New computer build stories
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Well, my new computer build has shipping confirmation on almost everything... as threatened in the status thread, I figured I could channel a bit of my inner narcissist and post about how awesome my computer is going to be...
Case: Corsair Graphite 230T - Black/Red
Mainboard: MSI Z170A Krait Gaming
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K
Cooling: Corsair H60 water cooler
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2133 (CL 13)
HDD: 240GB Intel 535 SSD + 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM
VGA: HIS Radeon R9 390 1020MHz 8GB
Power: Thermaltake SMART M 850W (modular, 80 PLUS bronze)Pictures to come as things dribble in over the next week. If UPS meets their normal deadlines, I should have it up and running by next Wednesday (hopefully). Assuming I didn't spike the football too early; the vendor I ordered the CPU through is showing Out of Stock now and hasn't given me a shipping confirm yet.
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Why'd you go with a 240 GB SSD and not a 512?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W02DV8166
You're gonna spent a lot of time sorting through files and uninstalling shit to keep your computer tidy.
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Unless he plans to install stuff to his cavernous 2TB HDD.
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It's a gaming PC; he'll want the games at least on the SSD.
World of Warcraft is up to like a 40 GB install. Titanfall and Evolve are in the same neighborhood. That's a fifth of his drive for just a single modern game.
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I agree that would make the most sense, but it's the only idea I could come up with given the specs he gave. If he is planning on installing games to the HDD, he should have picked one with higher RPMs.
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He doesn't want to install the video games to a spinning HD, or there's basically zero benefit to even owning a SSD. Except slightly faster boot time.
He also WAY overbought on RAM, unless he's planning on running VMs. (Which would not be typical of a gaming PC. But who knows.) 16 would have been more than enough.
At least the case isn't uggo. I don't like having windows in my cases, but.
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He doesn't want to install the video games to a spinning HD, or there's basically zero benefit to even owning a SSD. Except slightly faster boot time.
Yeah, for a gaming rig he should have foregone the spinner and spent more cash on the SSD. 1TB SSDs are available for around $300 now. By skipping the spinner and cutting back on the RAM to a level more reasonable for a gaming rig, he probably could have kept the budget about the same.
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World of Warcraft is up to like a 40 GB install.
Does it make that much difference (this game in particular) on SSD vs (say) a WD Black? I am not going to find 40GB on my 120GB SSD but I suppose I could get a newer/bigger/not defective-and-not-going-to-be-fixed one.
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He also WAY overbought on RAM
2133 seems kind of slow, but either Tom's Hardware or Anandtech just did a comparison and if you're not running on integrated graphics there doesn't seem to be much reason to use faster stuff for gaming. ("Oh, look, Battlefield 4 or whatever is 5% faster framerate with 3200!" What they don't tell you is that's a 2fps delta. Who cares?)
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Does it make that much difference (this game in particular) on SSD vs (say) a WD Black? I am not going to find 40GB on my 120GB SSD but I suppose I could get a newer/bigger/not defective-and-not-going-to-be-fixed one.
Blacks are generally 7200, right? There can be a noticeable difference in loading time between a 7200 HDD and a SSD.
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Does it make that much difference (this game in particular) on SSD vs (say) a WD Black?
Jesus you pedantic dickweeds. With how WOW streams in data, maybe not.
BUT EVOLVE AND TITANFALL ARE ROUGHLY THE SAME SIZE OR BIGGER so HEY LOOK I already proved my point using other, better examples and your post is just pointless pedantic dickweedery. Go away.
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Yeah, I do plan to install games and such to the SSD; use the spinner for media libraries and the like. My current system has about 180GB of storage in use for the system files and the games I have installed (including some older games I don't really play any more, closer to 120GB of current stuff) plus a spinner for media libraries and the like.
I debated getting the Intel 480GB but cheaped out a bit in the end. Ah well, gotta have some reason for buyer's remorse later I suppose.
The 2133MHz is the speed to match the stock QPI speed of the CPU (which I'm not planning to overclock at this point), and I went with the low-end water cooler partly because it was way easier to find water cooler reviews than fan reviews, and partly in hopes that keeping the ambient temperature of the case down will keep the temperature of video card lower for less than a full video card water cooling rig would.
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And yeah, I debated on the RAM too. Ultimately I decided to go for the "full enchilada" now because I do wind up doing generalist programming work and the like on my same computer, and I've always had trouble in the past adding new RAM to a PC - I find it can be difficult to match what you already have and hate the thought of throwing something out if I need to add more. :'(
Eh, at least I don't have a wireless network card to hold me back
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Ultimately I decided to go for the "full enchilada" now
But you didn't, your SSD is way far away from the "full enchilada". It's a taco platter at best.
because I do wind up doing generalist programming work and the like on my same computer,
Unless your generalist programming work involves running several VMs simultaneously, 32 GB is still overkill.
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Jesus you pedantic dickweeds. With how WOW streams in data, maybe not.
Die in a fire, Blakey. I have WoW, and not those other two games, and I was asking a serious question.
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inner narcissist and post about how awesome my computer is going to be...
That is oh so sad. Freud would like to have a word with you.
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I can one-up that.
Evil Within and GTA V are both 60GB or bigger.
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Fine, right, whatever. It's not a "how big is your game" competition, it's a "pointing out that that SSD is probably far too small to be suitable for a gaming PC" competition.
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@blakeyrat said:
World of Warcraft is up to like a 40 GB install.
Does it make that much difference (this game in particular) on SSD vs (say) a WD Black? I am not going to find 40GB on my 120GB SSD but I suppose I could get a newer/bigger/not defective-and-not-going-to-be-fixed one.
Yes. Loading times in WoW are an order of magnitude shorter when the game is installed on SSD. I expect the same from other games - WoW is the only game of that size which I was playing before I got an SSD.
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Fine, right, whatever. It's not a "how big is your game" competition,
Not now that you lost.
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Loading times in WoW are an order of magnitude shorter when the game is installed on SSD
Interesting. I've only got about 18GB free on my SSD, but it's one of those defective Samsung 840s so I guess I'll look into a larger one.
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Computer quality, imo, is pretty much the percentage of parts in/attached to your machine made by Corsair.
Still, I find it odd that you'd pick a GPU made by a company that hates computers, and hates drivers even more.
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He also WAY overbought on RAM, unless he's planning on running VMs. (Which would not be typical of a gaming PC. But who knows.) 16 would have been more than enough.
RAM is cheap. I always max out my boards when I build a machine as I don't like futzing around with upgrades later. Go big or go home.
1TB SSDs are available for around $300 now.
I am getting ready to order a few. I have some 240GB ones and they are just never enough, and I do not even game. I have to clean things up today as I am well under 10% free space on this machine again. Once again, go big or go home.
Media and such is stored on a Drobo, so I really have no need for large spinning drives in my workstations in order to store all of that stuff, and it is a hell of a lot more convenient to have access to all of that information from anywhere in the house.
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Computer quality, imo, is pretty much the percentage of parts in/attached to your machine made by Corsair.
Positive or negative?
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I'd say positive. They make nice things.
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Agreed. I have some of their SSDs. The only criticism I have of them is that the SSDs I purchased do not have TPM so there is no convenient way to use Bitlocker.
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The only criticism I have of them is that the SSDs I purchased do not have TPM so there is no convenient way to use Bitlocker.
Blinks I always thought the TPM was a CPU/mainboard feature...
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Blinks I always thought the TPM was a CPU/mainboard feature...
I think that both the motherboard and the hard drive have to support it?
I am sure that someone will be along momentarily to tell me what an idiot I am. I am also pretty sure I know who that someone will be.
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RAM is cheap. I always max out my boards when I build a machine as I don't like futzing around with upgrades later.
The point is, you don't need to make the upgrades later.
I am getting ready to order a few. I have some 240GB ones and they are just never enough, and I do not even game.
I'm getting by with my 512, but I'd really appreciate a 1 TB. Maybe in a few months.
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The point is, you don't need to make the upgrades later.
Time marches on, hardware requirements increase. Plus, in my case, I kind of do. I run a lot of VMs. I have not maxed out 32GB of RAM yet, but it could easily happen in the near future. Right now, with no VMs running Task Manager shows me as 6.4GB of RAM used and today I am just writing documentation.
Of course, I have one instance of Chrome consuming >500MB of RAM. Hmmmmm, I wonder which one that one is....
I'm getting by with my 512, but I'd really appreciate a 1 TB. Maybe in a few months.
I actually have two 240GB SSDs in this machine. I added a second one to hold dependencies for VS projects. I suppose those could be held on spinning rust, but it does seem to speed up build times considerably.
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Right now, with no VMs running Task Manager shows me as 6.4GB of RAM used and today I am just writing documentation.
There's used and there's used.
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Fair enough. A chunk of that is probably cache that could be released if needed. I CBA to find out how much of each kind. Lately though, I find 8GB to be bare minimum for those who multi-task.
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Lately though, I find 8GB to be bare minimum for those who multi-task.
I'd probably agree with that, but I'd also say barring special circumstances, there's no reason to buy more than 16 GB at this time, and probably anything over 8 will be wasted.
The question is, does adding more memory increase performance? Barring the special case of VMs (which are a special case because they "earmark" memory and basically remove all the memory manager's flexibility to deal with it), I'd say no.
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Barring the special case of VMs (which are a special case because they "earmark" memory and basically remove all the memory manager's flexibility to deal with it), I'd say no.
Not necessarily. VMWare Workstation only takes the memory that it needs. That VM is allotted 3GB and the entirety of VMWare Workstation is not using that much.
I could make it do so, but it is intelligent enough to manage itself that I have never needed to. If I were to really load the VM down, then you would see those figures rise. In this case I just fired it up to show some screenshots, so it is not doing anything at all.
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OK well that just proves my point more: you should have taken that RAM budget and allocated it into the SSD box.
Not "you" but the generic "you", meaning "whoever".
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OK well that just proves my point more: you should have taken that RAM budget and allocated it into the SSD box.
You missed something...
If I were to really load the VM down, then you would see those figures rise.
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No I didn't.
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Would RAM for VM-s really show here? With VirtualBox, RAM just disappears and is not visible as part of any process.
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You are correct, it does not show in task manager. It does show in Resource Monitor though. I have never noticed that behavior before.
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How Much RAM? 4GB vs. 8GB vs. 16GB Performance
Today's modern games and many productivity applications can consume 4GB on its own, so there's little argument for not going with 8GB. However, the need for 16GB...
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My work computer has 4gb of RAM and a 32bit installation of Windows 7. With the magic of paging and Windows 7 being a lot better at memory management than I expected, I never have problems, even while building our codebase. I actually once got about 95% commit charge, and still didn't notice any problems. Granted, the SSD helps with swapping quickly.
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That reminds me of when Jeff wrote about how 2 cores was enough for anyone. Which opinion lasted until he got a machine with more.
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Don't be an idiot.
I'm not saying "you'll never need more than 8 GB of RAM."
I'm saying, "for a gaming PC, you should prioritize SSD over RAM as long as you have at least 8 GB of RAM.
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I'm not saying "you'll never need more than 8 GB of RAM."
I never said you did. Neither did Jeff say that no one could find more than 2 cores useful.
That doesn't mean I can't be reminded of stuff that is similar.
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I'm saying, "for a gaming PC in the year 2015, you should prioritize SSD over RAM as long as you have at least 8 GB of RAM.
fixed.
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Granted, the SSD helps with swapping quickly.
That is probably why you don't hate it, I hate my work machine due to the swapping I have to do with those stats and a spinning rust HD.
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Regardless, my home tower has only 8gb of RAM, and I guarantee that they will never fill up completely, even while running VMs and gaming
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He also WAY overbought on RAM
Makes sense to do that early. By the time the industry has moved on enough that the RAM you already have isn't enough, RAM will have gone through a generation or two and the stuff you need to fit your mobo will be relatively rare and expensive.
