technology The Glorious PC master race thread

[long gone 8,929]

His is a Raedon card, I don't remember which(I think it's one of the upper-end HD series cards)

 

I'm afraid to push my 750ti because I can find no data on what's "stable" on it. 

Ohhhh. Wow, that's impressive for an AMD card.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

Money is just a number anyway.

 

This is a good deal, yes?

 

I'd rather have the Crucial 500 960GB or 550 1TB, but I'm almost certain this one is faster and the price just went down like $100 or $200. My only concern is the TLC's longevity and the lack of on-board capacitors. If power is interrupted during the write cycle, doesn't the data get corrupted or something?

Edited November 17, 2014 by Regulus

[Azure Envy 1,092]

This is a good deal, yes?

 

I'd rather have the Crucial 500 960GB or 550 1TB, but I'm almost certain this one is faster and the price just went down like $100 or $200. My only concern is the TLC's longevity and the lack of on-board capacitors. If power is interrupted during the write cycle, doesn't the data get corrupted or something?

 

I wouldn't worry too much about TLC longevity unless you plan to stick it in a server or something that deals with tons of writes.

 

It's a good price, $399. The lowest it's been on Amazon according to CamelCamelCamel was $379 in September.

 

As for the power loss protection you're talking about, to my knowledge only the Intel 730 SSD in the consumer space has in-flight data protection. The MX100's protection refers to data already written to flash. There was some controversy about that and what was written in the spec sheet, but honestly a feature like this isn't really commonplace for most consumer SSDs and the only reason the 730 has it is because its essentially a rebadged overclocked version of their datacenter drives. It also has a skull on it, because swag.

 

So long as you don't check 'Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on this device' nothing to worry about. It's off by default and even warns you in the option to not do it unless you have a battery backup.

 

Edit AGAIN: Sorry, you were talking about the M550. Looks like that one has a similar PLP to the 730. Never mind. All Crucial drives are the same.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Lunatic Envy

[long gone 8,929]

 

 

its essentially a rebadged overclocked version of their datacenter drives

 No wonder why Linus said it has "datacenter DNA" when he advertised that on his channel.

[Azure Envy 1,092]

 No wonder why Linus said it has "datacenter DNA" when he advertised that on his channel.

 

Funny you bring that up. I read that one of the reasons they put a skull on the drive was to deter IT managers from buying them over the much pricier datacenter drives because no self-respecting enterprise IT would buy drives with that tacky graphic on it.

 

A joke I'm sure, but there's some truth to it.

[long gone 8,929]

Funny you bring that up. I read that one of the reasons they put a skull on the drive was to deter IT managers from buying them over the much pricier datacenter drives because no self-respecting enterprise IT would buy drives with that tacky graphic on it.

 

A joke I'm sure, but there's some truth to it.

They shoulda covered it in LEDs. Ya know,

 

[Azure Envy 1,092]

They shoulda covered it in LEDs. Ya know,

 

It's probably why they're not selling as well as they could. LEDs make everything better.

 

[long gone 8,929]

It's probably why they're not selling as well as they could. LEDs make everything better.

 

Remember, the more LEDs it has, the higher the performance is.

[Azure Envy 1,092]

Remember, the more LEDs it has, the higher the performance is.

 

I couldn't remember if they were activity or usage. Both are stupid, but it turns out they were activity.

 

Hold on a sec, I gotta check if my RAM is being used.

 

That's a yes.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

That honestly looks kind of tacky and more like server/industrial parts than gaming RAM.  

 

I still like this stuff I picked out better:

 

 

Edited November 17, 2014 by Shoboni

[Plageius 263]

I ran into Shoboni's build on PCPartPicker on accident and realized he had the same monitor I was looking at, so how's the VN247 sho?

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

I ran into Shoboni's build on PCPartPicker on accident and realized he had the same monitor I was looking at, so how's the VN247 sho?

 

I've not had a problem with it, I bought it refurbished for $120 and it's actually even better than the one my 23" AIO had(it's not quite as bright, but the viewing angle seems to be better and the colors are more crisp and less washed out)

 

One thing to note is that(I think) it  only has HDMI, but mine came with a HDMI-to-Display-Port adapter. 

[Plageius 263]

I've not had a problem with it, I bought it refurbished for $120 and it's actually even better than the one my 23" AIO had(it's not quite as bright, but the viewing angle seems to be better and the colors are more crisp and less washed out)

 

One thing to note is that(I think) it  only has HDMI, but mine came with a HDMI-to-Display-Port adapter. 

No it has DVI as well, according to BBY.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

No it has DVI as well, according to BBY.

 

No(I was wrong to) it has HDMI and VGA(I just looked), but mine came with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter and hooked up that way the speakers somehow work as well(damn I'm good at getting my connection names mixed up)

 

It may only say that due to having said adapter, here's a picture of it's panel from Newegg:

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236307

 

 

Seems like BestBuy can't keep their shit straight, their site also lists some non-ti 750s as having 2GB of vram. 

Edited November 17, 2014 by Shoboni

[Azure Envy 1,092]

I ended up getting a Mionix Avior 7000 to replace my old G9x with its slightly borked scroll wheel.

 

It's got the same sensor as the Rival except with a more ambidextrous shape so I'm looking forward to seeing how it'll work.

 

Then again I have a mouse with an almost universally panned laser sensor and I've never had any problems with it so...

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

found another glitch in The Evil Within, if you unplug your headphones the game loses all sound and has to be rebooted, so you can't change audio sources while playing.

Here's the kind of performance I'm getting(yes, marvel at how many resources this optimized mess eats. We're up to 1.6GB of vram and 4.6GB of system RAM)

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

I wouldn't worry too much about TLC longevity unless you plan to stick it in a server or something that deals with tons of writes.

 

It's a good price, $399. The lowest it's been on Amazon according to CamelCamelCamel was $379 in September.

 

As for the power loss protection you're talking about, to my knowledge only the Intel 730 SSD in the consumer space has in-flight data protection. The MX100's protection refers to data already written to flash. There was some controversy about that and what was written in the spec sheet, but honestly a feature like this isn't really commonplace for most consumer SSDs and the only reason the 730 has it is because its essentially a rebadged overclocked version of their datacenter drives. It also has a skull on it, because swag.

 

So long as you don't check 'Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on this device' nothing to worry about. It's off by default and even warns you in the option to not do it unless you have a battery backup.

 

Edit AGAIN: Sorry, you were talking about the M550. Looks like that one has a similar PLP to the 730. Never mind. All Crucial drives are the same.

 

So the Samsung drive should be fine? I've read that the TLC NAND is still going to last for at least a decade, and by that time I'll probably be looking at building another PC, anyway. So I guess that isn't as much of a concern as I thought.

 

But I am still concerned about losing power and having the drive get some kind of formatting error. The power over here goes out at least once a month, even if it's only for a second or two. In the summer it's even worse, because of thunderstorms every afternoon. I'm not concerned about losing data in cache, but I remember reading a long time ago that a loss of power corrupts SSDs and makes them unusable. I'm guessing that's actually not true?

 

I don't know, because the Intel 320 series that I have now has power loss protection.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Regulus

[Azure Envy 1,092]

So the Samsung drive should be fine? I've read that the TLC NAND is still going to last for at least a decade, and by that time I'll probably be looking at building another PC, anyway. So I guess that isn't as much of a concern as I thought.

 

But I am still concerned about losing power and having the drive get some kind of formatting error. The power over here goes out at least once a month, even if it's only for a second or two. In the summer it's even worse, because of thunderstorms every afternoon. I'm not concerned about losing data in cache, but I remember reading a long time ago that a loss of power corrupts SSDs and makes them unusable. I'm guessing that's actually not true?

 

I don't know, because the Intel 320 series that I have now has power loss protection.

 

I'd buy an 840 Evo with confidence. There was a performance degradation issue but that's been resolved with the latest firmware.

 

I've lost power a few times to a couple different SSDs (including a 320) and haven't lost anything, to my knowledge...

 

But if unreliable power is potentially a problem for you, maybe consider a UPS for a little peace of mind. Buying an 840 evo and a UPS is probably still going to be cheaper than a 730... which I don't think they even make a 960, so a moot point.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Lunatic Envy

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

I'd buy an 840 Evo with confidence. There was a performance degradation issue but that's been resolved with the latest firmware.

 

I've lost power a few times to a couple different SSDs (including a 320) and haven't lost anything, to my knowledge...

 

But if unreliable power is potentially a problem for you, maybe consider a UPS for a little peace of mind. Buying an 840 evo and a UPS is probably still going to be cheaper than a 730... which I don't think they even make a 960, so a moot point.

 

Right now, I've narrowed it down to the 840 EVO 1TB or the m500 960 GB. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out if the extra $10 and 40 GB is the right way to go.

[Azure Envy 1,092]

Right now, I've narrowed it down to the 840 EVO 1TB or the m500 960 GB. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out if the extra $10 and 40 GB is the right way to go.

 

http://techreport.com/review/25763/clash-of-the-terabyte-titans-crucial-m500-960gb-vs-samsung-840-evo-1tb/11

 

Both are good drives, but the Evo is a little faster and 40 extra GB is always nice. If you're gonna be spending this much, right?

 

Like you said, you'll probably be looking to build a new PC long before the TLC is shot.

[Zygen 6,066]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147251

 

Ooooooooooh God. My poor wallet...

 

Holy crap that is expensive o-o.

 

 

In other news, I guess it's time to play answer the wanabee computer guy's questions. 

 

This time, I have to ask, what exactly is the purpose of an SSD? I've been looking at them here and there, and thought about getting one for my computer as some point(Probably after quite a while, because I still need to get the money saved to afford my new GPU and PSU, and with all the video games coming out, yeah that's going to be even more difficult ;p.)

 

But I really don't quite feel like I understand their purpose, they are suppose to be faster or something yes? But idk, is that really such a big deal as to justify how much more it costs per X amount of storage?

 

I'm just curious to see if anyone can better explain the purpose of an SSD, so I can understand them better.

 

Thanks.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

Holy crap that is expensive o-o.

 

 

In other news, I guess it's time to play answer the wanabee computer guy's questions. 

 

This time, I have to ask, what exactly is the purpose of an SSD? I've been looking at them here and there, and thought about getting one for my computer as some point(Probably after quite a while, because I still need to get the money saved to afford my new GPU and PSU, and with all the video games coming out, yeah that's going to be even more difficult ;p.)

 

But I really don't quite feel like I understand their purpose, they are suppose to be faster or something yes? But idk, is that really such a big deal as to justify how much more it costs per X amount of storage?

 

I'm just curious to see if anyone can better explain the purpose of an SSD, so I can understand them better.

 

Thanks.

 

SSDs are several orders of magnitude faster than typical hard disks. They use less power and don't make *any* noise. The benefit to having one is that your computer boots up in like 10 seconds, as opposed to 2 minutes. Anything that you put on an SSD, you can access without any measurable latency.

 

A hard disk works kinda like a CD player. You have to wait for the head to move into the correct position on the disk to read the data. In contrast, a SSD uses flash memory like a thumb drive. There are no moving parts, so the only latency you have is practically at the speed of light. Access to any block of data on the disk is nearly instantaneous.

 

The purpose of having an SSD instead of an HDD is that you get increased speed and reliability, but reduced capacity for the same price. Ideally, it's best to use a SSD for files and programs you access on a daily basis, and a HDD for everything else, like bulk files and such. For people who don't need several TB of storage, such as myself, it's senseless to spend that much money on a hard disk.

 

Initially, I was contemplating getting a 512 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD for ~$300, but I've decided that I'd be better off with a 1TB SSD for $400. The 160 GB SSD I have now is going in my laptop, and my laptop's 750 GB HDD is going in my desktop as backup storage. I'm also keeping my current 640 GB HDD for bulk storage.

 

In any case, I'm only spending this much money because my CPU is still pretty decent, and my GPU is still one of the best on the market. The performance gains from any CPU/GPU upgrade are going to be less than 2x, considering my budget. I will, however, see considerable gains from a bigger, faster SSD. Not in terms of frame rate, but in terms of loading times and such. This is basically my Christmas present. xD

 

My CPoo is a Phenom II x4 overclocked to 3.7GHz, and a Radeon HD 7950 Boost Edition—comparable to a GTX 760 or a 660 Ti.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Regulus

[Zygen 6,066]

SSDs are several orders of magnitude faster than typical hard disks. They use less power and don't make *any* noise. The benefit to having one is that your computer boots up in like 10 seconds, as opposed to 2 minutes. Anything that you put on an SSD, you can access without any measurable latency.

 

The purpose of having one instead of an HDD is that you get increased speed and reliability, but reduced capacity. Ideally, it's best to use a SSD for files and programs you access on a daily basis, and a HDD for everything else, like bulk files and such. For people who don't need several TB of storage, such as myself, it's senseless to spend that much money on a hard disk.

 

Initially, I was contemplating getting a 512 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD for ~$300, but I've decided that I'd be better off with a 1TB SSD for $400.

Oh ok, that sounds fairly useful actually, so you can have your computer setup to boot from your SSD instead of your HDD once you get one? Or does it just automatically do so?

 

Regardless it sounds useful, although not nearly as necessary as me getting a new GPU and PSU, but I may try and look into getting one after I take care of that.

 

I appreciate you clearing things up for me as someone who is fairly unknowledgable with computers in the grand scheme of things, but still hangs around this thread anyways xD.

[Azure Envy 1,092]

Oh ok, that sounds fairly useful actually, so you can have your computer setup to boot from your SSD instead of your HDD once you get one? Or does it just automatically do so?

 

Regardless it sounds useful, although not nearly as necessary as me getting a new GPU and PSU, but I may try and look into getting one after I take care of that.

 

I appreciate you clearing things up for me as someone who is fairly unknowledgable with computers in the grand scheme of things, but still hangs around this thread anyways xD.

 

An SSD is a storage device just like an HDD, only with chips instead of platters. Your computer sees it the same way. Everything else Regulus said is true. Once you go SSD, you can't go back.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

Personally, I rather have a $400 GPU than a SSD.