what next?

paradisiac

paradisiac

paradisiac

Soldato
Joined
22 Mar 2009
Posts
7,754
Location
Cornwall
hi, i have recently done some big upgrades (mobo, case, cooler, gfx...) and am just wondering, what next? is there anything in my system that im missing, or should be upgraded?
Phenom II X4 B55 @ 3.8GHz Tri-Core
890FX Deluxe3
2x4GB Team Elite 1333MHz
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2
CF 2xHD6850
Coolmaster HAF 912 Plus
700w Modular PSU
LG E2240S
42" LCD TV
Windows 7 64bit HP.
 
lol it is an option, but £100 for a 2-3 second load time increase seems harsh. if all my games are on another drive, then their speeds wont increase will they?
 
my hard drives are nearly silent (or the huge case fan on the front is drowning them out). why would you cut/copy files to your tiny windows drive, surely you would be moving them to a mechanical storage drive, so the time would be dependant on that drive?
i like the idea of SSD, i just dont see the point yet on a drive only big enough to store windows and a few apps for £100ish. all my documents/photos/music/videos and software would be on a mechanical drive, so surely, once windows has loaded, it will be down to their speed not the SSD?
 
ghutchison14078 said:
I see your point.

Performance components like SSD's and high-end graphics cards can be very subjective....it's not until you've actually used them in your system will you fully appreciate the practical daily benefits.

Reading about them on the web and forums like this only gives part of the whole story...I had a WD Velociraptor (which was by no means a slouch) as my main windows drive before I got the OCZ 60 Gb....I will never go back to HDD's, apart from media storage as SSD's are still very expensive for the capacity they offer
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yeh, i really do like the idea of them, and everyone arguments seem to make sense, but then when you think about how very little will be stored on it, how much will it speed things up, for the cost, is it worth it or hang fire til the larger ones become more mainstream forcing the smaller ones prices down. i remember when a 32GB flash drive would set you back nearly £120, now £25. if SSDs dropped the same, then yeh. hopfully we will get some in at work soon so i can have a play in the real world with them and make a decission, i just dont see, even with everyones recommendations, how it will benifit me enough to justify the cost, when everything bar windows will still be on slow mechanical drives.
 
cmndr_andi said:
It may be first thing that is apparent - but quick load up time is only a minor benefit of an SSD. The real benefit comes when you are using your computer, doing stuff like loading up an application or loading a level in a game, also - just moving files about feels super-quick. Technically speaking, as well as much higher sequential transfer speed -for moving big files (2 to 5x quicker), the big performance boosts an SSD has over a mechanical HDD are access times (over 10x quicker) and random read/write performance (around 100X quicker).

You would be amazed at the number of times when it is the mechanical hard disk (not CPU, RAM or GPU) that are holding things up and causing a bottleneck. Having an SSD means you don't have this limitation - and things often "feel" faster in use.
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but would the loading up of applications and levels in games not be dependant on the mechanical drive the application/game is installed on?
 
raid.png


thats my scores now, does it really differ that much?
 
cmndr_andi said:
With a 60GB HDD you should have enough space to install Windows, pretty much all your key applications (web browsers, skype, steam, spotify, itunes, office, photoshop etc.) and a game or two. It would also be very good to install all your documents and possibly your music and photos (depending on how much capacity these take up).

If you are using steam for gaming, you could swap out the game that is on the SSD depending on what you are playing most.
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my music pretty much fills a 1TB drive, my films fill a 2TB drive too :( so dont think i will be getting these on a 64GB SSD.
with what i have now i am using around 60GB of my 1TB Raid0 so would only leave me 4GB free, now i know windows used to like atleast 21% of the drive to be free, is this still the case?
 
ghutchison14078 said:
Pretty much!

Unless you have big cash to spend on the SSD your budget will be the limiting factor...if you can only afford one of the smaller capacity drives then you will have to install windows on it and then prioritise which other applications you use most frequently and would benefit most from the speed boost.

Remember you cant compare them to traditional HDD's drives for value...they are a completly different technology and product.

High end performance products are rarely value for money...but thats the price we pay to have a performance edge over mainstream tech.
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but, is the technology still in such an early stage it would be crazy to spend £100 now, when in 2 or 3 months newer faster drives will be out pushing those prices down?
i know its the same with everything, the longer you wait the cheaper things are and there will always be better/quicker stuff on the horizon. but with SSD, is it still really early technology, which will make HUGE leaps in the next 12months or so?
 
thanks cmndr_andi and others. i think i will hold fire on SSD until the vertex 3 is out with some competition. if i can get a 120GB drive for the £130-£150 then that will be when i seriously look, ideally i would prefer £1 per GB but this looks like some way off.
so other than the HDDs, my system looks good?
 
yeah it does most of what i want pretty quickly :) just need to learn to use some stuff. am thinking stick in another 8GB of ram and maybe a blue-ray writer.
 
cmndr_andi said:
System looks very nice indeed.

Other than an SSD, the only things I would look to improve are either the monitor (go for either IPS or 120Hz), speakers/headset (depending on what you currently have) or mouse/keyboard (again depending on what you are currently using). Also, if you haven't already you may want to get an internal Blu-ray drive.
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i game on the TV, so aslong as i tick v-sync then everything runs pretty smooth. speakers are on my list to do, but again, as it all goes through the tv its a nightmare finding something that will give good quality sound through the 2 composite/phone jacks.
a blue-ray reader/writer is on my list of things i would like, especially with the price of blue-ray films at the moment, but @ £70+ for a writer, and rumours of a new HD format on the cards i dont want to shell out and get stung.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Do you use the TV mainly as a display for the PC?

If so, It would probably be worth getting a nice set of speakers that run off the integrated sound on your motherboard. This means you could get surround sound without having to pay for a much more expensive amp + speakers kit.

Alternatively, you could get a nice quality 2.1 system and hook them up to the audio output of your TV (so all devices connected to the TV would output sound through the new speakers). These speakers for example are excellent (got two sets at home).

May I ask what you have heard about a new HD format? This is certainly news to me.
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the speakers on the tv are poor, so at the moment we have a samsung homecinema thing attatched, which was ok, but the sub keeps cutting out. we have sky, so it would need to be something that would run off the tv dirrect rather than via the pc unfortunatly :(

i cant remember now, just remember at work we got a promotional thing through before xmas saying something was coming better than blue-ray. cant for the life of me find it now though :(
 
bush LT42M1CFA LCD.
yeh the sub sounds like its a lose cable or something but it wasnt really as good as i expected (cost best part of £200) for the money.
really need something with a volume remote, as the tv volume does not control the speaker volume, hence why we went for the homecinema solution this time :(
 
cmndr_andi said:
If you plug those speakers I linked to above (aego M) into the headphones jack on the TV, the sound will work fine and you should be able to control the volume via the remote (as the TV basically thinks they are headphones). That said, you will also be able to vary the volume of the speakers with a knob on the sub - I recommend you just set this to a medium level and use the TV remote to control the volume on a day-to-day basis.
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we tried that on our last set of pc speakers, the tv's built in amplifier setup is poor, the only thing the remotes volume controls is the built in speakers. i asked on pretty much every tv forum i could find when i got the tv as our old poloroid one did this fine, and its an issue with the tv :(
 
sounds like a pain, maybe need to get my screwdriver and soldering iron then :(

found a few for the £50-£120 mark, but they have wired remotes :(
 
ok kool.
i have a little set of speakers connected to the pc at the moment, will try them in every combination on the tv to see if i can make them work with the tvs remove, if i can will get the ones you linked, they look nice :)
 
arctic freezer is keeping my 555BE unlocked to tri-core @ 3.8GHz nice and cool :) the chip itself wont clock higher, nowt to do with temps, thats just the max the chip will do.
AM3+ mobo is a cert, when they finally come out. then a BD will go in.
another 8GB of ram is def a possability as its nice and cheap, but i dont use half the 8GB i already have installed, so would be a bit of a waste. i think, i dont know.
 
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