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Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

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  • Malacite
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by DakAttack View Post
    This thread made me lol.

    The next Intel chip is around the corner. With Haswell you can achieve clocks of around 5Ghz, stable. This is win/win, because if you spring for the new hardware you'll be future-proof for quite some time, but if you're interested in saving some money it's not hard to find a good deal on current generation i5s and i7s. And, economically, i5s are the best choice for gaming. Of course, i7s do have a larger cache, but you're also paying a lot for Hyper Threading, which isn't something developers are programming for. It's a waste.

    Additionally, I would recommend a Gold Certified power supply. They're a little bit more expensive, but you're not letting so much power go as heat, which saves you money and keeps your PC cool.

    Thanks for the head's up - Is the Haswell the new 4000-series from Intel that's coming in Q3 or somethign different entirely? I just don't want to screw myself here by getting a processor that can take gaming but not streaming as well simultaneously. As far as power supplies go, I'm rather partial to coolmaster - haven't had a problem with them, ever.

    Now if only SSDs would come down just a notch and along with that precious GTX 670... oh man I'm glad I decided to wait 1 more year. I've been bitching and griping about my PC for ages now but forcing myself to wait because I figured some really new stuff is likely due out soon - I was right ^^ (based that on the projections for the GTX 700-series and the new game consoles due out).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Originally posted by Armando View Post
    Thanks. Last time I built a box was quite some time ago, when Core 2 Quad was where it's at. Was wondering about that myself.
    Yeah that's what's powering mine - best $1500 I ever spent really, and that was a prefab HP at Futureshop... this time around I actually have an idea of what I'm doing.

    Leave a comment:


  • Armando
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by DakAttack
    And, economically, i5s are the best choice for gaming. Of course, i7s do have a larger cache, but you're also paying a lot for Hyper Threading, which isn't something developers are programming for. It's a waste.
    Thanks. Last time I built a box was quite some time ago, when Core 2 Quad was where it's at. Was wondering about that myself.

    Leave a comment:


  • DakAttack
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    This thread made me lol.

    The next Intel chip is around the corner. With Haswell you can achieve clocks of around 5Ghz, stable. This is win/win, because if you spring for the new hardware you'll be future-proof for quite some time, but if you're interested in saving some money it's not hard to find a good deal on current generation i5s and i7s. And, economically, i5s are the best choice for gaming. Of course, i7s do have a larger cache, but you're also paying a lot for Hyper Threading, which isn't something developers are programming for. It's a waste.

    Additionally, I would recommend a Gold Certified power supply. They're a little bit more expensive, but you're not letting so much power go as heat, which saves you money and keeps your PC cool.

    Leave a comment:


  • Malacite
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Never had an HDD fail on me so... eh? I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I've personally never really had a need for it. I'm pretty sure all my AppData could fit onto a flash drive if I really needed it.


    Losing all your media files though - movies, pictures etc - that sucks.

    Leave a comment:


  • Armando
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    I know it can be handy not to have any downtime if a disk dies, but that doesn't happen enough to justify the use of RAID for me. It mostly comes down to how much you value space VS how lazy you want to be backing up. Since Yyg was discussing getting the most bang for his buck though, it didn't make a lot of sense to me to go with the RAID.

    Leave a comment:


  • cidbahamut
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by Armando View Post
    I don't see the point of using RAID 1 for backup purposes. Duplicating EVERYTHING is very wasteful.
    In an enterprise environment, sure. For personal use I find mirroring drives to be pretty damn handy. I recently had one of my media hard drives die. Luckily for me I had it mirrored so all my data remained intact. If it had been one a lone hard drive I would have been digging through backups that were several months old rather than popping in a new drive and moving on. I do however just have the one SSD for the OS and installed programs.

    As I said, in an enterprise environment it makes more sense to use RAIDs that rely on the parity bit so you don't lose as much storage capacity, but that requires a minimum of 3 or 4 drives iirc and frankly I've run into enough headaches in my day of RAID controllers not recovery drives properly that I'd rather just have a full clone of the drive ready to keep soldiering on after its mate has died. Maybe you guys are storing a metric fuckton of media so it's more of a concern for you, but I'm pretty happy with my 500GB of storage space that has an exact duplicate waiting in the wings.

    Leave a comment:


  • Armando
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by Cidbahamut
    And what do you do when that single drive dies? That's right, you lose everything. It's fine if that's your preference, but it sounds to me like you don't understand the point of a RAID.
    I don't see the point of using RAID 1 for backup purposes. Duplicating EVERYTHING is very wasteful. My System folder on Windows 7 is 17.5 GB alone, and there's no need to back it up. Same thing for programs and Steam games - you can just redownload all of that. Your AppData folder (where your application settings live) on the other hand is relatively small and can't be replaced. Better to have a separate drive for backing up only what you need - as a bonus you can keep it separate from your computer in case it gets stolen. It also won't be sucking up power constantly.

    You do a RAID 0 to improve read speed, but you get no extra space out of it, no improvement to write speed, the speed boost won't be as high as an SSD's and it consumes more power/makes more noise.

    Either option is worse than 2 HDDs or 1 SSD + 1 HDD.
    Last edited by Armando; 05-26-2013, 01:40 PM.

    Leave a comment:


  • cidbahamut
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by Malacite View Post
    Also, RAID is nice but I personally prefer just having a single drive that's partitioned into a "main" drive and a back-up drive - it's worked just fine for me so far.
    And what do you do when that single drive dies? That's right, you lose everything. It's fine if that's your preference, but it sounds to me like you don't understand the point of a RAID.

    Leave a comment:


  • Malacite
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by Yygdrasil View Post
    I'm flexible enough to stretch the extra $100 towards the SSD. Boot up time has always been a plague to me... and keeping my minimal number of games (FFXI and XIV basically) loaded on it would be ideal as long as they fit with the OS.

    I also may or may not be able to salvage my current power source out of my own rig... sell off my 2 current graphics cards for a few bucks and scale back to a single monitor. Lets call my budget 1200 for the purposes of maximizing. Provided my intention is to keep the 120gig SSD, what would you suggest I replace in the above setup to make it better?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also: I'm not including Windows OS in my calculations because... I uhh... know a guy.

    Ygg, if those are the only 2 games you plan to load, + your OS, 80 GB is probably enough - it depends on the price difference between an 80 and a 120. Like I said, Windows 7 is only 16 or 20 GB depending on if you have 32 or 64-bit, and then factor in how much space you need for XI, XIV + updates. I guess 80 might be cutting it close actually, since XI is pushing around what, 30 now? and ARR will likely be around the same so yeah nevermind.


    Also, RAID is nice but I personally prefer just having a single drive that's partitioned into a "main" drive and a back-up drive - it's worked just fine for me so far.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yygdrasil
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    I'm not retarded. I know what they are. I'm just asking for a suggested setup.

    Leave a comment:


  • cidbahamut
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    1 harddrive for the OS
    Buy 2 harddrives for media storage.
    Start > computer management > disk management > create mirror
    Put all of your data on the 2 harddrives you duct taped together
    Never worry about losing your data to harddrive failure again

    Alternatively you can do it via the BIOS, but that tends to be trickier.

    Leave a comment:


  • Firewind
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    I second having a good RAID setup. I never run out of storage really and given how cheap HDDs are setting one up isn't too pricey.

    To put it in layman's terms a RAID is basically a system where you have multiple HDDs but your OS reads them all as one huge drive. That is basically the simplest way of explaining it.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yygdrasil
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by cidbahamut View Post
    Gonna second this. They're sweet as hell, but they're pretty much a luxury component at the moment. I think going for one that's too small could end up biting you in the ass depending on how much stuff you generally like to install on your machine, so if your budget doesn't allow for a decent sized SSD you might be better off just going with a normal hdd. Especially if it frees up your budget to make use of a RAID because seriously why aren't you doing that yet?
    STOP INSULTING ME WITH YOUR RAID LIKE I'M SOME KIND OF INSECT AND SUGGEST SOMETHING SPECIFIC!!!

    Leave a comment:


  • cidbahamut
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    Originally posted by Firewind View Post
    Please read my previous posts. He has a budget and I'm going for strictly cost/performance here. SSDs are nice to have but they are in no way essential to gaming. What I have been saying is that sure they are nice to have but really they should be the last thing you are considering if on any sort of budget.
    Gonna second this. They're sweet as hell, but they're pretty much a luxury component at the moment. I think going for one that's too small could end up biting you in the ass depending on how much stuff you generally like to install on your machine, so if your budget doesn't allow for a decent sized SSD you might be better off just going with a normal hdd. Especially if it frees up your budget to make use of a RAID because seriously why aren't you doing that yet?

    Leave a comment:


  • Yygdrasil
    replied
    Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

    I'm flexible enough to stretch the extra $100 towards the SSD. Boot up time has always been a plague to me... and keeping my minimal number of games (FFXI and XIV basically) loaded on it would be ideal as long as they fit with the OS.

    I also may or may not be able to salvage my current power source out of my own rig... sell off my 2 current graphics cards for a few bucks and scale back to a single monitor. Lets call my budget 1200 for the purposes of maximizing. Provided my intention is to keep the 120gig SSD, what would you suggest I replace in the above setup to make it better?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also: I'm not including Windows OS in my calculations because... I uhh... know a guy.

    Leave a comment:

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