Finally building a new computer..
By
Demon Forge,
Posted on: 2012-01-14 15:17 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
The SSD is too small. I had a friend who had the same SSD and he filled it up after three days. I would say you need at least 120GB for enough room for everyday use and game playing.
Agreed. I'd go larger with the SSD if you can afford the extra $70.
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I don't think that I was clear enough in my original post. My budget is $1500 I've got W7 already, so don't need to buy it.
My main concern is would it be a better to get the 580, or the 570 and SSD. I realize that this is going to be based mostly on my personal preference of a few FPS in most games, or less waiting times for the games to start, just trying to get other peoples' opinions on the matter.
Over the reference gtx 570, the gtx 580 has~10% performance increase(according to the benchmarks I've read). While this isn't a big increase for 150 bucks, the highest iteration of video cards can usually perform quite well for 4-5 years, which is what I'm trying to accomplish.
I'm kind of on the fence about the whole SSD issue. I know it will greatly improve boot times and the time from clicking the CoH shortcut to my ingame time, but other than that, is there any noticable improvement over a good sata 3 hard drive for in game loading?
How would using the motherboards SRT capability compare to using an SSD for a straight boot/gaming drive? This feature seems like it would be very good for gamers who don't have the big budget required for the big SSD's, but I've not found any hard data about how much of a speed increase it actually is, and would probably shorten the lifetime of the SSD with a lot more writing than would normally be done with a boot drive.
Would it possibly be more feasible to wait until the HDD prices stabilize again, and then upgrade to a ~120g SSD ? Paying almost 200 bucks for a 120g drive just irks me for some reason.
No matter what I choose in the end, it's going to be a huge upgrade. I'm gaming on a dual core amd with a 9800gt, and the new system is going to be a beast. I'm really considering going over my budget by ~150 bucks, and getting the 120g SSD and a 580, just don't know how much my wife would like it :-)
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Originally Posted by Demon Forge
I don't think that I was clear enough in my original post. My budget is $1500 I've got W7 already, so don't need to buy it.
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| My main concern is would it be a better to get the 580, or the 570 and SSD. I realize that this is going to be based mostly on my personal preference of a few FPS in most games, or less waiting times for the games to start, just trying to get other peoples' opinions on the matter. |
Unless you're doing high-res multi-monitor gaming, your realistic performance delta between a 580 and a 570 is negligible.
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| Over the reference gtx 570, the gtx 580 has~10% performance increase(according to the benchmarks I've read). While this isn't a big increase for 150 bucks, the highest iteration of video cards can usually perform quite well for 4-5 years, which is what I'm trying to accomplish. |
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| I'm kind of on the fence about the whole SSD issue. I know it will greatly improve boot times and the time from clicking the CoH shortcut to my ingame time, but other than that, is there any noticable improvement over a good sata 3 hard drive for in game loading? |
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| How would using the motherboards SRT capability compare to using an SSD for a straight boot/gaming drive? |
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| This feature seems like it would be very good for gamers who don't have the big budget required for the big SSD's, but I've not found any hard data about how much of a speed increase it actually is, and would probably shorten the lifetime of the SSD with a lot more writing than would normally be done with a boot drive. |
Simple read/writes like that aren't that bad. It's overwrite functions that tend to age SSDs. Even so, most large drives nowadays are good for at least 5 years.
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| Would it possibly be more feasible to wait until the HDD prices stabilize again, and then upgrade to a ~120g SSD ? Paying almost 200 bucks for a 120g drive just irks me for some reason. |
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| No matter what I choose in the end, it's going to be a huge upgrade. I'm gaming on a dual core amd with a 9800gt, and the new system is going to be a beast. I'm really considering going over my budget by ~150 bucks, and getting the 120g SSD and a 580, just don't know how much my wife would like it :-) |
$150/5 years = $30 a year = ~$2.50 a month = $0.08 a day.
Promise to lay off one cup of Starschmucks coffee a month and you've got the cash.
Or deny yourself one DVD/Blu-Ray disk this year.
Or catch a matinee instead of going to a movie in prime-time.
It always seems like a huge sum up-front. But look at the costs of upgrading to something else again in 2-3 years.
Also, before you pick up the EVGA card (whatever it is) check it to make sure it's eligible for the Step-Up program.
We're only a couple months out on nVidia's next-gen release. You stand a good chance of having that fall within your Step-Up period. Think about being able to upgrade almost immediately to the new top-shelf card for pocket change.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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This is one of the biggest reasons I can justify spending 500 bucks on a video card to myself, though in all honesty even without the step up program I'd probably be looking at the same video cards. I even spent a little time trying to free up enough cash in the build to get a 7970, but AMD's driver issues and the fact that it's 50 bucks more than the 580 stopped me. For 1650, I can swing the 120g SSD and the 580, and I think that I'll enjoy it very much.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
We're only a couple months out on nVidia's next-gen release. You stand a good chance of having that fall within your Step-Up period. Think about being able to upgrade almost immediately to the new top-shelf card for pocket change.
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Originally Posted by Demon Forge
This is one of the biggest reasons I can justify spending 500 bucks on a video card to myself, though in all honesty even without the step up program I'd probably be looking at the same video cards. I even spent a little time trying to free up enough cash in the build to get a 7970, but AMD's driver issues and the fact that it's 50 bucks more than the 580 stopped me. For 1650, I can swing the 120g SSD and the 580, and I think that I'll enjoy it very much.
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If you're planning on taking advantage of Step-Up go for whatever your budget can bear, so long as the card is one of the one's that can take advantage of the StepUp program.
And yeah, $1650 for your rig is a good price and should positively scream.
I agree about avoiding AMD. In what's pretty much the opposite of their CPU situation, they're putting out the most powerful hardware right now, but their shooting themselves in the balls with their shoddy drivers.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
- CPU - Fine
- Memory - Fine
- PSU - Fine
- HD - Fine (still twice as much as pre-flood prices)
- Case - Fine (not a fan of doors in front of my optical drive)
- CPU Cooler - Fine
- Das Blinken Fans - Meh (Damn it Jim, it's a computer not a night light
). Adding a top fan is probably a good idea, not sure how much additional cooling a 2nd fan on the CPU cooler will give you. - Monitor - No opinion.
- Video Card - Fine. The performance gain from a GTX 570 to a GTX 580 isn't worth the money in my opinion (roughly 15% more performance for $160).
The Z68/SRT/SSD Vs dedicated SSD debate.
The 60GB SSD is fine for SRT. Yes having an SSD be a real drive instead of a caching device will give you better performance but this way you will never be in a situation where you have to decide to uninstall one game or app from your SSD because you want to install something new onto it.
I like the idea of SRT and I'm disappointed that SSD reviews of small sized SSDs don't include a review of SRT performance with the rest of their benchmarks.
The "problem" with SRT is finding a long term review of it. Nearly all the reviews of it are a very minor part of the general Z68 chipset review where they simply ran an app/game or three plus booting to show the feature in action using Intel's tiny 20GB SSD on a mini SATA card. What is it like after six months of use?
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Well I finally made up my mind and decided to go with the 580, and the 60g ssd to use for SRT. Went to order everything..... and of course the 2500k is now out of stock :-/. Will wait till tomorrow to see if newegg has it by then, if not I'll find one on Amazon, and hopefully my sister can add me to her Amazon Prime.
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Originally Posted by Demon Forge
Well I finally made up my mind and decided to go with the 580, and the 60g ssd to use for SRT. Went to order everything..... and of course the 2500k is now out of stock :-/. Will wait till tomorrow to see if newegg has it by then, if not I'll find one on Amazon, and hopefully my sister can add me to her Amazon Prime.
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I'm still out on the value of doing SRT but good luck with your build.
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What I intend to do is add a second SSD in a month or so, probably something along the lines of a 120 or 180gb, which would put me to a total of ~760 storage altogether, with over 200gb of SSD storage, which should be plenty. I wonder if it is possible to use the SRT technology, and also have a dedicated SSD boot/gaming drive, gonna have to go see if i can do that.|
Originally Posted by fallenz
I'm still out on the value of doing SRT but good luck with your build.
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Edit:After some searching it seems like this IS possible, but ultimately is a waste of time.
I like the build. Case is good. I think I have to agree with others that a 120+GB SSD is the way to go.
Maybe the 2500K is out of stock because its being replaced by the 2550K. Demand for 2500K really went up once people found out how disappointing Bulldozer was.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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Yeah it took me forever to decide between the CM and this Antec 1100
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Originally Posted by newchemicals
I like the build. Case is good. I think I have to agree with others that a 120+GB SSD is the way to go.
Maybe the 2500K is out of stock because its being replaced by the 2550K. Demand for 2500K really went up once people found out how disappointing Bulldozer was. |
Soooo.
Ordered yet?
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Yeah, it's ordered, as of wednesday morning. I actually made quite a few changes in what i finally ordered, I'll get it posted here in a few minutes.
2500k and Corsair Vengeance 8gb 1.5v 1600 ram 264.98
Asus Maximus iv Gene-Z/Gen3 and 2tb WD caviar Green 6.0g/s 269.99
Corsair Force Series GT 128g CSSD 179.99
Antec HCG 750w 99.99
Evga GTX 570 Superclocked 354.99(got this for the dual fans)
ASUS VH236H Black 23" Full HD 169.99
Antec 1100 Black Case 119.99
Picked up a Hyper 212 evo and an Asus DVD RW in the clearance stuff from best buy for a total of 40 bucks.
Total Price: 1499.91 -80 in MIRs.
Went with the 570 so I could SLI them if I ever get in a spot where I'm not happy with the performance. Found a couple of combo's that saved me tons... and with the money I saved, I'm getting a new desk to put it on :-)
Not shoo tabby!
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Just a quick update, got everything here, but the mobo was DOA, bought another and Newegg is gonna refund the defective one when they get it back.
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Ooh. Suckage. Sorry to hear that.
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Originally Posted by Demon Forge
Just a quick update, got everything here, but the mobo was DOA, bought another and Newegg is gonna refund the defective one when they get it back.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I've finally gotten permission from my wife to spend some money and upgrade my computer. Here is the build I've come up with :
CM Storm Enforcer 89.99
Seagate Barracuda 500g 84.99
Asus 24" Monitor 209.99
EVGA GTX 570 SuperClocked, lifetime warranty 339.99
Corsair Enthusiast Series 750W PSU 104.99
Gskill Ripsaw Ram 8gb 46.99
ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 179.99
CM 200mm red led case fan 22.99
Aerocool Shark Red Led Fan x2 29.98 (for push/pull on the CM 212 evo)
CM Hyper 212 Evo 44.99 (also comes with free 10ft HDMI cable to attach computer to my HD TV)
Corsair Force Series 3 60g SSD 99.99
I5-2500k with Asus Sata DVD burner 236.98
Brings my grand total to 1491.86, and I'll join ShopRunner for the free 2 day shipping.
My question is would I see a better performance increase by dropping the SSD and the 3 fans(which are mostly for looks), and getting a GTX 580 ?