My new build, Opinions wanted

[PP Mguire]

Well ordered the case today since NZXT isn't making the Tempest 410 any more, Would have LOVED to find the Tempest 410 elite with the window on the side and more included fans but NOBODY has that in stock any longer that I could find but not a big deal, the standard 410 is fine and I can add my own fans. Gee I think I may have 7-8 120mm sitting on the shelf for building others computers so I think I can handle it LOL. Now just to wait until the 6th to see how much of a bonus is actually being paid, They say between 5-7% of our yearly income so it's a good one this year but in the process of buying a house too so I can't go too crazy but I wish I could LOL. I'll give a little feedback on the case when it comes in

Dauntae

I used to be a fan of NZXT but I prefer the simplistic styles of Corsair and Silverstone these days.

I'm in the same boat. Just got a wad of cash but can't buy any PC stuff because we just moved into a new apartment. Well she did, but I'm helping.

From personal experience I would go with a 240-250 GB SSD. Once titanfall comes out and I install that I'll be down to about 50GB's. Tough to get by on 120...

Also, Paying a premium for a brand new card doesn't make much sense to me. Graphics cards hold great warranties. I'm a big believer in used cards, picked up all 3 of mine second hand, all of them still under warranty from EVGA.

Why would you put that on an SSD? Just curious.

There is no point in putting it on an SSD. It's a Source game and will load just as quickly on a standard HDD.

On that note, I had just a single 120GB SSD as my boot, programs, and games for the longest time. Just kept my Valve folder on my 2TB (now 3TB) because those games just load quickly anyways. 120GB is perfectly fine for the person who doesn't feel the need to have absolutely everything installed all at once.

EVGA used to have a great warrenty and was the only brand I'd get due to that warrenty but sadly they no longer offer that warrenty, Was life time but now it's 3 years. I'm waiting on the 870 because I have the funds and want to buy it once and not have to worry about it for a few years before I need to upgrade, The newer cards are supposed to be slightly faster but run much cooler and much less power hungry.

Dauntae

They still have a great warranty. They only offered lifetime because of XFX offering that double lifetime for Nvidia cards back in the day. They went back because it isn't feasible to replace cards that are years old with newer ones due to that lifetime. Most people upgrade at least every 3 years anyways.

 

[kpat99]

@Pyrothrillah I install them on my SSD to improve load times...

@Dauntae Yes it is 3 years you are right. But who keeps a card that long anyway...I purchased my 660tis 3 months ago, all of the warranties are good until about July 2015. There is no chance i'll still have them at that point. My guess is early next year while they still have warranty i'll be flipping them for a couple of 780tis. Also, the beauty of EVGA is the warranty goes with the serial, not the receipt...

Some people like to new components and I respect that, just wanted to give my point of view on the matter.

 

[PP Mguire]

@Pyrothrillah I install them on my SSD to improve load times...

@Dauntae Yes it is 3 years you are right. But who keeps a card that long anyway...I purchased my 660tis 3 months ago, all of the warranties are good until about July 2015. There is no chance i'll still have them at that point. My guess is early next year while they still have warranty i'll be flipping them for a couple of 780tis. Also, the beauty of EVGA is the warranty goes with the serial, not the receipt...

Some people like to new components and I respect that, just wanted to give my point of view on the matter.

See my above post. There are very few games that actually take advantage of the speeds.

 

[Dauntae]

Unfortunately I'm one of the oddities that tend to keep what he buys LOL Even if I upgrade the old one upgrades the next PC (I have more than one PC going here) so they stay in use many years here LOL However the GTX470 lived a longer life in my current rig longer than normal, Got a dirt bike and street bike and have many other hobbies so kind of got out of gaming for a while and getting back into it so needing the upgrade. Ironically the 470 was replacement for the GTX285 under warranty so I actually used it. AND the 470 is still under warranty. ONLY if the 470 would crap out on me LOL Did the exchange when they still offered the life time. As for the SSD I'm still considering a 250 but a friend has a Samsung 250 and he's on his 2nd one and customer service told him not to tell anyone but the 250 has a different controler and they have been having some failures coming back, He said there not a lot but more so than they would like. My buddy happened to be one of the unlucky ones that got 2 in a row LOL But may go for the 250 just to have the extra space on the SSD. Both of his crapped out in the first 6 months of having it, It's just doing all the re installing I would hate to do.

Considering using this one ATM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147248

Dauntae

 

[kpat99]

@PP Mcguire - I always presumed it would help load times, in reading it seems peoples opinions are 50/50 on the matter. I decided to tweet maximumpc, and for what it is worth here is the question / answer

"@maximumpc Do you guys feel there is any advantage to installing games to a ssd over a hdd? Games such as Battlefield 4, titanfall, Etc..."

"@Waterloo_Habs For sure, just way faster loading times for levels. We have not tested it however. We don't use HDD for games or apps."

 

[PP Mguire]

Unfortunately I'm one of the oddities that tend to keep what he buys LOL Even if I upgrade the old one upgrades the next PC (I have more than one PC going here) so they stay in use many years here LOL However the GTX470 lived a longer life in my current rig longer than normal, Got a dirt bike and street bike and have many other hobbies so kind of got out of gaming for a while and getting back into it so needing the upgrade. Ironically the 470 was replacement for the GTX285 under warranty so I actually used it. AND the 470 is still under warranty. ONLY if the 470 would crap out on me LOL Did the exchange when they still offered the life time. As for the SSD I'm still considering a 250 but a friend has a Samsung 250 and he's on his 2nd one and customer service told him not to tell anyone but the 250 has a different controler and they have been having some failures coming back, He said there not a lot but more so than they would like. My buddy happened to be one of the unlucky ones that got 2 in a row LOL But may go for the 250 just to have the extra space on the SSD. Both of his crapped out in the first 6 months of having it, It's just doing all the re installing I would hate to do.

Considering using this one ATM
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Dauntae

It's a well known fact the EVO drives use a different in house controller. I have several friends that have moved to the EVO drives without an issue. Seems your friend may have been just unlucky.

I too keep my stuff lately. I like having spares. Only recently have I had to sell stuff off due to an idiot ex, but hey live and learn.

@PP Mcguire - I always presumed it would help load times, in reading it seems peoples opinions are 50/50 on the matter. I decided to tweet maximumpc, and for what it is worth here is the question / answer

"@maximumpc Do you guys feel there is any advantage to installing games to a ssd over a hdd? Games such as Battlefield 4, titanfall, Etc..."

"@Waterloo_Habs For sure, just way faster loading times for levels. We have not tested it however. We don't use HDD for games or apps."

You have to realize that most games today are designed for loading times of that of the consoles. A 4-16x disc drive is going to be way slower than even a 5400RPM drive. If you have an SSD right now take a look at the MB/s usage of the drive the game is being loaded off of. You'll notice that most cap at about 10MB/s due to the above fact. Trust me, I have tested almost every single game I have on my full 3TB drive of games on my SSD to see what loads faster. The only games that make a significant difference are BF3, BF4, Skyrim, and sort of Assassin's Creed. Most all if not all Valve/Source games load quickly on a HDD and show no real difference between HDD and SSD. Titanfall is a Source game and was modified to work on older gen consoles. So that being said the loading times are quick even on a HDD.

As to the reply from Maximum PC, of course they will say that. They do their reviews with top end hardware they don't have to pay for and so therefor will always say "yea the best of the best is always better". I'm another poor joe like everybody else and will give somebody on a budget a realistic answer. Nobody wants to waste money where it isn't necessary. That is coming from somebody who has 2 SSDs in his machine. I even test certain games in RAMDisk (the full game) to see if there is a speed increase or decrease in loading times. So far the SSD is the best medium for the games that actually take advantage of them.

 

[kpat99]

Thanks for the response, I always trust your opinion, and you're probably right about all of this. I personally install my OS, applications, and games on my SSD and all Data on my HDD. But it is good to know in the future if i start to run out of space I can make that move without taking a performance hit.

 

[PP Mguire]

I install everything on my SSD besides most games. I have a secondary SSD for my Origin games and Skyrim and some games get installed on my main SSD. I actually have redone my testing due to BF4 having loading issues. Turns out, it's just EA/Dice being ****ty.

 

[Dauntae]

Since I'm waiting on the GTX800 series to buy a GPU I started asking around who has what cards there not using and one friend is waiting on a R9 290X to come in and told me I could have his GTX460 and another friend has another GTX460 he said I could have for a whopping $25 so it looks like I'll have my first SLI to hold me over until the GTX870 comes out, Should be a tad better than the single GTX470 I'm running now, Only game I really can't run good graphics Is BF4 so hopefully I'll be able to put some more detail in the game, Now to just get my hands on these two cards.

Dauntae

 

[PP Mguire]

You'll have roughly stock GTX580 performance. I can run most all things on Ultra without AA at 1080p without an OC.