Originally Posted by
Splenyi
Actually, the thing is that I didn't.
8GB is fine, ask any PC gamer that builds his own pc and has tried both 8GB and 16GB. I've done it, and there is no noticeable difference at all. Period. This cannot be argued.
500W is fine on a tight budget build, which is why I chose it for him.
In a full system with the 680, the PC won't even consume 400W of power, it will be between 340-370W, so no where near a fire hazard, still enough room for expansion, and plenty of room for an upgrade. The 7970 however will consume 400W IN A FULL SYSTEM. So there is no need for a higher watt PSU unless you want to SLI/CFX, which obviously cannot be done when you are on a $700-800 budget PC build, like I listed before. You have to know that you don't need a PSU that has 300W excess all the time, you fit your PSU to the rest of your system, just like with all other parts. It's actually really simple.
You say that in a few years he might want to upgrade his GPU, and that the PSU will stop him. This is actually a really stupid assumption. GPUs will not continuosly develop to suck out more power, they are developing for more efficient performance. For example, compare the 680 to the 570. The 570 is much less powerful, but uses more wattage (30W more at max load). If you want a more 'blanced' comparison, then compare the 580 to the 680; 680 sill out performs the crap out of the 580, and consumes 60W less at full load. Another example is the current Nvidia and AMD GPU architecture; Nvidias is more advanced (arguably perhaps), which is why their GPUs can perform on-par (most times) with AMDs at a lower wattage. By the way, I am strickly talking GPU architecture here, not including GDDR5 memory or anything else.
In Nvidia's next GTX series, there will definitely be a much better performance/wattage ratio, which has continuously developed since, well, graphics cards existed. So to end you assumption, your should really consider researching into this and getting your facts right.
Please do not reply to this post saying "no I'm right, your wrong", because I know that just isn't true. I'll try to get some bigger tech heads than myself down here just to confirm this.