Ancient? It’s only like 5 years old 🤓😂😂 which I guess is a long time for hardware.

Assuming there is no budget and that both Kits are running the same speeds and latency, I would say 2x24gb

Air coolers are old tech nowadays, there is no reason to use them as AIO’s are cheap enough to where the cost factor isn’t that bad and water cooling is just better technology. All the heat gets dissipated to the radiator instead of blown into the case like an air cooler does. Plus you don’t get the loud arse fans on the air cooler that ramp up.

My guess is your processor is unstable, which can be caused if you’ve undervolted, overclocked or manufacturer error. If not I would say it’s something with your Memory like a bad component.

Maybe turn on undervoltage protection in bios and see if that helps, turn off XMP if you have it enabled and see if that helps. If not I would RMA CPU or at least contact INTEL support and ask questions and they might be able to help.

If you play in 4K, there is negligible difference in games as it’s mostly GPU bound but I feel like 7800x3D is the better choice all-round

I think we’re at a point in gaming where DLSS / FSR will be mainstream in pretty much every game now. I mean even my 4080 can’t get 60FPS 1440p in the Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk maxed out with ray tracing, have to use DLSS to increase to above 60fps. I do think DLSS / FSR is actually good technology, but for those enthusiasts who like to play native, I feel like having a $1200 GPU that can’t run 4K or even 1440p ULTRA settings at 60fps depending on the game, is just a cash grab.

For gaming, especially 4K, not really worth it. If you are gaming at lower resolutions then it would be.