Building Your Own Computer – Memory And GPU
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Building your own configuration can be sometimes very hard and in this article I will try to continue the list of what I think is a budget top performance configuration fit for the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. In terms of a graphics card that could be used I think the AMD video cards dominate this segment as nVidia has somewhat prohibitive prices for the top segment. In the top segment of video cards, AMD brings products with good performance. This is reflected in the lower prices requested by AMD compared to nVidia because they try to keep competition under control.
kingston is one of the leading ram manufacturers (Source: jkcomputersystems.com)
This is the best moment to take advantage of this Nvidia competition by buying an AMD. The Radeon 69xx range provides the best models in terms of performance and the solution I recommend for a top computer that does not destroy your budget is the AMD Radeon HD 6950 ( about $ 330). In terms of RAM, theoretically, a 4GB of RAM should be enough for a top range computer but 8 GB RAM would provide the necessary memory for photo editing applications and professional video editing as well as for games. Therefore, we recommend you purchase a dual channel kit consisting of two modules of 4 GB of RAM, and among my proposals are the Corsair 8 GB ( 2 x 4 GB ) with external radiator ( less than $ 100 ), Kingston 8 GB ( $ 80 ) and cheaper DDR 3 Kingston Value RAM 8 GB ( $ 78 ). In terms of hard drives that I recommend for your top budget computer, SSD solutions are much faster than conventional hard drives, but they still have prohibitive prices that can make the regular user opt for the old usual hard drive.
ssd are faster (Source: dvhardware.net)
Things get interesting when we get to the category of storage units that could be used. First, we need a HDD with a capacity as large as possible or rather two HDD units and secondly we need the best possible transfer speed in order to do everything as fast as possible. The ideal solution would be a Solid State Drive, as I stated before, but they have reduced capacity due to the level of current technology. Should we go for a compromise? Opt for one or two traditional HDD units for storing data and a high capacity SSD for the operating system. The SSD would insure a fast startup and quicker application management but the entire configuration would cost more.
