🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 15 Mar 2015 08:54:03 -0400, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:

>Getting ready to config a new PC.
>
>Torn between the Z97 4790K or one of the X99 series; I've done some 
>reading and think I don't require an X99 because I don't intend on 
>running multiple video cards and think 4790K will be all I'll need.

>The other issue then becomes the videocard..willing to get a 980, but 
>not sure I need that either; can save a few dollars with a 960 or 970 
>oc'd version.

>More a crpg player than anything else. Thanks


Well, I am always of the belief that - with a gaming PC - you should
buy the best you can afford at the time, since that'll let your rig
eke out a few more years of service. You buy low, you'll just have to
replace it in a year or two if you wanna keep playing the newest
games. 

Having said that, I find the x70 lines of nvidia GPUs are usually the
better investment than the x80s (and avoid the x60 lines entirely).
The price difference is usually enough for me to double something else
in my computer (double the ram, or double the vram, or double the
storage... whatever) and the actual speed difference is negligble.

On the gripping hand, I do upgrade my video-card several times over
the life of my computer...

On Sun, 15 Mar 2015 08:54:03 -0400, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:

>Getting ready to config a new PC.
>
>Torn between the Z97 4790K or one of the X99 series; I've done some 
>reading and think I don't require an X99 because I don't intend on 
>running multiple video cards and think 4790K will be all I'll need.
>
>The other issue then becomes the videocard..willing to get a 980, but 
>not sure I need that either; can save a few dollars with a 960 or 970 
>oc'd version.
>
>More a crpg player than anything else. Thanks
>
>D.

This is a repost from the action gaming group, but keep in mind most
modern rpgs are eye-candy filled, so things like framerates, frame
variance, tearing and stuttering often end up just as important as
with first person shooters.

Here is the primary reason I would go 980:

"For the record, even with the GeForce GTX 970's memory issues, it's
still one of the best medium-tier graphics cards on the market. So,
even if you think that Nvidia is acting deceptively, make sure that
you consider your options before asking for a refund."

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/NVIDIA-Being-Sued-By-Gamers-70215.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2887234/nvidia-hit-with-false-advertising-suit-over-gtx-970-performance.html

About the motherboard, I would just go X99 at this point unless you
are the type that actually enjoys ripping your mobo out and upgrading
it.  I typically don't, the original mobo, CPU and PSU usually stay
with me for the life of the PC which these days can mean 6-8 years
even for a demanding gamer.

On Sunday, March 15, 2015 at 5:52:04 AM UTC-7, DMP wrote:
> Getting ready to config a new PC.
> 
> Torn between the Z97 4790K or one of the X99 series; I've done some 
> reading and think I don't require an X99 because I don't intend on 
> running multiple video cards and think 4790K will be all I'll need.
> 
> The other issue then becomes the videocard..willing to get a 980, but 
> not sure I need that either; can save a few dollars with a 960 or 970 
> oc'd version.
> 

I haven't run into any CRPGs I can't play reasonably well with what's now I think a 7 year old 2 core CPU at 2.75 GHz, 4gb of ram and a GX 275, so I wouldn't sweat it.  Heck some recent games I can max out graphics with no noticeable lag.  In fact every game I've had noticeable lag in I've investigated and it turned out it was something beyond my control like with Marvel Heroes, even people with brand spanking new boxes equivalent to what you're looking at had issues similar to mine.

Generally I'd go with GPU over CPU, but some of the more recent console ports are relying more on the CPU - especially the GTA series I've noticed.  So if you're planning on playing those, you might look at a more balanced approach.  

Another factor to consider is your pixel count on your monitor.  The higher resolution you run at (and if an LCD you want to be running at native), the more you'll need out of your GPU.  I'm running a pretty old LCD at max resolution of 1440x900 so it may make my GPU needs considerably less.

Also if you can invest in an SSD or hybrid drive instead of a standard HD, it'll make a noticeable difference to boot, save & load times, which may be far more noticeable than a slight difference in GPU & CPU.

After all that, I've found this site pretty good for comparisons on price/performace on GPUs:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

Looks like there's about a 10% performance difference between a 980 and an 970.  There's about a 25% difference between a 970 and 960... and just to compare even the 960 is about 5x faster than my 275. :)

- Justisaur

On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 11:02:08 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<just...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Looks like there's about a 10% performance difference between a 980 and an 970.  There's about a 25% difference between a 970 and 960... and just to compare even the 960 is about 5x faster than my 275. :)

See the links in my earlier post in thread about the 970 stuttering
after the first 3.5GB being used.  Most people just compare framerate
numbers on benchmarks between cards and think that's the only thing to
consider.

Just randomly pulling a recent RPG for a look, Dragon Age Inquisition
seems to be good for about 55 frames per second with a GTX980 at
1080p.  I think this means your video card would produce a slideshow
at less than 10fps :)

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dragon_age_inquisition_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html

Investing the extra bucks to build a machine right, that far exceeds
what current gen consoles can do, will provide many years of gaming
without upgrades.  Skimping and running shitty equipment will just
lead to regrets when running modern games.

DMP  <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:
>Getting ready to config a new PC.
>
>Torn between the Z97 4790K or one of the X99 series; I've done some 
>reading and think I don't require an X99 because I don't intend on 
>running multiple video cards and think 4790K will be all I'll need.

I'd definitely go for the the i7-4790K over an an LGA-2011 processor.
If you're not going to be using multiple video cards, and you really need
to be using three or more to benefit from the additional PCIe lanes, then
you'd be paying a lot for tiny increase in performance.  The performance
of CPUs has plateaued, so even five years from now you're not going to
be able to find that much better of CPU at any price. 

>The other issue then becomes the videocard..willing to get a 980, but 
>not sure I need that either; can save a few dollars with a 960 or 970 
>oc'd version.

This is harder question to answer.  You also run into diminishing returns
with video cards, but not as bad at the price range you're looking at.
GPU performance continues to make signifcant improvements each year,
but it's also fairly easy to replace your video card, making upgrading
it in a couple of years an option.  Unless you bought that 4K monitor
you posted about a while ago, you probably won't benefit much from a
980 with current RPGs.  I'd save the money for a future upgrade.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On 3/16/2015 2:12 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 11:02:08 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Looks like there's about a 10% performance difference between a 980 and an 970.  There's about a 25% difference between a 970 and 960... and just to compare even the 960 is about 5x faster than my 275. :)
> See the links in my earlier post in thread about the 970 stuttering
> after the first 3.5GB being used.  Most people just compare framerate
> numbers on benchmarks between cards and think that's the only thing to
> consider.
>
> Just randomly pulling a recent RPG for a look, Dragon Age Inquisition
> seems to be good for about 55 frames per second with a GTX980 at
> 1080p.  I think this means your video card would produce a slideshow
> at less than 10fps :)
>
> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dragon_age_inquisition_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
>
> Investing the extra bucks to build a machine right, that far exceeds
> what current gen consoles can do, will provide many years of gaming
> without upgrades.  Skimping and running shitty equipment will just
> lead to regrets when running modern games.
  Thanks to all who replied; I think I'm going to go with the one of the 
X99's and a 980; 16GB of mem and an Asrock mobo; 250 SSD and 2 TB WD 
Black. I have an 28 Samsung UHD, so I'm all set there. I went to GPUboss 
and did compare the CPU & GPU; I must admit I was impressed with how 
close the performance of the GTX970 was with the 980 though.

Right now, my i7 920 that's o'clocked to 3.65 or something like that is 
choking on DA:Inquisition, but the PC only came with 6GB of 1333MHz ram. 
I updated the videocard once to a GTX770 which is the only upgrade I've 
done since I bought the PC 5 1/2 yrs ago. It's being passed on to a 
non-gamer who will get plenty of use out of the system because under a 
lighter load it runs flawlessly. Perhaps adding memory would help, but 
I'm entitled to new. :-D

Diane

On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 15:52:25 -0400, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:

>On 3/16/2015 2:12 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 11:02:08 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
>> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Looks like there's about a 10% performance difference between a 980 and an 970.  There's about a 25% difference between a 970 and 960... and just to compare even the 960 is about 5x faster than my 275. :)
>> See the links in my earlier post in thread about the 970 stuttering
>> after the first 3.5GB being used.  Most people just compare framerate
>> numbers on benchmarks between cards and think that's the only thing to
>> consider.
>>
>> Just randomly pulling a recent RPG for a look, Dragon Age Inquisition
>> seems to be good for about 55 frames per second with a GTX980 at
>> 1080p.  I think this means your video card would produce a slideshow
>> at less than 10fps :)
>>
>> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dragon_age_inquisition_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
>>
>> Investing the extra bucks to build a machine right, that far exceeds
>> what current gen consoles can do, will provide many years of gaming
>> without upgrades.  Skimping and running shitty equipment will just
>> lead to regrets when running modern games.
>  Thanks to all who replied; I think I'm going to go with the one of the 
>X99's and a 980; 16GB of mem and an Asrock mobo; 250 SSD and 2 TB WD 
>Black. I have an 28 Samsung UHD, so I'm all set there. I went to GPUboss 
>and did compare the CPU & GPU; I must admit I was impressed with how 
>close the performance of the GTX970 was with the 980 though.
>
>Right now, my i7 920 that's o'clocked to 3.65 or something like that is 
>choking on DA:Inquisition, but the PC only came with 6GB of 1333MHz ram. 
>I updated the videocard once to a GTX770 which is the only upgrade I've 
>done since I bought the PC 5 1/2 yrs ago. It's being passed on to a 
>non-gamer who will get plenty of use out of the system because under a 
>lighter load it runs flawlessly. Perhaps adding memory would help, but 
>I'm entitled to new. :-D
>
>Diane
>

I think you'll find that the new Haswell-e chips benefit your gaming
in ways that defy specs on paper.  I don't have DA:Inquisition, but
Battlefield 4, Watch_Dogs, and some of the other games that came out
in the last year or two started really taxing my CPU (which was an
i7-965, no slouch of a quad core in its day).  It would run old games
fine, but start running hot and the cooler getting loud.  I have a
i7-5930k now, and its really nice to have on some of these CPU
intensive games. Runs them so smoothly, so cool and quiet.  I never
see my CPU temp go over about 30C with air cooling.  So, the
clockspeeds of chips alone do not tell the whole story.

The one thing I would suggest if you wanted to get more bang for the
buck, just get a large regular HD for your primary.  The reason is
that unless you reboot 25 times per day, your gaming hobby will not
benefit from the SSD purchase and 250GB is small for a drive these
days.  

I have 2TB (C) and 3TB (D) drives.  I have installed next to nothing
on the C drive except some dev tools.  This means ALL my applications,
data, and games  have been going on the D drive, yet my C drive
currently has about 250GB already used.  This is because so many
Windows apps will simply tend to use that drive, the documents folder,
appdata and so forth by default, so it won't be long until you wish
you had more than 250GB.

Don't get me wrong, SSDs are nice but 1TB ones are still pricey, and
most of the PC sellers gouge even further on pricing.  I just put an
SSD in one of my other machines to replace an aging 7200rpm drive, but
part of that was because the old drive was kind of crappy and
extremely noisy.

Remember that by having a very large drive and using only a portion of
the space, things like rebooting are still blazing fast (traditional
HDs get slower as they get closer to max capacity, while SSDs get
slower with time due to the number of writes that slowly damage the
memory over time).

On 3/16/2015 4:44 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 15:52:25 -0400, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3/16/2015 2:12 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>>> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 11:02:08 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
>>> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Looks like there's about a 10% performance difference between a 980 and an 970.  There's about a 25% difference between a 970 and 960... and just to compare even the 960 is about 5x faster than my 275. :)
>>> See the links in my earlier post in thread about the 970 stuttering
>>> after the first 3.5GB being used.  Most people just compare framerate
>>> numbers on benchmarks between cards and think that's the only thing to
>>> consider.
>>>
>>> Just randomly pulling a recent RPG for a look, Dragon Age Inquisition
>>> seems to be good for about 55 frames per second with a GTX980 at
>>> 1080p.  I think this means your video card would produce a slideshow
>>> at less than 10fps :)
>>>
>>> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dragon_age_inquisition_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
>>>
>>> Investing the extra bucks to build a machine right, that far exceeds
>>> what current gen consoles can do, will provide many years of gaming
>>> without upgrades.  Skimping and running shitty equipment will just
>>> lead to regrets when running modern games.
>>   Thanks to all who replied; I think I'm going to go with the one of the
>> X99's and a 980; 16GB of mem and an Asrock mobo; 250 SSD and 2 TB WD
>> Black. I have an 28 Samsung UHD, so I'm all set there. I went to GPUboss
>> and did compare the CPU & GPU; I must admit I was impressed with how
>> close the performance of the GTX970 was with the 980 though.
>>
>> Right now, my i7 920 that's o'clocked to 3.65 or something like that is
>> choking on DA:Inquisition, but the PC only came with 6GB of 1333MHz ram.
>> I updated the videocard once to a GTX770 which is the only upgrade I've
>> done since I bought the PC 5 1/2 yrs ago. It's being passed on to a
>> non-gamer who will get plenty of use out of the system because under a
>> lighter load it runs flawlessly. Perhaps adding memory would help, but
>> I'm entitled to new. :-D
>>
>> Diane
>>
> I think you'll find that the new Haswell-e chips benefit your gaming
> in ways that defy specs on paper.  I don't have DA:Inquisition, but
> Battlefield 4, Watch_Dogs, and some of the other games that came out
> in the last year or two started really taxing my CPU (which was an
> i7-965, no slouch of a quad core in its day).  It would run old games
> fine, but start running hot and the cooler getting loud.  I have a
> i7-5930k now, and its really nice to have on some of these CPU
> intensive games. Runs them so smoothly, so cool and quiet.  I never
> see my CPU temp go over about 30C with air cooling.  So, the
> clockspeeds of chips alone do not tell the whole story.
>
> The one thing I would suggest if you wanted to get more bang for the
> buck, just get a large regular HD for your primary.  The reason is
> that unless you reboot 25 times per day, your gaming hobby will not
> benefit from the SSD purchase and 250GB is small for a drive these
> days.
>
> I have 2TB (C) and 3TB (D) drives.  I have installed next to nothing
> on the C drive except some dev tools.  This means ALL my applications,
> data, and games  have been going on the D drive, yet my C drive
> currently has about 250GB already used.  This is because so many
> Windows apps will simply tend to use that drive, the documents folder,
> appdata and so forth by default, so it won't be long until you wish
> you had more than 250GB.
>
> Don't get me wrong, SSDs are nice but 1TB ones are still pricey, and
> most of the PC sellers gouge even further on pricing.  I just put an
> SSD in one of my other machines to replace an aging 7200rpm drive, but
> part of that was because the old drive was kind of crappy and
> extremely noisy.
>
> Remember that by having a very large drive and using only a portion of
> the space, things like rebooting are still blazing fast (traditional
> HDs get slower as they get closer to max capacity, while SSDs get
> slower with time due to the number of writes that slowly damage the
> memory over time).
>
>
I like your suggestions with regard to solid state. I didn't think about 
how often I would need it's speed. It wouldn't be that often...I looked 
at my primary drive that's a WD500GB and I've got 340GB left and that's 
after 5 1/2 years. But you are right about reboots. I generally don't 
shut the PC off after it's on in the morning, so the concept of a speedy 
"C" is nice, but in my case, not necessity.

The 1TB & 2TB WD Blacks would suit me fine and save a few dollars in the 
process. Thanks for your helpful post.

D.

DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>I like your suggestions with regard to solid state. I didn't think about 
>how often I would need it's speed. It wouldn't be that often...I looked 
>at my primary drive that's a WD500GB and I've got 340GB left and that's 
>after 5 1/2 years. But you are right about reboots. I generally don't 
>shut the PC off after it's on in the morning, so the concept of a speedy 
>"C" is nice, but in my case, not necessity.
>
>The 1TB & 2TB WD Blacks would suit me fine and save a few dollars in the 
>process. Thanks for your helpful post.

Just make sure you get a Black and not a Green.

Xocyll

Re. CPU's;
The i7 4790K  is a tweaked i7 4770K which was released nearly 2 years ago
Its still the best / fastest choice .
Where has the 5000 series got to ? 'Broadwell'
The word is that its not much of a practical advance - onboard graphics bit 
better.
There seem to be lots off users with 3000 & 2000 series CPU 'Ivy Bridge'
who are happy with performance.

I don't think there's any sign of major CPU advances except re. Mobile 
versions.
And even there the advances in CPU / GPU Spec. of Tablets & Laptops has 
slowed.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  mouse (I Want A Sausage Roll) 

On Wed, 18 Mar 2015 03:49:28 -0000, "Trimble Bracegirdle"
<no-spam@never.spam> wrote:

>Re. CPU's;
>The i7 4790K  is a tweaked i7 4770K which was released nearly 2 years ago
>Its still the best / fastest choice .

Best and fastest in what area Trimble?  

Here is some more specific data about performance with specific apps.
Be careful about over-simplification.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1260?vs=1316

The general speed of the 4790k/4770k for gaming is probably fine for
the foreseeable future.  However someone building a PC now needs to
think beyond the CPUs of 2 years ago, and think about how long they
want to keep their new rig relevant.

The one thing that does not tend to show up on single task benchmarks
is the overall impact on gaming of having six total cores..  two of
which windows services get offloaded to, leaving the remaining four to
perform gaming duty.  This benefit tends to not show up in official
benchmarks which are testing the games running dedicated on a system,
as opposed to all the other background processes a typical user is
likely to have.

If someone already has a 4xxx CPU I wouldn't even think about
upgrading it anytime soon.  Building a new rig today, different story.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 3:08:12 AM UTC-7, DMP wrote:
> On 3/16/2015 4:44 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
> > On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 15:52:25 -0400, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 3/16/2015 2:12 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
> >>> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 11:02:08 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
> >>> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Looks like there's about a 10% performance difference between a 980 and an 970.  There's about a 25% difference between a 970 and 960... and just to compare even the 960 is about 5x faster than my 275. :)
> >>> See the links in my earlier post in thread about the 970 stuttering
> >>> after the first 3.5GB being used.  Most people just compare framerate
> >>> numbers on benchmarks between cards and think that's the only thing to
> >>> consider.
> >>>
> >>> Just randomly pulling a recent RPG for a look, Dragon Age Inquisition
> >>> seems to be good for about 55 frames per second with a GTX980 at
> >>> 1080p.  I think this means your video card would produce a slideshow
> >>> at less than 10fps :)
> >>>
> >>> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/dragon_age_inquisition_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
> >>>
> >>> Investing the extra bucks to build a machine right, that far exceeds
> >>> what current gen consoles can do, will provide many years of gaming
> >>> without upgrades.  Skimping and running shitty equipment will just
> >>> lead to regrets when running modern games.
> >>   Thanks to all who replied; I think I'm going to go with the one of the
> >> X99's and a 980; 16GB of mem and an Asrock mobo; 250 SSD and 2 TB WD
> >> Black. I have an 28 Samsung UHD, so I'm all set there. I went to GPUboss
> >> and did compare the CPU & GPU; I must admit I was impressed with how
> >> close the performance of the GTX970 was with the 980 though.
> >>
> >> Right now, my i7 920 that's o'clocked to 3.65 or something like that is
> >> choking on DA:Inquisition, but the PC only came with 6GB of 1333MHz ram.
> >> I updated the videocard once to a GTX770 which is the only upgrade I've
> >> done since I bought the PC 5 1/2 yrs ago. It's being passed on to a
> >> non-gamer who will get plenty of use out of the system because under a
> >> lighter load it runs flawlessly. Perhaps adding memory would help, but
> >> I'm entitled to new. :-D
> >>
> >> Diane
> >>
> > I think you'll find that the new Haswell-e chips benefit your gaming
> > in ways that defy specs on paper.  I don't have DA:Inquisition, but
> > Battlefield 4, Watch_Dogs, and some of the other games that came out
> > in the last year or two started really taxing my CPU (which was an
> > i7-965, no slouch of a quad core in its day).  It would run old games
> > fine, but start running hot and the cooler getting loud.  I have a
> > i7-5930k now, and its really nice to have on some of these CPU
> > intensive games. Runs them so smoothly, so cool and quiet.  I never
> > see my CPU temp go over about 30C with air cooling.  So, the
> > clockspeeds of chips alone do not tell the whole story.
> >
> > The one thing I would suggest if you wanted to get more bang for the
> > buck, just get a large regular HD for your primary.  The reason is
> > that unless you reboot 25 times per day, your gaming hobby will not
> > benefit from the SSD purchase and 250GB is small for a drive these
> > days.
> >
> > I have 2TB (C) and 3TB (D) drives.  I have installed next to nothing
> > on the C drive except some dev tools.  This means ALL my applications,
> > data, and games  have been going on the D drive, yet my C drive
> > currently has about 250GB already used.  This is because so many
> > Windows apps will simply tend to use that drive, the documents folder,
> > appdata and so forth by default, so it won't be long until you wish
> > you had more than 250GB.
> >
> > Don't get me wrong, SSDs are nice but 1TB ones are still pricey, and
> > most of the PC sellers gouge even further on pricing.  I just put an
> > SSD in one of my other machines to replace an aging 7200rpm drive, but
> > part of that was because the old drive was kind of crappy and
> > extremely noisy.
> >
> > Remember that by having a very large drive and using only a portion of
> > the space, things like rebooting are still blazing fast (traditional
> > HDs get slower as they get closer to max capacity, while SSDs get
> > slower with time due to the number of writes that slowly damage the
> > memory over time).
> >
> >
> I like your suggestions with regard to solid state. I didn't think about 
> how often I would need it's speed. It wouldn't be that often...I looked 
> at my primary drive that's a WD500GB and I've got 340GB left and that's 
> after 5 1/2 years. But you are right about reboots. I generally don't 
> shut the PC off after it's on in the morning, so the concept of a speedy 
> "C" is nice, but in my case, not necessity.
> 
> The 1TB & 2TB WD Blacks would suit me fine and save a few dollars in the 
> process. Thanks for your helpful post.

Seriously, get an SSD.  It's amazing.  If you use Intel Smart Response you don't need to worry about what you're putting where, and seems to be nearly fast for most things.  It's not just for booting.  It's every time you load anything.  It's not just a little improvement, it's like night and day.  I'd skimp on anything else to get an SSD.  

Here's one of the benchmarks I found... look down to the futuremark gaming benchmark... it's about half again faster than running off 7200 rpm HD alone!

- Justisaur

Justisaur  <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Seriously, get an SSD.  It's amazing.  If you use Intel Smart Response you 
>don't need to worry about what you're putting where, and seems to be nearly
>fast for most things.  It's not just for booting.  It's every time you load
>anything.  It's not just a little improvement, it's like night and day.  
>I'd skimp on anything else to get an SSD.

I wouldn't necessarily skimp on everything else, but yah an SSD makes a
big difference in the overall performance of the PC.  Nothing else make
your PC seem faster.  You can get an hard disk as well to keep the price
down while still giving you a lot of storage for bulk things like photos
and videos.

						Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On 3/18/2015 7:40 PM, Ross Ridge wrote:
> Justisaur  <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seriously, get an SSD.  It's amazing.  If you use Intel Smart Response you
>> don't need to worry about what you're putting where, and seems to be nearly
>> fast for most things.  It's not just for booting.  It's every time you load
>> anything.  It's not just a little improvement, it's like night and day.
>> I'd skimp on anything else to get an SSD.
> I wouldn't necessarily skimp on everything else, but yah an SSD makes a
> big difference in the overall performance of the PC.  Nothing else make
> your PC seem faster.  You can get an hard disk as well to keep the price
> down while still giving you a lot of storage for bulk things like photos
> and videos.
>
> 						Ross Ridge
>
Rin mentioned that the SSD's get slower with time due to "the number of 
writes that slowly damage the memory over time". I didn't want to get in 
a situation like I had three computers ago. I got a custom built job 
that came with two IBM "Deathstars" both of which failed. My bad for not 
doing the research then. I do hold on to my systems for a goodly amount 
of time, so reliability and longevity are important. The only thing I've 
ever had failed were disk drives, two IBM's and a Seagate

I am not familiar with Intel Smart Response, but will familiarize myself 
with it before any ordering takes place.

I have confidence in the builder and they will tell me what their 
experience has been with SSD v. mechanical particularly with their 
gaming towers. There isn't much difference in the cost of an  250 gb SSD 
and 1TB WD Black. There also must be a reason why most of the gaming 
computer builders are adding SSD's to their configurations. The smaller 
SSD's are getting to be close in price to the larger mechs.

I appreciate all the help and suggestions. Thanks again.

D.

D.

On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 13:54:14 +0300, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:

Just avoid WD Greens and any Seagates. Most reliable are Hitachi HDDs which are
produced now under Toshiba brand. Again no Seagates.


-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 06:54:14 -0400, DMP <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:

>On 3/18/2015 7:40 PM, Ross Ridge wrote:
>> Justisaur  <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Seriously, get an SSD.  It's amazing.  If you use Intel Smart Response you
>>> don't need to worry about what you're putting where, and seems to be nearly
>>> fast for most things.  It's not just for booting.  It's every time you load
>>> anything.  It's not just a little improvement, it's like night and day.
>>> I'd skimp on anything else to get an SSD.
>> I wouldn't necessarily skimp on everything else, but yah an SSD makes a
>> big difference in the overall performance of the PC.  Nothing else make
>> your PC seem faster.  You can get an hard disk as well to keep the price
>> down while still giving you a lot of storage for bulk things like photos
>> and videos.
>>
>> 						Ross Ridge
>>
>Rin mentioned that the SSD's get slower with time due to "the number of 
>writes that slowly damage the memory over time". I didn't want to get in 
>a situation like I had three computers ago. I got a custom built job 
>that came with two IBM "Deathstars" both of which failed. My bad for not 
>doing the research then. I do hold on to my systems for a goodly amount 
>of time, so reliability and longevity are important. The only thing I've 
>ever had failed were disk drives, two IBM's and a Seagate

Yes, it's the slowing over time is why I mentioned the larger HDD.
There are a number of reasons why I made that particular
recommendation for gaming:

1.  The speed advantage of a huge HDD
2.  The longer-term speed disadvantage of SSDs on smaller drives due
to write-damaging
3.  The rather neglible impact on gaming of either
4.  The current cost proposition of large SSDs

The problem is that in a year or two, a smaller SSD can be
significantly slower than when you bought it because it.  Technically
a larger SSD should fare better for a longer period of time, but I've
seen reports of issues with even those slowing down.

Does slowing down mean they will be slow in a year or two?  Slow is a
relative term.  Slower than when you got them?  Yes.  Slower than a
HDD?  Perhaps not, but by having a huge HDD using less than half it's
total capacity, you're getting ongoing (never slowing) performance
that's probably not going to be noticable.  Using only a fraction of a
HDD's capacity is the trick to getting great ongoing performance, that
will largely be indistinguishable from an SSD for anything except
reboots.

I have two systems here, one is a new X99 gaming rig with 2TB and 3TB
HDDs, neither using close to half capacity, and another one with a
slightly older but fast core i7, with a brand new 1TB SSD.  In overall
usage, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two
except on the reboot.  The system with the HDDs is quiet, load times
are almost instantaneous, and feels SSD-like.  The key there, however,
is the capacity of the HDDs.  If I bought smaller HDDs and they were
halfway to their storage capacity, the performance situation would
change.

>I am not familiar with Intel Smart Response, but will familiarize myself 
>with it before any ordering takes place.
>
>I have confidence in the builder and they will tell me what their 
>experience has been with SSD v. mechanical particularly with their 
>gaming towers. There isn't much difference in the cost of an  250 gb SSD 
>and 1TB WD Black. There also must be a reason why most of the gaming 
>computer builders are adding SSD's to their configurations. The smaller 
>SSD's are getting to be close in price to the larger mechs.

SSD's are great to have.  PC vendors love them because at present they
are adding huge amounts of profit markup.  It also lowers their cost
of troubleshooting if they have to support over the phone, because
each reboot after a config change is much faster.  Customers love them
because they are very fast at first, and of course quiet and cool.

They just still cost too much to deal with 1-2TB sizes, and with games
coming out that are dozens of gigs in size, going ALL SSD is not a
cost effective option for a gaming rig.

The system I put an SSD in is very read-intensive and loads huge
amounts of audio data (both large files and lots of little files), and
it also gets reboot a lot.  Going SSD was a no-brainer there.  For a
gaming system, I think it's more of a luxury item to have 1TB SSDs
(especially with builder margins tacked on), one that diminishes in
value as it's written to.

In terms of reliability, though, SSDs should be less prone to failure
(no moving parts).  They are a nobrainer for laptops as well of
course.

On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 3:52:10 AM UTC-7, DMP wrote:
> On 3/18/2015 7:40 PM, Ross Ridge wrote:
> > Justisaur  <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Seriously, get an SSD.  It's amazing.  If you use Intel Smart Response you
> >> don't need to worry about what you're putting where, and seems to be nearly
> >> fast for most things.  It's not just for booting.  It's every time you load
> >> anything.  It's not just a little improvement, it's like night and day.
> >> I'd skimp on anything else to get an SSD.
> > I wouldn't necessarily skimp on everything else, but yah an SSD makes a
> > big difference in the overall performance of the PC.  Nothing else make
> > your PC seem faster.  You can get an hard disk as well to keep the price
> > down while still giving you a lot of storage for bulk things like photos
> > and videos.
> >
> > 						Ross Ridge
> >
> Rin mentioned that the SSD's get slower with time due to "the number of 
> writes that slowly damage the memory over time". I didn't want to get in 
> a situation like I had three computers ago. I got a custom built job 
> that came with two IBM "Deathstars" both of which failed. My bad for not 
> doing the research then. I do hold on to my systems for a goodly amount 
> of time, so reliability and longevity are important. The only thing I've 
> ever had failed were disk drives, two IBM's and a Seagate
> 
> I am not familiar with Intel Smart Response, but will familiarize myself 
> with it before any ordering takes place.
> 
> I have confidence in the builder and they will tell me what their 
> experience has been with SSD v. mechanical particularly with their 
> gaming towers. There isn't much difference in the cost of an  250 gb SSD 
> and 1TB WD Black. There also must be a reason why most of the gaming 
> computer builders are adding SSD's to their configurations. The smaller 
> SSD's are getting to be close in price to the larger mechs.
> 
> I appreciate all the help and suggestions. Thanks again.
>

SSD Endurance Experiment:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/03/12/184222/endurance-experiment-kills-six-ssds-over-18-months-24-petabytes

No noticeable slowdown, first to die lasted through 700 TB of writes.

You don't even need a particularly large one to take advantage of ISR.  You do need to make sure your MB, CPU & SSD (Intel only I think) are all compatible with ISR to use it.  There's some other alternatives similar to ISR, but I'm not as familiar with them.  Or you can buy a hybrid drive, which should be similar in performance, but I haven't verified that with research.

On the HD front I'd agree to avoid Seagate.  I prefer WD, but didn't see any particular issues with Hitachi when we were using them at work.  WD has had a couple major blunders over the years with certain drives, but in general has been more reliable.

- Justisaur

On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 10:11:07 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<just...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 3:52:10 AM UTC-7, DMP wrote:
>> On 3/18/2015 7:40 PM, Ross Ridge wrote:
>> > Justisaur  <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Seriously, get an SSD.  It's amazing.  If you use Intel Smart Response you
>> >> don't need to worry about what you're putting where, and seems to be nearly
>> >> fast for most things.  It's not just for booting.  It's every time you load
>> >> anything.  It's not just a little improvement, it's like night and day.
>> >> I'd skimp on anything else to get an SSD.
>> > I wouldn't necessarily skimp on everything else, but yah an SSD makes a
>> > big difference in the overall performance of the PC.  Nothing else make
>> > your PC seem faster.  You can get an hard disk as well to keep the price
>> > down while still giving you a lot of storage for bulk things like photos
>> > and videos.
>> >
>> > 						Ross Ridge
>> >
>> Rin mentioned that the SSD's get slower with time due to "the number of 
>> writes that slowly damage the memory over time". I didn't want to get in 
>> a situation like I had three computers ago. I got a custom built job 
>> that came with two IBM "Deathstars" both of which failed. My bad for not 
>> doing the research then. I do hold on to my systems for a goodly amount 
>> of time, so reliability and longevity are important. The only thing I've 
>> ever had failed were disk drives, two IBM's and a Seagate
>> 
>> I am not familiar with Intel Smart Response, but will familiarize myself 
>> with it before any ordering takes place.
>> 
>> I have confidence in the builder and they will tell me what their 
>> experience has been with SSD v. mechanical particularly with their 
>> gaming towers. There isn't much difference in the cost of an  250 gb SSD 
>> and 1TB WD Black. There also must be a reason why most of the gaming 
>> computer builders are adding SSD's to their configurations. The smaller 
>> SSD's are getting to be close in price to the larger mechs.
>> 
>> I appreciate all the help and suggestions. Thanks again.
>>
>
>SSD Endurance Experiment:
>
>http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/03/12/184222/endurance-experiment-kills-six-ssds-over-18-months-24-petabytes
>
>No noticeable slowdown, first to die lasted through 700 TB of writes.
>
>You don't even need a particularly large one to take advantage of ISR.  You do need to make sure your MB, CPU & SSD (Intel only I think) are all compatible with ISR to use it.  There's some other alternatives similar to ISR, but I'm not as familiar with them.  Or you can buy a hybrid drive, which should be similar in performance, but I haven't verified that with research.
>
>On the HD front I'd agree to avoid Seagate.  I prefer WD, but didn't see any particular issues with Hitachi when we were using them at work.  WD has had a couple major blunders over the years with certain drives, but in general has been more reliable.
>
>- Justisaur


I'd encourage anyone interested in the subject of SSD performance
diminishing over time to do their own research here, using multiple
sources.  Some of the issue can be mitigated by simply getting a
larger than necessary SSD, but then the price premium becomes a
deterrent for many gaming rigs.

I just can't recommend a 250GB primary SSD drives if the goal is
gaming performance, particularly since after the OS and application
files use the space they need, there wouldn't be a lot of space left
for games on that drive anyway.  A 250GB SSD would be my hardware
choice for a typical laptop.

DMP  <nom...@nodomain.com> wrote:
>Rin mentioned that the SSD's get slower with time due to "the number of 
>writes that slowly damage the memory over time". I didn't want to get in 
>a situation like I had three computers ago. I got a custom built job 
>that came with two IBM "Deathstars" both of which failed. My bad for not 
>doing the research then. I do hold on to my systems for a goodly amount 
>of time, so reliability and longevity are important. The only thing I've 
>ever had failed were disk drives, two IBM's and a Seagate

In theory SSDs should be more reliable than hard drives, but I think
in practice they end up being roughly the same.  The slow down doesn't
occur directly because of damage, but more because of what SSDs do to
avoid damage.  Individual flash memory cells wear out pretty quickly,
with current flash densities it only takes a few thousands writes to a
cell before it stops working.  In the context of an SSD this is both way
more endurance than you need, or way less depending on how you look at it.

In the best case if you were to able exploit every flash cell in the SSD
to its fullest this would means you could write hundreds of terabytes of
data to the drive before single flash cell died.  To do this your writes
would have to spread out evenly across the drive.  In the worst case,
if all your writes were to same place on the SSD, it would take only a
few thousand kilobytes before it wore out in that place.

Normal hard disk usage doesn't spread out writes evenly across the disk.
Writes will end up being concentrated in certain places on the disk so
SSDs have to work differently than hard drives to prevent premature
failure.  The key thing they do is something called wear levelling.
When told to make repeated writes to the same area on disk they internally
remap the writes to different areas in flash memory to spread them
out.  For this to work well the SSD needs to use unused flash memory.
While SSDs keep a small amount of their flash memory reserved for wear
leveling and other purposes, they mostly rely on using unused disk space.

With older SSDs and older operating systems the SSD had only one way
knowing whether disk space was unsed or not.  If a part of the disk was
never written to it knew it was unsed.  Unfortunately this means that
when you delete a file the SSD wouldn't know that the space it took up
was no longer in use.  That space had beeen previously written to, so
the SSD would have to assume it was still in use.  This would mean as
far the SSD was concerned the drive would eventually fill up and there
would be no unsed space to use for wear leveling and certain performance
gains that go along with it.

With newer SSDs and new operating systems there's now another way the
SSD can no what space isn't used.  This is new command called "TRIM"
that can be sent to the SSD by the operating system to inform the SSD
about ares of the disk that are no longer being used.  So now when you
delete a file the OS will send the TRIM command to let the drive know
that space taken up by the file is no longer in use.  This means SSDs
don't slow down anywhere near as much as they used to.

(Note that most of the slow down actually comes a from an issue call
write amplification, where small disk writes end turning into large
flash writes because of the way flash memory works.  The techniques used
for wear leveling also help reduce the effect of write amplification,
so I've basically conflated the two above.)

Finally SSDs use sophisticated error correction schemes so that even
when a flash memory cell does go bad you won't lose data.  The SSD is
able detect the error, correct it and move the data to another area in
flash memory. Hard disks do the same thing, as while they don't wear
out anywhere near as quickly, a small amount of damage is pretty much
inevitable even with a drive that's working normally.

>I have confidence in the builder and they will tell me what their 
>experience has been with SSD v. mechanical particularly with their 
>gaming towers. There isn't much difference in the cost of an  250 gb SSD 
>and 1TB WD Black. There also must be a reason why most of the gaming 
>computer builders are adding SSD's to their configurations. The smaller 
>SSD's are getting to be close in price to the larger mechs.

I doubt your builder would recommend not getting an SSD.  These days
they belong in any but the most budget concious PCs.  I even put one in
my Mom's 5 year old PC that she just uses for e-mail and web browsing.
It makes a big difference even for that.

Also remember smartphones and tablets all use flash memory for storage. If
you have one of those you're already effectively using an SSD.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On 3/19/2015 7:39 PM, Ross Ridge wrote:
> I doubt your builder would recommend not getting an SSD. These days 
> they belong in any but the most budget concious PCs. I even put one in 
> my Mom's 5 year old PC that she just uses for e-mail and web browsing. 
> It makes a big difference even for that. Also remember smartphones and 
> tablets all use flash memory for storage. If you have one of those 
> you're already effectively using an SSD. Ross Ridge 

Thank you so much for the time you took with my questions. It's very 
much appreciated.

D.

On 3/19/2015 2:19 PM, Rin Stowleigh wrote:
> I'd encourage anyone interested in the subject of SSD performance 
> diminishing over time to do their own research here, using multiple 
> sources. Some of the issue can be mitigated by simply getting a larger 
> than necessary SSD, but then the price premium becomes a deterrent for 
> many gaming rigs. I just can't recommend a 250GB primary SSD drives if 
> the goal is gaming performance, particularly since after the OS and 
> application files use the space they need, there wouldn't be a lot of 
> space left for games on that drive anyway. A 250GB SSD would be my 
> hardware choice for a typical laptop. 


Thanks for the several posts that were very helpful to me. I knew I 
could rely on the gamers here.

D.

In article <me3v83$kpu$1...@dont-email.me>, nom...@nodomain.com says...
> 
> Getting ready to config a new PC.
> 
> Torn between the Z97 4790K or one of the X99 series; I've done some 
> reading and think I don't require an X99 because I don't intend on 
> running multiple video cards and think 4790K will be all I'll need.
> 
> The other issue then becomes the videocard..willing to get a 980, but 
> not sure I need that either; can save a few dollars with a 960 or 970 
> oc'd version.
> 
> More a crpg player than anything else. Thanks
> 
> D.

I am going to pass on my 1155 mobo and cpu to my wife soon, because she 
NEEDS an upgrade to her 10+ years old box. But I'm going to hold off 
until the 1151 motherboards come out, and get a Skylake cpu. It should 
not be more than another 6 months on the outside. Worth waiting for, I 
think, because of the 'future proofing' aspect of maybe still getting 
parts for 2-3 years after <grins>.

My GTX 780 is a BEAST. I get framerates around 80-100 in my more 
demanding games (but then I am not a twitchy fps player). Certainly more 
than I need because its performance way outstrips what data can come 
down my ADSL1 broadband .. I don't think you have to worry about 
anything/model that comes after unless there are particular problems 
with one chip or model (like stuttering pointed out by others in the 
thread). I think high end (but not bleeding edge!) video cards have a 
pretty good half-life if you don't let the marketing hype get to you.

-P.

On 4/15/2015 6:43 PM, Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <me3v83$kpu$1...@dont-email.me>, nom...@nodomain.com says...
>> Getting ready to config a new PC.
>>
>> Torn between the Z97 4790K or one of the X99 series; I've done some
>> reading and think I don't require an X99 because I don't intend on
>> running multiple video cards and think 4790K will be all I'll need.
>>
>> The other issue then becomes the videocard..willing to get a 980, but
>> not sure I need that either; can save a few dollars with a 960 or 970
>> oc'd version.
>>
>> More a crpg player than anything else. Thanks
>>
>> D.
> I am going to pass on my 1155 mobo and cpu to my wife soon, because she
> NEEDS an upgrade to her 10+ years old box. But I'm going to hold off
> until the 1151 motherboards come out, and get a Skylake cpu. It should
> not be more than another 6 months on the outside. Worth waiting for, I
> think, because of the 'future proofing' aspect of maybe still getting
> parts for 2-3 years after <grins>.
>
> My GTX 780 is a BEAST. I get framerates around 80-100 in my more
> demanding games (but then I am not a twitchy fps player). Certainly more
> than I need because its performance way outstrips what data can come
> down my ADSL1 broadband .. I don't think you have to worry about
> anything/model that comes after unless there are particular problems
> with one chip or model (like stuttering pointed out by others in the
> thread). I think high end (but not bleeding edge!) video cards have a
> pretty good half-life if you don't let the marketing hype get to you.
>
> -P.

This is the deal---I've asked my spouse who's good with hardware to 
build my gaming PC, so I've upped the ante and the cost somewhat to eat 
up the few dollars I might have saved.

I've decided to go the x99 route with an i7 5930 and GeForce GTX 980 
sc/ac, 16 mb of gskill ripjaws 3000MHz ram; corsair hx850i PSU; Corsair 
h100i cooler; SSD, maybe 1TB (haven't decided) or 512gb; 2 tb WDBlack; 
optical reader/writer; card reader; and Asrock x99 extreme 4 or 6. I 
chose Asrock because many years ago, I bought an Asrock mobo because it 
had a connection for both AGP & PCI videocards and I didn't know which 
one I was going to upgrade to. Actually at the time, I didn't know this 
diff between the two. ;-) That motherboard has functioned flawlessly and 
as a matter of fact still is. I also took a look a their BIOS setup on 
youtube which for me is scary territory. It looked uncluttered & almost 
something I could understand. I just haven't selected a case 
though......Corsair 760T; Phentek Enthoo Pro or InWin GRone; add a bunch 
of hi-speed  blue LED 120's & 140's. All this shiny new s**t on my 
Samsung UHD and I will be in crpg gaming heaven(assuming the thing boots 
up when my genius is done)

D.