OT: PC Gaming Hardware Thread

[dbdynsty25]

I've had a few ssds and the easiest one I've used is the crucial m4...been around for a while...not completely the fastest out there but it's extremely reliable. 256gb is less than 250 bucks now so it's worth it. I just upgraded a mushkin chronos 120gb because I was getting a little light on space and the crucial is quite a bit faster even though the specs are similar. Those damn sata controllers really make a difference.

[MizzouRah]

I bought the Kingston 120 SSDNow V200 bundle for $169 and free shipping. Comes with everything I need to install into my desktop pc and has cloning software that seems to be super easy to get everything from my SATA HD over to it and then booting from it.

Should be here on Friday, so we will see how it goes. Hopefully all goes well, then I can format the old HD and use it for pictures and music. I'm assuming I can then Windows image back it up once a week like I do now and then just need to manually backup my pics and music once every few weeks.

I don't play any big time games, mostly use my pc for internet, documents, email and text sims. Hopefully there is a noticeable difference.

[Rodster]

Just picked up a monster Antec PSU 750W with 120amps for $65 from Newegg after a 15% off promo and $15 MIR. I'm also going with the i7-3770K once Newegg restocks the item. I'm leaning with an Intel Ivy Bridge mobo.

[dbdynsty25]

You do know you'll never exceed 500watts right? Unless you're going SLI/Crossfire with like 3 or 4 cards, anything over 6 or so is excessive. Just an FYI to anyone else upgrading. LOL.

[Rodster]

Well I know my current PSU which is a 500W 42 amp PSU doesn't have the amps to run two cards. It barely runs my 6870 and that's only because it requires lower power than a 560 Ti.

I do plan on going with 2 cards an ATI and Nivida 9800GTX for PhysX. But yeah it will be hard to push that Antec PSU and for $65 for that part it'ss not a bad upgrade.

[MizzouRah]

Couldn't be more happier, excellent job by Kingston with their 120 GB SSD kit. It was a snap to install, clone my HD and have it up and running.. took about 30 mins in all and I absolutely love the speed.

My HD WEI rating went from a 5.4 to a 7.6 and I can definitely tell startup/shutdown major increases as well as games like OOTP and DDSPB 3 run much faster now.

Very happy!

[dbdynsty25]

Exactly...SSD...the way to go no matter what if you can afford ONE upgrade on your computer. I initially did it on my macbook 13" a few years ago and I was sold on the performance gain so I upgraded all of my PCs and laptops in my household. LOL...so now I do run anything on platters.

Now if I could only decide on a damn mechanical keyboard. I've got three different ones in my office at the moment, each with a different type of switch and I just cannot decide which I like best. Trust me...don't start looking at mechanical gaming keyboards...you'll go nuts with all of the info out there on a market that I just didn't think existed before about two weeks ago. Insane.

[MizzouRah]

Being in the IT field.. when SSD really hits its stride, our company might be in trouble. Half of my work involves replacing laptop HD's and reimaging.

Have you ever seen one fail yet db? I'm wondering a good average lifespan of one of these? It's just so cool to turn on my pc and in about 15-20 seconds I can log into windows and a few seconds after that, I'm surfing the web. I used to turn on my pc and then get some coffee.

[dbdynsty25]

Oh yeah they fail...so don't worry about the job security.

The lifespan inevitably should be longer than that of a platter drive, but they are a lot more sensitive to the controller and motherboard issues it seems. It's gonna be a while before solid state is mainstream because it's an area where pc manufacturers can cut costs considerably as regular drives keep going down in price. We've got years still.

[MizzouRah]

Oh yeah they fail...so don't worry about the job security.

The lifespan inevitably should be longer than that of a platter drive, but they are a lot more sensitive to the controller and motherboard issues it seems. It's gonna be a while before solid state is mainstream because it's an area where pc manufacturers can cut costs considerably as regular drives keep going down in price. We've got years still.

I would assume when an SSD goes down, data is gone for good? Unlike typical HD's where you at least have a fighting chance of recovering data.

My bootup speed really has me all giddy.

[dbdynsty25]

I would assume when an SSD goes down, data is gone for good? Unlike typical HD's where you at least have a fighting chance of recovering data.

That is pretty much correct. There's a very slight chance of recovery, but not like a platter. Which is why I'm not all that disappointed in the smaller size. I don't keep anything critical on my boot drive and everything is reduntantly backed up on multiple platter HDs. Better safe than sorry.

[MizzouRah]

I would assume when an SSD goes down, data is gone for good? Unlike typical HD's where you at least have a fighting chance of recovering data.

That is pretty much correct. There's a very slight chance of recovery, but not like a platter. Which is why I'm not all that disappointed in the smaller size. I don't keep anything critical on my boot drive and everything is reduntantly backed up on multiple platter HDs. Better safe than sorry.

I back up every Saturday morning and have moved my itunes and pictures to my old internal HD, so no worries here.

[MizzouRah]

You might know this stuff db, but this article has some things you can do to extend the life of your SSD: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-200 ... ate-drive/

[dbdynsty25]

You might know this stuff db, but this article has some things you can do to extend the life of your SSD: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-200 ... ate-drive/

Yup certainly do but it's good for those of you in the thread who have no idea about ssds, lol. Good link and it's pretty well laid out.

[MizzouRah]

You might know this stuff db, but this article has some things you can do to extend the life of your SSD: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-200 ... ate-drive/

Yup certainly do but it's good for those of you in the thread who have no idea about ssds, lol. Good link and it's pretty well laid out.

I didn't know I should put the page file on my secondary HD.

[dbdynsty25]

Everyone has been warned...do not start researching mechanical keyboards. These f'ers have consumed my life for the past two weeks and I've tried and returned about five of them so far. They are so damn nice it's just a matter of finding the right board with the right switches. Just check out geekhack.org and you'll see what I mean. There are some hard core enthusiasts out there...modifying key caps and all that crap. It's pretty insane. I had zero idea that people were so passionate about their keyboards. You've been warned.

[fsquid]

Is this one ok for running Football Manager, NBA 2K13, and Pro Evo Soccer? Will have a docking station for when I play the later two games.

Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3612QM (2.1 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
Graphics card NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 630M Graphics with 1GB of dedicated video memory
Memory 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
Hard drive 750GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
Hard Drive Acceleration Cache NO mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
Primary battery 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery edit
Display 17.3-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1600 x 900)

[dbdynsty25]

Good luck with NBA 2k13...they do a terrible job of optimizing. My uber rig can barely play 2K12 a normal resolutions and textures. It's pretty rough. That video card in that laptop may struggle. The rest of the game should be fine tho.

[fsquid]

so upgrade the graphics card to 2GB?

[dbdynsty25]

so upgrade the graphics card to 2GB?

It's not going to matter in a laptop that isn't specifically made for gaming. Just saying NBA 2k is not optimized for PC use...you'll just have to tone down the graphic detail and resolution. 2gb of ram on the card certainly won't hurt however.

[fsquid]

so I should look for a "gaming laptop"? My wife doesn't want the big CPU sitting in the study anymore, she wants to go laptop. So, I'm looking for a happy medium

[dougb]

I recently picked an Asus G75 laptop with Db's assistance and have to say I'm extremely pleased with it. Now this is a fairly pricey laptop and my thought puchasing it was that I was looking for really good performance today with the ability to stretch its usefulness for 2-5 years. I have a feeling that within the next couple of years we may see the end of pc's as tablets increase in performance. So this will likely be the last generation of pc that I end up getting.

Few thoughts on the G75.

- very fast, has a 3 Gb Geforce 670 M graphics card.
- love the 256 GB ssd - thing boots up very quickly. loading of MS Office is insanely fast.
- very nice keyboard - hadn't liked the look of earlier ROG Asus laptops but the keyboard on this one is very nice.
- not sure the speakers in the laptop are as good as I'd like them to be.
- Playing graphics intensive games on this thing while not plugged in would be a problem - battery life before recharging is pretty short when running full performance.
- would have preferred the ports on the left hand side of the machine with the blue ray on the right side but maybe that's just me.

Doug

[fsquid]

what were your specs? My company has a deal through HP and Dell, so I'd like to use that if possible. Usually get about 30% off which is a decent chunk of change.

[dougb]

what were your specs? My company has a deal through HP and Dell, so I'd like to use that if possible. Usually get about 30% off which is a decent chunk of change.

Intel I7-3610QM 2.3 GHz
16 GB Ram
256 GB SSD
750 GB 7200 HDD
17 inch wide screen 1920x1080
4 USB ports (USB 3x2)
HDMI and mini graphics port and VGA
Blue Ray Drive
Windows Home premium 64 bit
memory card reader, mic and headphone jacks

Doug

[Rodster]

Does anyone make a gaming laptop with upgradable GPU's? I checked Sager/Clevo and Alienware and no mention of upgrading the GPU. I would love to get a gaming laptop but without being able to upgrade the GPU, I view it more as an expensive console.