Two hardware questions.

thingamibob · 28 Mar 2014 at 10:07

For an SSd what size is really necessary. Presuming only windows 8 will be installed to it. Never had an SSD before, so this is all new to me. Would you install anything else to an SSD that would affect the size needed.

Second question. I am looking at ordering a system with the Radeon R9 290 4gb Boost. Would you say that it would need an extra GPU cooler fitting?

Chesney420 · 28 Mar 2014 at 10:11

thingamibob said:
For an SSd what size is really necessary. Presuming only windows 8 will be installed to it. Never had an SSD before, so this is all new to me. Would you install anything else to an SSD that would affect the size needed.

It all depends really. You can install your games and programs on it too.

DoneADougalOnSofa · 28 Mar 2014 at 10:13

A 60GB SSD is enough for a boot drive.
Install Windows/antivirus/browser etc to the SSD, keep your old HDD for game installs and so on.

Obviously if you want to put a load of big games on it too, go for a ~120GB drive...

thingamibob · 28 Mar 2014 at 10:15

Thanks, so no real need to go above 120 gb. Could always add a second later I suppose.

ExRayTed · 28 Mar 2014 at 10:21

120gb is fine.

If you're going for an R9 290 get one with a third party cooler pre-installed. If you don't expect bad throttling issues at high loads. I can personally recommend the Tri-X as I have it myself. Zero issues at load and comparatively quiet.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Red £341.99
1 x MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £329.99
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 290 PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £319.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11227-03-40G) £319.99
Total : £1,321.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

thingamibob · 28 Mar 2014 at 11:01

Def going to go down the extra cooler road. You have confirmed what I expected. I would rather have gone down the nVidia route, but budgets are budgets as they say.

cmndr_andi · 28 Mar 2014 at 12:29

If you are careful 120GB SSDs are fine, however in my experience they fill up very quickly and it gets a bit of a pain when you are changing out games on the SSD regularly and having to do a lot of housekeeping to ensure there is enough free space.

Also, 240/250GB SSDs have a couple of other benefits (apart from the extra space). They tend to be faster than 120GB drives of the same type since they can populate more of the memory channels and they tend to be cheaper per GB.

For these reasons I would usually recommend a 240/250GB drive first unless the user has a specific requirement (eg a HTPC or the SSD will purely be used for windows).

If you are buying an SSD today for a system that will be used for gaming then I would recommend the Samsung 840 Evo 250GB - a really excellent drive and well priced.

+1 for the custom cooler on the R9 290. The one I would go for is the Sapphire Tri-X as it seems to be the best custom cooler for that card (in terms of temps and noise).