Memory Upgrade - GPU or System

#1

Hey! :slight_smile:

See attached for reference - system specs below.
2 questions about this.

1 - I noticed that as I increased polys in the scene my system and GPU ram increased but the system ram increased at a greater rate. It wasn’t until I found a utility to show GPU memory use that I realized that the viewport/system sluggishness was system based - I obviously have plenty of GPU ram left. What’s going on here?

2 - Until above observation I was thinking of upgrading my video card but now I’m thinking I need to increase system memory - probably doubling it to 16GB. Agreed? The video card would have been cheaper! To upgrade the memory means new Processor, MB and ram. Oh well! LOL

System:
Intel Quad Core 2 Q6600 2.4Ghz
Abit P35 Pro - 8GB Ram (maxed out for that MB)
Evga GTX 660 3GB Ram
Windows 7 Pro SP1
3D Max 2015

#2

It may not seem like it but that processor is seven years old. The graphics card is only two years old. I’d say it’s time for an upgrade of the processor, motherboard, and memory. Modern motherboards and processors support much more memory.

#3

yes- I agree. I’ll be ordering the new bits later today. This is what I’m looking at - sound like a good upgrade?

Intel i7-4790
Asus Z97 Pro
16GB DDR 3

#4

Sounds good, make sure to get 2x8GB not 4x4GB so you can upgrade easily to 32GB later

#5

Yes - good point! Thank you!

#6

That’s an expensive motherboard. You could get a cheaper motherboard and bump the memory up to 32GB and still come out at the same cost. Unless there’s a reason for the super expensive motherboard that I’m missing?

#7

Yeah - I would rather do that actually. I’m kind of getting caught up in reading reviews and ratings and losing some perspective. Any suggestions for a good 1150 mb? I’m noticing that most have video built in now. That’s completely unnecessary for me - hard to find one without tho.

Thanks!

#8

I’d go with something like this motherboard. It has the same Intel Z97 chipset but without all the stupid crap to drive up the price like a packet shaping network adapter to reduce lag in games. It’s marketing nonsense that gets people to pay twice as much for the same thing.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130779

#9

Excellent! Thank you! Saved the better part of $100 right there. :slight_smile:

Daf