Computer upgrade time! SSD advice?
polycounter lvl 17
Hey guys! I'm spending my meagre tax return on upgrading my computer this year. I know there's a ton of good knowledge here on polycount, so I thought i'd ask around before I started buying parts. I have an approximately 700$ budget. My primary goal is chewing through gigantic canvases in photoshop like they're nothing. My secondary goal is games, I guess.
Any advice? I'm primarily seeking input about the SSD, I don't know much about them.
I'm most interested in buying:
- Win7 for a 64bit os
- Solid State hard drive to run my os, photoshop and maybe steam off of
- Maybe a bit more ram
- If i can afford it, a decent monitor!
- If POSSIBLE, a processor upgrade
- if POSSIBLE, an affordable videocard upgrade.
My current setup is:
- Processor: Amd Athlon x2 4200+ 64bit
- MotherBoard: ASUS A8M2N-LA NODUSM3 1.05 (?) A8M2N-LA
- Memory: 3gb ddr2 (1x 1gb, 1x 1gb sticks)
- Video: Nvidia Geforce GT 240
Any advice? I'm primarily seeking input about the SSD, I don't know much about them.
Replies
i've currently got all my my apps and os installed since the drive is only 60gb, then i've got a larger hd for storage and games. Honestly if you can hold out a bit longer i think you'l see massive savings on larger SSD's, I bought the 60gb back in november for 120, now i'm seeing double the size for the same price
Upgrading to 8GB is a good idea too, esp if you're going to win7 64 bit. I would do SSD+Win7+new ram as a "quick fix" but you're still going to be looking at a major upgrade soon.
I would not recommend upgrading your CPU with that motherboard, you'll pay too much for virtually no gain, you're much better off putting that money into new CPU/Mobo/Ram. Your 4200+ is a seriously old and slow CPU, and your motherboard limits you to slim options. The best you could do is gain about 10% by buying an AMD 5000+ which is ~$100 on ebay.
A much better idea would be to get something like the $200 Intel I5, a $75-100-ish motherboard, and 8GB of ram for $40. The I5 2500 is roughly 6x faster than your current CPU. Even a cheap $120 I3-2120 would be a significant upgrade at ~4x faster(I have a similar i3 in my laptop that is crazy fast).
So lets say:
Intel I5 2500 $200
Basic Intel 1155 motherboard $75
8gb(2x4) DDR3 1333mhz ram $40
120gb SSD $150
Win7 pro 64 bit OEM "system builder" edition $140
That puts you at $575, with $125 left over to buy a new video card(240gt ewwww) or to put towards a monitor like a dell 23" e-IPS $2-300.
In general, you're going to see a much bigger boost by getting a recent CPU than with an SSD. So that should be #1 on your list.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/ECS-Socket-Intel-Motherboard-H61H2-M3/dp/B004VREPL8/ref=sr_1_36?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1328390978&sr=1-36"]Amazon.com: ECS Socket 1155/ Intel H61/ DDR3/ A&GbE/ MATX Motherboard, H61H2-M3: Computers & Accessories[/ame] Anything glaringly wrong with this?
replaced my failed WD Caviar black...
as for mobo's I usually just go w/ the cheaper ASUS boards. only one steered me wrong, and that was 6 years ago. (I would just make sure it supports enough ram that I plan on using)
I use a 120gb HD and I sometimes go out of disk space. With 60gb you will go out of disk space very quickly if you plan on using large images in photoshop and install many programs. I keep my games on a different hard drive though.
These guys where great for me. Their overclocked bundles are absolutely awesome.
I think the best bang for buck mother board at the moment is the Asrock Z68 Extreme 7 gen 3, though i am far from knowledgeable in this area. I am just going off what info i find online and what they sell for.
Also regarding the SSD. They are mega expensive at the moment, I went for a 120gb OCZ Sata 3 it cost me around 125 quid including delivery. That was the cheapest I could find at the moment.
Although it was expensive the performance boost is amazing, my machine turns on and powers down now in under 7 seconds, programs open almost instantly. As long as you keep tabs on what you save on this drive and keep some larger HDD drives for main storage an SSD is probably the best system upgrade atm other than a video card.
the main appeal of the ssd for me was speed and no moving parts, but these hybrids are really cheap.
Dont get any SSD with a sandforce controller right now. Bound to give you trouble and BSODs.
I don't know about that, I'm doing fine with my vertex 3. There was some firmware issue when they just came out but I got mine after all of that was resolved.
The Crucial M4s recently had a firmware fix for some issues they had been having.
The newer gen intels haven't had any issues I know of besides not really being able to surpass speeds of previous gen drives.
Bar none sandforce 2XXX controllers are the fastest out there now, I know people have issues with OCZ support and quality control, but there are plenty of other ssd makers worth looking at that use sandforce controllers and offer good support for them.
Ended up with about 100 left over, saving up for monitors/video card.
I dumped more money into the SSD in my new rig when I got it in March than I did into RAM. I can add more RAM later... the SSD is worth its weight in gold.
Cool, what did you end up getting?
In response to your previous Q about micro-ATX: IMO, MATX is great, we're long removed from the days when we needed lots of expansion ports for audio, ethernet, wifi, extra usbs, etc etc, this stuff all comes standard with a micro-atx board, hell many even support SLI.
The two biggest things you need to watch out for with MATX boards are:
1. Does it support enough ram?
2. Will your video card block your sata ports?
MATX allows you to have a more reasonable computer case too, you don't need one of those server-sized full towers that have slots for 12 drive bays.
Hehe, I would hope so, ram is dirt cheap!
While SSD's are still expensive when you look at dollar:gb, the cost of SSDs is constantly going down, and the recent flooding in Thailand ran standard HDD cost through the roof.
The last time I looked at a HDDs newegg was selling 1TB drives for $200 and 320gb for $100! About 6 months ago I bought a 1TB drive for $60!!! So yeah, the cost difference isn't so bad these days when we consider the performance of SSDs. That was about a month ago when I was doing a build for a family member, it seems the prices have stabilized a bit, but are still higher than they were.
I was highly tempted to -- and still might -- double the ram, but ram's cheap and money's tight, I can always buy it later. Since i do 99% 2d art and never for print or anything I don't think i'm gonna use all 8 gigs very often. We'll see! Probably should save up for monitors or a graphics card instead.
Lately I am having SERIOUS Issues keeping space open on this drive.
- Windows Updates/Service packs keep filling up space.... so ill clear my temp folder-empty the recycle bin all that jazz and then not two second later I have LITERALLY 0 Kb of free space and I can't even run any programs at that point because there's no cache space.
even though all my programs are installed on a slave drive - Windows 7 still puts large files onto the main windows drive through the ProgramData and App Data folders
(I've had to simply delete some things out of there to get enough space to use my computer and I think I've corrupted my install of AVG in the process)
soo... I'm sure with 120Gigs you wont run into these problems AS soon... but the potential is there they will become an issue eventually.
Files like movies/music/projects are no problem to keep elsewhere and mind you 120 is 4x what I have so I might just be overemphasizing the issue
I had a 60gig OCZ agility 3 for windows and maya and stuff, and a 120 gig for games. on the weekend, i noticed my windows one was near full, same with the games, so i reformatted the 120gig, took out the 60 gig, installed all my main programs on the 120, and picked up a 2TB hhd for my games. Since then, the only issues ive had was firefox freezes ALOT. like, to the point wher ei cant even ctrl alt delete to close it. i can still click on the start menu and all that. So i ditched firefox and havent had issues since. its only been a day though. so who knows. My buddy had lots of issues with firefox as well when he got new mobo, as well.
i dunno. for a new computer, too many issues.
QFT
I have an 80gb SSD and it's always almost filled to capacity - I really need 40 more gigs. I'm probably going to upgrade to a 120, keep my 80 as work drive and get a TB drive when the price for disc drives go down.
0_0 - how do you manage!? Every time I upgrade, I end up picking up at least double the storage space of my previous machine (because my previous machines drives were reaching capacity).
Every time I end up almost filling it within around 18 months. I'm currently running 1.5Tb, but still have over 900Gb filled. Do you store things like your libraries on external disks or something?
I have just never had trouble with it. My disk hovers with 10-20 gb free at all times, and i uninstall games if i need more space.
Save less HD porn!
Some of the projects I have on my machine are larger than 60Gb, I don't get how you do it
ninja edit: whoops hit edit instead of quote
Its simple, while working on X psd or Z mudbox file, keep those assets on SSD. When asset is finished/approved, move into "project" folder.
This can get messy if you need everything within a folder structure, but even then you can simply export your game-res assets to that folder structure.
A ssd probably isn't a big deal for loading up tga files, but if you've got hundred MB+ psds/sculpts/etc it can make a difference.
so funny story, I came back from a break this afternoon to nif my hard-drive crashing on windows load with a
0xc000000e Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.
after repairing/messing with BCD edit. I tried putting the drive into another computer to see if it would even read.
couldn't get it to work and after putting it back into my computer it now will not even show up in bios.
I think the I angered the HDD gods by talking smack on it. (also 2Cats comments probably had something to do with it)
soooo, anyone feel like recommending a good replacement for roughly 150?
Costs more ( not much more ) than other 6Gb/s Sandforce SSD's but the intensively developed Cherryville firmware/drivers are an Intel exclusive. ( Intel pushed this release back a year?! to make sure all the bugs suffered by other manufacturers were all squashed supposedly! )
However according to Anandtech...
Intel will only reap the exclusive benefits of it's Sandforce partnership/development for a short period. Between discovering what cheaper drives will actually benefit and what technology develops now that Sandforce has been bought by LSI.
I am going to wait to see what develops.
Since the Thailand Flooding induced Hard Drive price increases...
SSD adoption and SSD price drops appear steadily. And there is a lot of different exciting development going on like the Hybrid solutions. I have enough reliable crucials to wait fer the next big thing to release cheaper.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce
Another great Alternative...
Alot of Crucial 6Gb/s fans would argue that Crucial's proprietary hardware/driver strategies are also incredibly reliable at a great price. Particularly if you are raiding anyway. For awhile the c300 appeared again at a cheap price but availability and price have left the m4 as the real option again.
http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/intel-series-520-240gb-6gbps-ssd-review-round-1-intel-releases-amazing-sandforce-driven-ssd/ 5 year warranty on an SSD? :-)
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=850&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=10
They sound like they approve?
First thing I noticed after installing windows was that it booted like... in literally One second.
my old drive took as long/longer than with an old HDD
Also, if you have installed an SSD, do 3d modeling apps like 3ds max or zbrush feel any snapier, not just cold starts, but actual use?
Now I have to learn to conserve space.
i've got a 60g vertex 3 and the biggest space saving i've done was remove the hybernate mode (if your on win7) that saved me about 9gb, and also reducing my virtual memory if you have sufficient ram
Btw, I read some reviews and people are saying they got blue death screens and the SSD crashed after a few months (Vertex 3). Any word on this?
Edit; looks like I might be exchanging the Vertex for a M4.
[ame="
I have the Intel SSD 320 series and I am happy with it.
As long as the workstation isn't running out of memory it shouldn't have to use the hdd as a scratchdisk and thus saving the render can be done when it's finished as to not slow down the rendering process.
Highpoint aggressively carves an affordability niche for those suffering first gen marvel x58 woe.
The newest highpoint driver is now benching at many specifications at over 50% over the last affordable version!
This cheap looking pcb costs only $160.
Although I am a loon and will still go for the next gen cache optimized LSI $$$( lots of dizzying tech in the werks at their mad scientest labs ) The SSD Review guys seem to be having a lot of fun with big bench numbers on this cheap looking toy!
http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/highpoint-2720sgl-rocketraid-controller-review-amazing-3gbs-recorded-with-8-crucial-c400-ssds/
With only three of the new intel 520s...
they are getting 1.5GB/s
I don't think a year ago, I would have believed you could get that kind of speed unless you were using a $700 LSI/ARECA. Certainly not with 3 cards.
The Highpoint does not have any cache optimization though ( beside what may be on the ssd itself ) Not sure under what circumstances that would effect those results.
They reported no heat problems with the Highpoint.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/m4-ssd-capacity-comparison,2957.html
They come to the conclusion that 128 gigs represents a sweet spot for price concerns.
When I chose 256 gig model over 128 gig crucial c300. There was a signifigant difference in speed. ( the article does mention newer scaling tech? )
Anandtech has a nice web based ssd comparison tool for u to research models and sizes of interest.
The following is a comparison of the aformentioned difference between Crucials 256 gb and 128 gb c300 models:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/419?vs=381
The tool is kept up to date with the newest models. The following shows the new intel 520 kicking the ass of my crucial c300 ( same 256 gb size @ 6Gb/s ):
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/419?vs=529
Just fill in the models yer interested in using the dropdown menus.