 

Anyway, on to the parts. I'm mostly asking if anyone thinks I can do better for the price and made sure that everything is compatible, since in the 9 years since I have built a PC, some things have changed

 

CASE : IN WIN GR one Black SECC Full Tower Computer Case

 

Power Supply : Cooler Master V1200 - Fully Modular 1200W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU

 

Motherboard : ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME/U3.1 LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

 

Processor : Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.5GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W BX80648I75930K Desktop Processor

 

RAM : G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Desktop Memory

 

Video Card : MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC

 

SSD for OS : SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E250B/AM 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

CPU Cooling : DEEPCOOL Gamer Storm CAPTAIN 240 CPU Liquid Cooler AIO Water Cooling Ceramic Bearing Pump Visual Liquid Flow

 

 

Grand total before shipping / OS : $2,504.92 of $2,600

 

Not INCLUDED : Rosewill RTK-015 15 Piece Standard Computer Tool Kit includes Arctic Silver thermal paste and just a bunch of other stuff I want when I put this thing together.

 

Some things I am unsure of :

 

Is the SSD drive for my OS a good choice? I have never owned or even used a PC with a SSD before. I will be using my existing SATA drives for everything other then OS / OS related programs / web searching and viewing / etc.

 

Is that CPU cooler going to be acceptable? I got it because user reviews seemed positive, it fit in my budget, and is aesthetically pleasing to the build. No idea how it will work out since it's been over 13 years since I last messed with water cooling and that was a MASSIVE outside tower pump / rad. This thing seems tiny by comparison so I am worried.

 

For OS : Should I stick with windows 7 Home premium 64 bit? Or should go with Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro - 64-bit - OEM ?

I don't have any knowledge of Windows 8. When it was released I heard it was just terrible. Any pros / cons I should know about going into the build?

 

Thanks for taking the time to read and help me out with what you think.

 

[TacomancerX]

well there many problems with that build...

 

maybe after i get back form the post office ill explane more

 

1st SSD are great for OS due to no moving parts, makes your OS less imposing on over performance.

2nd, way to high of a power supple, only need 1200 if your 3-4 video cards.

3rd, liquid cooling is massively overate, thou really depends on where u are in the world. maybe if u live in the Amazon where its insanely hot.

4th, windows 8 is designed for mobile devises, while yes it works on desktop and some people to defend that its good, buts it a mobile thing. get windows 7 if your uses to it. and wait for 9

5th, i7 are also overrated unless your doing server like stuff. i5 are better for gaming, most games wont support qurdcore so your wasting power.

[Shaydow]

well there many problems with that build...

 

maybe after i get back form the post office ill explane more

 

1st SSD are great for OS due to no moving parts, makes your OS less imposing on over performance.

2nd, way to high of a power supple, only need 1200 if your 3-4 video cards.

3rd, liquid cooling is massively overate, thou really depends on where u are in the world. maybe if u live in the Amazon where its insanely hot.

4th, windows 8 is designed for mobile devises, while yes it works on desktop and some people to defend that its good, buts it a mobile thing. get windows 7 if your uses to it. and wait for 9

5th, i7 are also overrated unless your doing server like stuff. i5 are better for gaming, most games wont support qurdcore so your wasting power.

 

 

I got the power supply because I wanted to be ready for SLI if / when I can afford it / want to do it. I know atm it is overkill but I plan on putting more into this build as time goes on. This is the core build and so I wanted something that I know is future ( for a while anyway ) proof. Since I am also thinking of adding in 3D / 3D blueray down the road, I have no idea how this would effect power usage and so wanted to prepare. Was it to future proof?

 

Liquid cooling I went with because, to be honest, I'm sick of cleaning out my CPU fan blades. Getting the damn heatsink off, all cleaned out with a q-tip and vacuum, then remounted is, for me at least, just a HUGE pain in the ass. Having 13 years ago used liquid cooling and having the comparison, I decided I liked the ease of it more then anything else.

 

For OS, Ya I really don't know. The RAM has a bundle with windows 7 for 10 bucks off ( 99 usd ) and I already have windows 7 on this PC. However windows 8 was only like 40 bucks more so I don't know if it is worth it or not. 

 

You are saying the SSD IS a good choice for an OS drive? That was one of the things I have spent the most time on picking out. I have no idea really, but newegg seemed to like it.

[Nazgren]

980 isnt a great card and 4GB isnt futureproof, I would wait for the 980 TI 8GB whenever it decides to come out, especially if you intend to SLI. Some games are already pushing 4GB VRAM. This is why the Titan X's 12GB is by no means overkill, its Nvidia getting in some practice on high vram cards. When 4K becomes common place, as it it is soon to be, 4GB will be nothing.

 

Most definitely stick with Windows 7, it is and most likely will be for a long time the best operating system there is. Having suffered windows 8 on my mothers laptop you couldn't pay me to change to it, i have never met a more user-unfriendly OS in my life.

 

I wouldn't touch liquid cooling with a 10 foot barge pole. Sticking fluid inside my comp? No thanks. I use the Gigabyte windforce for my GPU as its cooling is obscene. 3 fans have never let it go above 65 celcius, regardless of how hard i push it. I'm using the AMD phenom II x4 3.41ghz which is more then capable of handling any modern game and its stock cooler is still keeping it cool, even with what i suspect is a bit too much thermal paste. If a stone age AMD cpu can handle even large 4x games such as Total War and SoaSE then dont you think a modern top of the line i7 is overkill?

 

I dunno how good MSI's GPUs are but i would recommend going with Gigabyte like me, they are well known for being great, sturdy and reliable cards and the windforce models have spectacular cooling, as I said.

 

If you wanna use SSD I would use it for your games, not your OS. As texture sizes increase we are reaching a point where disk drives cant stream all the data quickly enough. ~5 second faster PC boot is nice, but i would rather have that performance in game, instead of when I'm off making a drink. The EVO drive is fraught with problems. It suffers from performance deterioration down to that of a HDD. Samsung have released a "Duct tape over the problem and hope it holds" fix but it is by no means a permanent solution. Wait for a drive that isn't broken.

[nameless701]

For a SLI-Setup with 2 GTX980 you need not more than 850W.

 

My older Sandy-E @4,5GHz needs ~200W (prime), one GTX980 needs max. 225W (1x75W PCI-E Slot +2x75W 6-Pin)

[TacomancerX]

liquid cooling is only good over massive over clocking.

 

power supple, u need about 300 per a video card (1 = 400/500, 2 = 700/800, 3 = 1000/1100, 4 = 1300/1400).

3D would have little to no effect on power.

 

u can buy a thing called Air in a Can for your fan blades. cheap as chips 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3ZT1C59759&cm_re=dust_off-_-1DP-0005-00001-_-Product

 

teamed with like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835856004&cm_re=computer_dual_fan_heatsink-_-35-856-004-_-Product

simler to what iam packing. and i run about abotu 40c wit 10% over clock, on a i5 3.8

 

 

[Shaydow]

980 isnt a great card and 4GB isnt futureproof, I would wait for the 980 TI 8GB whenever it decides to come out, especially if you intend to SLI. Some games are already pushing 4GB VRAM. This is why the Titan X's 12GB is by no means overkill, its Nvidia getting in some practice on high vram cards. When 4K becomes common place, as it it is soon to be, 4GB will be nothing.

 

Most definitely stick with Windows 7, it is and most likely will be for a long time the best operating system there is. Having suffered windows 8 on my mothers laptop you couldn't pay me to change to it, i have never met a more user-unfriendly OS in my life.

 

I wouldn't touch liquid cooling with a 10 foot barge pole. Sticking fluid inside my comp? No thanks. I use the Gigabyte windforce for my GPU as its cooling is obscene. 3 fans have never let it go above 65 celcius, regardless of how hard i push it. I'm using the AMD phenom II x4 3.41ghz which is more then capable of handling any modern game and its stock cooler is still keeping it cool, even with what i suspect is a bit too much thermal paste. If a stone age AMD cpu can handle even large 4x games such as Total War and SoaSE then dont you think a modern top of the line i7 is overkill?

 

I dunno how good MSI's GPUs are but i would recommend going with Gigabyte like me, they are well known for being great, sturdy and reliable cards and the windforce models have spectacular cooling, as I said.

 

If you wanna use SSD I would use it for your games, not your OS. As texture sizes increase we are reaching a point where disk drives cant stream all the data quickly enough. ~5 second faster PC boot is nice, but i would rather have that performance in game, instead of when I'm off making a drink. The EVO drive is fraught with problems. It suffers from performance deterioration down to that of a HDD. Samsung have released a "Duct tape over the problem and hope it holds" fix but it is by no means a permanent solution. Wait for a drive that isn't broken.

 

The thing about the 980 is, well, I want this like, YESTERDAY. I got the money, my current PC is ANCIENT, and I simply don't want to wait for it. I've been waiting for this moment for years, if I leave this money sit to long, it will get spent on other things. Trust me, it happens a LOT. I won't let that happen this time.

 

THanks for the advice on staying with Win 7. After the previous comment I was already in the frame of mind and added it to my cart. Your comment only cemented it in my mind, as I've used every OS from win 3.1 to win 7, and I would have to say I love win7 as well. I'm sticking with it.

 

I understand how some people feel about liquid cooling. I said the same thing for a LONG time, but when I lived in North Carolina, during the summer, WITH the Air Conditioning ON, and temps in my trailer ( yes I lived in a mobile home at the time ) hit over 112F IN THE HOUSE, and I actually MELTED a cpu fan blade right to the CPU, I tried water cooling as a last resort and it turned out it worked really well. I just made sure to test the blocks for 48 hours OUTSIDE the case for leaks before I put it in. After that it was much better.

 

I've owned Gigabyte cards before. I got the MSI simply because it was something I thought fit, the color scheme works with everything, and the user reviews seem plenty solid. I've also owned a few MSI cards over the years and never had many problems. I think my daughter still has an old MSI AGP in her piece of shit ( that remember she gets a new computer when I build this. My wife gets mine, my 13 year old gets my wife's, my 7 year old gets the 13 year olds. Win / win ).

 

The problems with the drive you are talking about seem to be for the 840. Trust me I've spent about 12 hours now looking up stuff. The 850 reviews said that it DIDN'T suffer from that problem and so that is why I picked it. In regards to using it for games, I'm hoping I can convince my wife to let me give her 1 of my 1TB SATA's and a 640gig SATA I have and let me buy a 500gig SSD to put at least Steam games on. No matter what though I want one for my OS Drive.

 

For a SLI-Setup with 2 GTX980 you need not more than 850W.

 

My older Sandy-E @4,5GHz needs ~200W (prime), one GTX980 needs max. 225W (1x75W PCI-E Slot +2x75W 6-Pin)

 

Again, if this is still to much for a future 980 4x SLI, with water cooling etc, please let me know a better one. I am in no way trying to be sarcastic, I would very much like to know. It also needs to run 7 Drives ( 1 SSD and 6 SATA ). *edit* and also I hope someday another 16 gigs of RAM.

 

liquid cooling is only good over massive over clocking.

 

power supple, u need about 300 per a video card (1 = 400/500, 2 = 700/800, 3 = 1000/1100, 4 = 1300/1400).

3D would have little to no effect on power.

 

u can buy a thing called Air in a Can for your fan blades. cheap as chips 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3ZT1C59759&cm_re=dust_off-_-1DP-0005-00001-_-Product

 

teamed with like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835856004&cm_re=computer_dual_fan_heatsink-_-35-856-004-_-Product

simler to what iam packing. and i run about abotu 40c wit 10% over clock, on a i5 3.8

 

 

I know about caned air. Do you know about cats? Sorry, but it's true. I have a long hair cat, a wife with hair down PAST her ass, and two girls with hair to their mid backs. My fans get NASTY, and cleaning that CPU, is just the worst.

 

 

***RESPONSE TO ALL****

 

I also plan on overclocking. Little steps sure, but I mean, why wouldn't I? Right? Keep that and my other comments in mind when we talk about PSU. Is it still overkill?

[bjornk]

If this is going to be a gaming PC, then you can build a LGA 1150 system for much less. If you're not planning to do Twitch/Youtube streaming or general video encoding etc. that CPU is pretty unnecessary. Intel i7-4790K is cheaper, has a better single core performance and probably slightly better for gaming, has an integrated GPU as well, and also uses much less power. With the remaining money, you could buy another Samsung SSD and build a 500 GB RAID0 system which will give you good storage performance and minimal loading times in games.

[Shaydow]

If this is going to be a gaming PC, then you can build a LGA 1150 system for much less. If you're not planning to do Twitch/Youtube streaming or general video encoding etc. that CPU is pretty unnecessary. Intel i7-4790K is cheaper, has a better single core performance and probably slightly better for gaming, has an integrated GPU as well, and also uses much less power. With the remaining money, you could buy another Samsung SSD and build a 500 GB RAID0 system which will give you good storage performance and minimal loading times in games.

 

I do plan on doing twitch / youtube streaming ( I've gone as far as I can with this PC ), as well as some hefty video editing / recording.

[bjornk]

Then the only two things I'd change in your list would be the case and the CPU cooler. I'd probably go with Corsair for both of them.

[Shaydow]

Then the only two things I'd change in your list would be the case and the CPU cooler. I'd probably go with Corsair for both of them.

 

Can you give me some links? Any that are also aesthetically pleasing ( red / black ) would be great but are not entirely necessary. 

 

*edit* Also, what's wrong with the case?

[bjornk]

Can you give me some links? Any that are also aesthetically pleasing ( red / black ) would be great but are not entirely necessary.

 

 

Case: Corsair Graphite Series 760T Black or another from the Obsidian series.

Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H105 Extreme Performance 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler

 

Also, what's wrong with the case?

Corsair has a better design.

[Shaydow]

 

Can you give me some links? Any that are also aesthetically pleasing ( red / black ) would be great but are not entirely necessary.

 

 

Case: Corsair Graphite Series 760T Black or another from the Obsidian series.

Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H105 Extreme Performance 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler

 

Also, what's wrong with the case?

Corsair has a better design.

 

 

Both of these are excellent suggestions, and exactly why I started this thread. Thank you, I am keeping them both in mind for my final build. 

 

[KristyllLascivicious]

I'd recommend taking out the liquid cooling unless you've got a lot of experience with it or are totally set on a silent build or live in an area constantly near or over 90-100F.  A high-end CPU fan will perform similarly with fewer concerns at a similar or lower price.  Even then, I think your case choice plays a much bigger role in that respect.  A million-and-one fans in a large, echo-y case will counteract the noise reduction from watercooling. The motherboard seems overkill unless you're planning on putting more than two cards in SLI, meaning you could tone it down to a mid tower and use a Fractal Design case (again, if noise is a concern).

 

Get a case that performs well.  Really.  The super-cool-looking ones tend to offer sub-par build quality or have a massive mark-up value.  Buy some cheap LED's/LED-lit fans and outfit it as you need to.  Most PSU's/motherboards offer plenty of expand-ability.

 

I'd recommend using a 960/970 as a hold-over card for now as well; very few games will put these at peak, and the extra hardware from the 980 won't be noticeable as most instances of performance problems come from software optimization issues more than hardware.  This is especially apparent on console ports and older games.  The 980's won't mean anything for higher-resolution rendering (4k), and frankly are not worth shelling out the money for.  If you still plan on doing SLI, I'd recommend 970's versus 980's on the basis that the cost : performance ratio is just not worth it, as you'll be capping out most software now and probably up through until when 4k becomes mainstream.

 

EVGA GPU's.  I've personally built several PC's for friends with MSI/PNY cards (not my fault they didn't take my advice here), and they have substantially higher failure/defect rates and WAY worse customer support.

 

Honestly, I'd evaluate your budget and see how long you could go with waiting; this year is going to hold a lot in terms of new hardware (tock cycle CPU architecture (and subsequently all new motherboards), new RAM architectures, likely GPU vRam increases, etc.), mostly expected between Q2/Q3.  Spending almost $3k for a rig that may be potentially "out-dated" in a few weeks/months I imagine would be rather crappy.  Intel promised some future CPU upgrades for one of the current sockets with the move to Skylake, but I can't recall off the top of my head.  Again, if it can wait, I certainly would.  The worst case scenario is a cost reduction.

 

For the OS, again, it depends on how long you can wait; Windows 7 and 8 users get free updates to 10 when it releases, and from my experience and the experience of others, 10 is an amazing move in the right direction.  I recall windows 7 costing more than 8 in my most recent build, so consider that as a factor.

 

I'd heed most of the advice as mentioned above as well; i5's tend to game better because of a lack of multi-core support on most pieces of software, thus making clock speed more important for the most part.  The PSU doesn't have to be the most powerful on the market.  With how hardware is updating, you can't guarantee it will be able to make it to future case/motherboard designs or hold up to future power demands (although it's very likely when at such big wattage numbers and the envelope over the years has been pushing consumption downwards in terms of efficiency).

 

[bjornk]

Just a few random things I'd like to mention:

 

- MSI graphics cards comes with a free monitoring/overclocking software called Afterburner and it's one the best software for that purpose.

 

- IIRC, coil whine was a common issue with both MSI's and EVGA's GTX970 cards. I haven't heard too many complaints about Gigabyte's 970s though.

 

- Fractal Design's Define series are also pretty good cases. I'd personally buy one of those for my own use.

 

- Asus motherboards have a few unresolved driver issues. You may find a few threads about those on the ROG forums. For my next build, I'll probably go with Gigabyte.

[Nazgren]

I understand how it feels to want the computer NOW. I built my current one just over a year ago to be able to run skyrim with Skyrim Mod Combiner maxed out in exactly the same state of mind. I forked out a considerable sum of money to build my current rig and when I got it I found it still wasn't powerful enough. Sure it could run anything else I threw at it to but not the one thing I wanted, granted maybe only the titan could have run it, it's probably still the case now, but my point is that VRAM is moving very, very quickly, far faster than clock speeds are increasing. You are no doubt aware of people encountering the 3.5gb vram 970 problem. The 970 is the poor mans 980, it's not intended for high graphical use and most don't use it for such, just higher fps, yet everyone is hitting the 3.5 limit, because even at 1080 resolution games are hitting that sort of vram. The unity 5 kite video cannot currently be run natively by anything other that the Titan X and even that's stuck at 30 FPS, the engine is going to go far further then anything the 980 can handle. 4gb cards are 3 years old and in the technological singularity 3 years is a very long time. Even with 4x SLI the 980 will never have anything more than 4gb vram, for HD gaming it's just not going to cut it. I cannot stress enough that the 980's days were numbered before it even came out, but if you really want the computer now then that's your prerogative. As I said, I made the same, expensive mistake and I have regretted it immensely. I should have waited for the 8GB cards but instead I wasted about £550.

[Shaydow]

Well nothing I get will be a waste. I want to point out, again, that there are 3 other people in my house with computers ( 2, but once this is built, 3 ). So regardless, in another year or so, if new cards come out and I can afford them, then I can just pass off the current hardware to say my wife, who passes hers to our daughter, etc.

 

I dropped the single 980 and went with 2 970's in SLI. I know I know, but everything I read said that for the minimal price increase ( about 100 bucks and change ) for the 2 vs the one, I would actually get better performance. I thought about triple SLI, but I just don't feel it is worth it.

 

I dropped the IN WIN case and went with the Corsair Graphite Series 760T Black Full Tower Windowed Case

 

I went to drop the Deepcool 240 and pick up the Corsair H110 for the 280 rad, only to find that Deepcool has a 360 RAD that will fit PERFECTLY into the top of the new case choice. COmbine that with NewEgg user reviews and YouTube reviews being positive, and I went with it instead : DEEPCOOL Gamer Storm CAPTAIN 360 CPU Liquid Cooler 

 

I dropped the Samsung SSD, and after talking it over with my wife, I was allowed more of a budget. So I got a Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP240G4R5 2.5" 240GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for my OS drive and a Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for my main gaming drive. 

 

After all this my wife agreed it would be a little silly to get all this and not have a good monitor to go with the setup. Im looking at the 

 

ASUS PB287Q Black 28" 4K UHD 1ms 10-bit HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor

 

But I am unsure yet. Today is the last day before I order.

 

I also threw in a new gaming mouse. Went with the Mad Catz R.A.T.5 Gaming Mouse. It looked nice, has good reviews, and I've used self weighted mice before and I like the personal adjust ability of them. 

 

With 3 day shipping, tax etc, the grand total comes to $3,892.21

 

OUCH.

[Shaydow]

Final build notes : I swapped out the 240gig intel SATA as my OS drive and replaced it with the SAMSUNG XP941 MZHPU256HCGL-00000 M.2 256GB PCI Express.

 

I figured I might as well and those read / writes . . . . 

 

Wish me luck when I put this beast together!

[Shaydow]

I wanted to update this thread. After a HELL of a time with my bank ( they hate it when you spend a lot of money ), I finally got EVERYTHING ordered. It will arrive sometime next week ( I knew ordering it a Friday afternoon will suck, but oh well, better now for packaging to start then Monday ). In the end I was allowed to go WAY over budget lol, but it wasn't over budget once we WENT over the budget, so it all worked out really well. I will say this, this is the most expensive thing I think I have ever bought. I'm about to hit 36, I think I deserve my Mustang, however I can get it Anyway for those of you interested here was my FINAL BUILD and total price tag :

 

I call it "Whoopee!" :

Case : Corsair Graphite Series 760T
Mother Board : ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME
Processor : Intel Core i7-5930K
RAM : G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 3000
Power Supply : Cooler Master V1200 - Fully Modular
Video Cards : MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G in 2x SLI
CPU Cooling : DEEPCOOL Gamer Storm CAPTAIN 360
Boot / OS Drive : SAMSUNG XP941M.2 256GB PCIE
OS : Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit ( I know 8 might be better. I like 7 and will upgrade to 10 )
Game Drive : Intel 730 Series 480GB SATA 6Gb/s
Monitor : ASUS PB287Q Black 28" 4K UHD

PERIPHERAL : 
Mad Catz R.A.T.5 Gaming Mouse
SteelSeries Merc Stealth ( Already owned and not purchased in this build )

OTHER ( package deal ) :

Rosewill RTK-015 15 Piece Standard Computer Tool Kit
Rosewill RTK-002 Anti-Static Wrist Strap
Arctic Silver Arcticlean Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET)
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound 
NVIDIA Witcher 3: Wild Hunt GTX Game Bundle X2 ( one for me and one for my wife. Hey it was 2 bucks ).

Free / Inluded :
Razer - RZ04-00870700-R3M1 - World of Tanks Kraken Pro - Wired Stereo Headset

NewEgg rush processing, 3 day Delivery Shipping selected on all components. Grand total : $3977.89 USD

 

Sorry about the horrible black outline, I copy / pasted this from ROG forum.

 

I'm so excited!

 

[bjornk]

If you're going to spend this much then make the RAM 32 GB. It may come in handy while doing live streaming.

[Shaydow]

If you're going to spend this much then make the RAM 32 GB. It may come in handy while doing live streaming.

 

Next year, or at least 6 months from now. I know, I even went over it with my wife, but in the end I just CAN'T break that 4k USD limit, and the RAM would put me over that. 16 GIGS is 8 gigs ( not counting timing / clocks speeds OMG ) more then I have atm. I'm sure it will be fine in this rig for the time being But I hear ya.