Questions about my desktop upgrade path

[ajmcguire]

It's been a few years, and the time has come to upgrade my desktop. It would be easy to make my decision based on the technology that is out there, but I really want to decide what to get based on my goals, not based on marketing.

Here are my goals:
~ PRIMARY
1. Faster boot time.
2. Quicker application starting time -- I want every application to shoot open immediately.
3. Faster iTunes operation -- I only have about 200 gig mp3s, and my iTunes is really dragging it's ass.
~ SECONDARY
4. Directx11 support for games.

What I have now:
Windows 7 Ultimate (32x)
C2D E8400 @ 3ghz
4 gig RAM DDR2 800
Biostar P43 mobo
Corsair|CMPSU-520HX RT PSU
Radeon HD 4850

First draft of components:
G.Skill 2 x 4 gig RAM DDR3 1066
ASUS P7H55-M LX LGA 1156 Intel H55 Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-660 3.33ghz
64 gig Crucial RealSSD (for OS)

Questions:
Any thoughts overall?
Will the solid state drive really make that big of a difference?
Are there equivalent but cheaper components I should consider?

 

[muskie32]

The SSD will really help with # 1&2!

 

[Davidh373]

1/2. Get a Sandforce SSD for quick boot and app launch times (not the C300, but an OCZ Vertex, Corsair Force or GSkill Pro). It is rather impossible to have instant on and off in OS or applications unless you are talking about notepad, or calculator. We're almost there though . I would personally wait for the Holiday launch of 25nm SSDs.

3. You'll have to talk to apple's programmers about that... >_>... I'm pretty sure it's slow for everyone.

4. Get a new 4xx NVidia, or a 6xxx Radeon (Supposedly launching tomorrow) as well as Windows 7 if you haven't already.


Q's

1. I think that the Motherboard, RAM, and Processor are good, except you might want to get a Motherboard that supports SATA 6GB/S. It is likly 25nm will have Sata 6GB/S controllers, and you'll be wasting some potential gains there.

2. Should, I don't have personal experience but everyone is raving about them already, and the 25nm tech is supposed to be faster and less expensive. I'm getting one when the 25nm tech launches.

3. What I listed. Some will be less expensive, some a little more, but they will all be faster.

 

[muskie32]

4. Get a new 4xx NVidia, or a 6xxx Radeon (Supposedly launching tomorrow)

It up!

 

[fffblackmage]

If I had an E8400, I would not "upgrade" to another dual core.

Seriously, for $1 more, you could get an i5-760.

 

[Davidh373]

If I had an E8400, I would not "upgrade" to another dual core.

Seriously, for $1 more, you could get an i5-760.

I didn't notice it was a 6xx, yeah, get a quad if you want a real upgrade...

 

[jaydee]

What kind of hard drive are you using right now? 5400RPM or 7200RPM? Platter size bigger or smaller than, say 200GB?

IMO, just buy an SSD and a high platter density >= 1TB mechanical drive (if you don't have one already).

Depending on what games you want to play and how much you're willing pay to play said games, there's a perfect pricing heirachy between AMD and nVidia between $170 and $240 (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/1). If you're not willing to spend that much, it's a bit murkier and you're probably better off buying a used 5770/5750 off the forums here for ~$100-130.

It would be easy to make my decision based on the technology that is out there, but I really want to decide what to get based on my goals, not based on marketing.

Given your goals you will be completely underwhelmed (price/performance ratio-wise) upgrading your cpu/mobo/RAM right now. Not only will it cost a lot for not much performance gains, but you have no drop-in cpu replacement in the future, you'd have to go with another mobo/cpu combo (and potentially RAM depending on how long you wait).

BTW, if you went with the 8GB of RAM you listed, you'd need to go to an x64 OS in order to use more than 3.5GB.

 

[mfenn]

Spending $200 for a dual core in this day and age is madness. Get the 760.

You can get faster RAM for less (and no, the difference between CAS 7 and 9 doesn't matter for desktop tasks).

The RealSSD is overrated, get a Sandforce based drive like the Vertex 2 instead.

 

[jaydee]

The RealSSD is overrated, get a Sandforce based drive like the Vertex 2 instead.

On what grounds do you say this? For normal usage of an OS drive, the random read performance is THE benchmark, and the C300 is tops by >25%. And it's only ~$134, so ~$9 more than the Vertex 2 (price after OCZ rebate).
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/2

Unless you're on a strict budget (Agility 2 dropped to $100 AR briefly last week), do more writing than reading for some really weird reason, or don't have a TRIM-supported OS, I recommend the Crucial C300. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148357

 

[mfenn]

On what grounds do you say this? For normal usage of an OS drive, the random read performance is THE benchmark, and the C300 is tops by >25%. And it's only ~$134, so ~$9 more than the Vertex 2 (price after OCZ rebate).
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/2

Unless you're on a strict budget (Agility 2 dropped to $100 AR briefly last week), do more writing than reading for some really weird reason, or don't have a TRIM-supported OS, I recommend the Crucial C300. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148357

No, sorry random read is not the end-all be-all benchmark. You need a balance of random reads and writes. Opening programs is not just all reading, it involves a bunch of writing as well. Think about logs, lock files, and so on. That's why the Sandforce drives beat the C300 in all of Anand's "AnandTech Storage Bench" real world benchmarks.

 

[Zap]

Here are my goals:
~ PRIMARY
1. Faster boot time.
2. Quicker application starting time
3. Faster iTunes operation
4. Directx11 support for games.

First draft of components:
G.Skill 2 x 4 gig RAM DDR3 1066
ASUS P7H55-M LX LGA 1156 Intel H55 Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-660 3.33ghz
64 gig Crucial RealSSD (for OS)

Questions:
Any thoughts overall?

You addressed 1&2 with the SSD, but the CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade will not help anything.

As have been mentioned, 1&2 are in the realm of the SSD. Figure out how much space you would need for Windows (around 15GB) and all your applications, plus add 20%. That will give you the minimum SSD capacity to consider. You may want to aim higher because that wouldn't take into consideration future software you install. Once you have chosen your SSD capacity, then choose the best value among all of the drives with controllers that are considered "good." Which one you end up with may not be as important as the price. Seriously, there are endless arguments over Sandforce drives having higher writes and I/Os, and Crucial drives having higher reads, and such-and-such drives being best for garbage collection, or this and that...

Really, if it weren't for the actual labels on the drives and benchmark software, would anyone actually notice in day-to-day usage if someone took out their SSD and replaced it with a same capacity drive using another controller?

Note that you probably won't want to install games onto the SSD because most (but not all) games don't benefit much from loading off SSD versus a fast HDD. Also, games can get pretty huge and suck down disk space. For instance, I play online a lot and many games start the round at the same time, so even if you load in faster you will have to wait for your teammates. Also, some games spend little actual time loading but lots of time for splash screens and cut-scenes.

For 3, only thing you can do is run iTunes off the SSD but have your data (MP3s) on a fast HDD like a WD Black or Samsung F3. Best budget choice would a 1TB Samsung F3 7200RPM HDD to hold your games, My Documents and music.

For 4, decide on a graphics card budget and (assuming you will be gaming with it) buy the best bang/buck for that budget using a Radeon 5000/6000 series card or GeForce 400/500 series card.

 

[mfenn]

Really, if it weren't for the actual labels on the drives and benchmark software, would anyone actually notice in day-to-day usage if someone took out their SSD and replaced it with a same capacity drive using another controller?

:awe: True that!

 

[jaydee]

No, sorry random read is not the end-all be-all benchmark. You need a balance of random reads and writes. Opening programs is not just all reading, it involves a bunch of writing as well. Think about logs, lock files, and so on. That's why the Sandforce drives beat the C300 in all of Anand's "AnandTech Storage Bench" real world benchmarks.

Zap is ultimately right... (no noticable difference to the user) but I'm going to throw in one more parting shot anyway

The Anand's storage bench does not utilize SATA 6Gbps, which the Crucial drive can take advantage of, but Sandforce can not. The OP may not have Sata 6Gbps yet, but you will eventually.

That being said, I just bought a Sandforce drive last week (Agility 2 64GB for $100), because I'm still using WinXP Pro at this point for another year or two probably (Crucial does poorly in non-TRIM supported OS's). $30 cheaper didn't hurt either.

Ok, now I'm done. They are both good SSD's.

 

[fffblackmage]

The Anand's storage bench does not utilize SATA 6Gbps, which the Crucial drive can take advantage of, but Sandforce can not. The OP may not have Sata 6Gbps yet, but you will eventually.

Does SATA3 help the random read/writes? I was pretty sure SATA3 was only good for the C300's uber sequential read speeds.

 

[mfenn]

Does SATA3 help the random read/writes? I was pretty sure SATA3 was only good for the C300's uber sequential read speeds.

You are correct. In fact, on the Intel platform, you are better off using the ICH10R over the add-on Marvell SATA 6Gb/s chips because the Marvell chips really suck at random performance.

Jaydee, we're still cool, I promise! :awe::biggrin:

 

[Net]

if you don't mind spending $75 more you can get an 120GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/405...25-sata-ii-mlc-internal-solid-state-drive-ssd

you can also get an i5 760 for $170 if you live next to a microcenter

 

[jaydee]

/End SSD debate.


Let's give the OP his due:

-I find absolutely no reason to invest in a new CPU/mobo/RAM combo at this point with your goals in mind. I believe you will be very happy with the two upgrades (below) for the time being.

-An SSD is definitely your first upgrade. You've got a lot of nitpicking on both sides of the Crucial C300 vs Sandforce drive in the previous posts, but the bottom line is there is no clear cut winner and it's a very fluid market. If you want to see us duke it out some more you can make a new thread in "Memory and Storage". You might also benefit from a high platter density, 7200RPM secondary drive.

-Video card as a second upgrade depends entirely on what games you want to play, at what resolution, and what's your budget. You have very good choices linearly between $170 and $240. Thanks to today's introduction to the 6850 and 6870, there's nothing new around the corner for a long time and prices should remain stable for awhile. Now is a great time to buy a video card. Outside of that price range it gets trickier, tell us your budget and we'll try to help you out.

 

[Davidh373]

-Video card as a second upgrade depends entirely on what games you want to play, at what resolution, and what's your budget. You have very good choices linearly between $170 and $240. Thanks to today's introduction to the 6850 and 6870, there's nothing new around the corner for a long time and prices should remain stable for awhile. Now is a great time to buy a video card. Outside of that price range it gets trickier, tell us your budget and we'll try to help you out.

The 69xx's are coming holiday this year, but after some price adjustments within' the next few days I agree that the 68xx's are a great price.

 

[ajmcguire]

Thank you for the comments. This was very helpful.

BTW, if you went with the 8GB of RAM you listed, you'd need to go to an x64 OS in order to use more than 3.5GB

I do realize this. My current motherboard is maxed out at 4GIG RAM. And if I am going to install a new SSD for my OS, I might as well make it 64x and then take advantage of the more RAM available which would mean a new motherboard.

Depending on what games you want to play

In the last year I have played: Dungeons and Dragons Online, Manicharium, and Minecraft. I don't really have solid plans for what I will be playing in the next 2 years, but chances are it's really not going to be too demanding. Stepping up my GPU is really a secondary concern.


Maybe my best bet is:
upgrade OS drive to new 25nm Intel SSD when they come out,
upgrade OS to 64x,
upgrade motherboard (for more RAM and SATA 6GB/S support),
upgrade to 8gig DDR3 1066 RAM,
but stay with my C2d8400 cpu for now.

That would leave me easy upgrade options in the future.

 

[mfenn]

Maybe my best bet is:
upgrade OS drive to new 25nm Intel SSD when they come out,
upgrade OS to 64x,
upgrade motherboard (for more RAM and SATA 6GB/S support),
upgrade to 8gig DDR3 1066 RAM,
but stay with my C2d8400 cpu for now.

That would leave me easy upgrade options in the future.

I would advise against these two right now. Buying another 775 mobo and some slow DDR3 isn't going to do anything for you.

 

[Davidh373]

Yeah, either get a new platform or stick with the current. Especially if you're going 1066Mhz... not a good move.

If you play games that simple, you'll never even get close to using 8GB ram. If I were you,

Rev 1. SSD and X64 OS
Rev 2. Chipset (i5 7xx with MoBo and Ram)
Rev 3. Graphics Card (maybe a 6850?)

I would never buy a mobo/ CPU separate. Nor would I get a mobo just to support "more RAM".