It's going to give the same performance if you have two or four RAM blocks. But everything over 4GB is overkill unless you do some hardcore editing. - Stick with 4GB
I don't know why they made it in the chip. Thats also why I don't understand how people can say the graphics aren't good on that MOBO?
At this point the i5 2500 Sandy Bridge processor kicks ass at stock clock, there will be a looong time till it can't keep up. If you aren't going to buy a good GFX you will never need anything better than the stock clock. Then the GFX is just going to hold you back.
You can enable the "turbo mode" and then the chip will be running at 3.7GHz. But as far as I know you don't need a "K" processor for that
So if I'm right you can with a i5 2500 and a H67 motherboard enable the "Turbo Mode" and have a i5 2500 running at 3.7GHz
Every computer I have bought until today has had the same "problems". I should add that I am currently running the following:
Windows XP SP3 on an HP Pavilion with Intel Pentium M Centrino processor, 1.6GHz, ATI Radeon Mobility 9200, 160GB Samsung HM160HC (Fastest IDE hard drive for a laptop), 1.25GHz of RAM running at I think 400MHz.
I'd call the performance on this computer quite "fair". Windows takes some time to boot up, but surfing on Mozilla is good (easily 8-10 browser tabs open simultaneously and other programs, no prob).
I'd say my biggest problems are: Cannot play 1080p HD at ALL. It's a slideshow. 720 is not bad but not smooth entirely. Photoshop takes a while to start up, and takes ages processing my Canon DSLR's RAW files. I can take a few hours processing a hundred or so photos, because I have to wait for each photo to load etc. And of course I have to finetune the settings. Video conversion (I don't do it THAT much) is awfully slow. Not even worth trying. A 700MB film can take hours to decode to a different format or resolution etc. Audio editing is pretty ok. Video editing is pretty much impossible if the files are big.
Gaming: I ran MS FS2004 on pretty high settings, with tons of add ons (like 5GB) with almost no probs. PMDG's planes were a nightmare though and I really had to dial down my settings. Was virtually unplayable, especially if I wanted to do FSPassengers, and that virtual weather program, and PMDG plane, and VATSIM all at once!! I never tried playing any newer games because I realized that it was impossible. Currently I'm very interested in playing Arma2, and maybe the DCS (Lock-on series) planes (The new Warthog looks great!).
I want my computer to last as long as possible before having to upgrade again, especially as I'm splashing so much money in it. As it stands, the difference in price between if I get the P version (OC'able) or the H version (integrated graphics) works out to be about $50. The big catch is that then I am also forced to buy a graphics card at the same time. Dilemma is: Cheap card for now (but have to basically throw it later) or get a good card now and then be REALLY broke!
Re 2X4GB or 4X2GB, I don't see myself needing more than 8GB. Lower power consumption is good though...any idea how much? If I'm going for only two sticks of RAM I can get a cheaper mobo too, though I don't know if that's really a good idea! (Was originally considering a Gigabyte H67M-D2-B3 s1155).
I've ALWAYS found myself needing more RAM, and believe me if I get 4GB today, tomorrow Windows 8 will come out requiring minimum 4GB of RAM, and I'll have hardly any RAM left for anything else! Besides, RAM is cheap now and best to get it while it's cheap, because it can only get more expensive as the 1333MHz range gets phased out...
So, you guys can decide whether really I'd need an overclock or not based on what I've written here. I'm a bit of a speed freak, but not really if you look at what I've been using for the last 5 years with hardly a complaint! If I bought a graphics card now, I'd probably not get anything more fancy than a Gigabyte AMD HD5770 or a Gigabyte Nvidia GTS450 OC, both around $185 here. Of course, in the future I might want to upgrade that too, the question is how long before computer games will not be able to run on High with a 2500K processor at stock speed? And would OC make a difference??? And if so, how much?
So many questions, but you guys are helping me a lot!!! Thanks!