AMD vs Intel - or - How I got my first build (+little what's what on PC parts)

[Keith Wallace]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

I'm one of the old fart HDD holdouts myself. I have my computer on at almost every hour of the day (might restart it once every few weeks), so getting a great boot time doesn't worry me. Having a game or program load faster would be a nice benefit, but I haven't played anything on PC in a couple of weeks, and if I can tolerate the slow loading times on the 360, I can handle the PC load times as well. I'll get a SSD sometime soon, maybe, but I don't see it as a big need yet. I actually might opt for a 1-TB HDD next instead (on a 640-GB Caviar Black at the moment).

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

The problem with SSDs is that the read/write speed goes significantly up with more storage (120<250<500GB). But what else does the average user store on it other than the OS? Since the durability suffers from frequent writing/erasing it's inferior to HDDs when it comes to 'normal' use of the storage. That's why I think high capacity SSDs aren't for the every day use.

Keep that in mind when you want to buy a SSD

 

[Keith Wallace]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

It's why I wouldn't bother with one. Like I said, my computer is on at almost every time of the day, so getting a faster boot time isn't a big deal for me (though maybe a faster boot would convince me to turn it off more often). I'd throw the OS on there, but that's probably it. I'd be looking at a 120- or 128-GB SSD, so I'd maybe have 70 GB left after putting the OS on (not sure the size of the drive when installed or the size of Windows 8 off-hand). I could probably throw Dishonored on there, but the load times aren't bad on that game, and most of it doesn't even have loading screens.

 

[unstoppablekem]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

What about a SSHDD?

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

What about a SSHDD?

I'm not very fond of multiple-in-one stuff. Also, since those SSHDs automatically move frequently used files to the flash memory, doesn't that mean that I have no control of how often/what gets written/erased on it and doesn't it shorten the durability of the SSD part?

 

[unstoppablekem]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

I'm not very fond of multiple-in-one stuff. Also, since those SSHDs automatically move frequently used files to the flash memory, doesn't that mean that I have no control of how often/what gets written/erased on it and doesn't it shorten the durability of the SSD part?

So lets say someone replaced the standard HDD with an SSHD. Doesn't that help with load times? Does it do anything other than that?


Sent from my Xbox One using WPCentral Forums

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Yes it does, but you have no control what and how often something gets written/erased to/from the SSD-part (and frequently erasing is the death for SSDs). So what happens when the SSD-part is broken? Does the HDD-part work without it (I've read that it works as one drive, not as two seperate). That's what bothers me. The performance boost on loading times is out of question.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Small update on page 1.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Got my 3 additional Corsair fans (2x AF140 for the top exhaust, 1x SP120 for the bottom intake). Had to get a Molex splitter for the PSU because the MoBo doesn't have enough fan connectors. The top fans are already spinning but I need to get a dust filter for the bottom one before I connect it to the PSU.

 

[Muessig]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

I'm curious on you guys opinions here.

I'm a freelance graphic designer, so I use a fair big of storage - I've got 2 drives on my machine at the moment; a C: 128GB SSD that has only about 15gb free at all times, and a 1TB hard drive which doesn't have a lot of space left on it. I'm painfully aware that it's best to install games on SSD's, especially games I really like to play like Planetside 2, Battlefield 3/4 etc. that require good loading speeds and twitch gameplay. But these games and other games I like to play just take up too much space on my SSD, so I can only really install 2/3 games at a time on the SSD.

My question is whether I should increase the space on my SSD to 256/512GB and get rid of the issue there, or whether it's best to get a secondary SSD that's 256GB dedicated to games.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Two things:

1. Putting multiplayer games on the SSD isn't a big deal. The SSD's biggest benefit is to loading times, but when you play a match of BF online, you have to wait for the match to being (so everyone can load), regardless of how fast you can load the game. In those instances, you don't really need the game on the SSD. Now, if it's a single-player title like Skyrim, or an MMO like Planetside, it's probably different. For those online games with pre-match timers, waiting on the HDD isn't too bad.

2. If you're running out of space, I'd increase the HDD over the SSD. I would just fill the SSD less. Considering you're talking about 256-GB SSDs here, it might be comparable in price to get a second 1-TB HDD and a second 128-GB SSD. That might be the best option, to increase both sets of storage, if you're running low on the HDD. Otherwise, I'd say up the 1-TB to a 2-TB or up the 128-GB to a 256-GB. I haven't ever played with a RAID setup myself, but from what I understand, you can only get as much as your smallest drive open on each drive (for certain RAID configurations, I think), so pairing a 128 with a 256 might mean you only get 128 from the larger drive.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

It depends on what you need more. Having an additional SSD gives you more speed for your programs and data but less storage compared to a HDD. A SSD with more storage would give you even more speed (it increases with more highe capacities) but they are much more expensive.

A different way would be getting a high performance HDD like a WD Black or even a Velociraptor but you'd get a WD Black AND a SSD with at least 120GB for the same price as a Velociraptor.

A pricelimit would help very much coming up with suiting options for you.
If you want to spend less than 100$ you could either get a WD Black 1TB OR a SSD with 120-250GB.
Doubling the budget would get you both.
If budget is tight go with the one that is cheaper and add the other one after some time.

I'm not a fan of SSHDs, not a fan of hybrid-stuff alltogether, so I will not recommend them. If someone can provide good reasons why it would be better to buy one of those instead of a seperate HDD and SSD, I would really like to read about it ;-)

 

[Keith Wallace]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

I think that the usefulness of a SSHD is a pretty-small one. It's supposed to intelligently put stuff on the 8-GB flash memory, based on usage, I think. So, if you had a bunch of stuff to store, but only a couple of programs that actually got used a lot, I guess that would be when a SSHD would become useful, but I've never bothered to look into those drives myself.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

I think that the usefulness of a SSHD is a pretty-small one. It's supposed to intelligently put stuff on the 8-GB flash memory, based on usage, I think. So, if you had a bunch of stuff to store, but only a couple of programs that actually got used a lot, I guess that would be when a SSHD would become useful, but I've never bothered to look into those drives myself.

The thing that bothers me about hybrid-stuff is that if one part is broken you can't use the other one either. So If the SSD-part breaks, can you still use the HDD-part of it?

 

[Keith Wallace]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Yeah, but is there anything that has found SSHDs to be less-durable than the single-drive options?

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Yeah, but is there anything that has found SSHDs to be less-durable than the single-drive options?

What about the SSD-part? Since you have no control over what/when/how often sth. gets written on it there's no way to tell how long it will last. Just in case the sayings about SSD durability vs. number of writing processes are true.

I've read a few articles about SSD durability but I'm quite confused. Ones say you should be really carefull about what and how much you write on your SSD since it will reduce the longevity. Others say even under heavy workload it will work fine for years and longer than you might actually use it. So I don't really know what to think about it but what I know is: when I'm unsure about something I assume the worst case szenario and try to be ready for it instead of assuming everything will be fine and get surprised by a broken drive one day.

But the logical assumption for me is: SSHDs have more parts that CAN fail (mechanical HDD part and flash SSD part).

 

[Keith Wallace]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Well, from what I've understood about SSHDs (and I admittedly haven't read much), the SSD part is just a giant cache. HDDs have a small cache, 32 or 64 MB in size. SSHDs just up this to about 8 GB. I don't think there are any more concerns with a SSHD than a SSD or HDD, in terms of failure potential. The thing about SSDs is that they lose the ability to hold information after excessive writes. I don't think that any everyday PC user will have that issue.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

Well, from what I've understood about SSHDs (and I admittedly haven't read much), the SSD part is just a giant cache. HDDs have a small cache, 32 or 64 MB in size. SSHDs just up this to about 8 GB. I don't think there are any more concerns with a SSHD than a SSD or HDD, in terms of failure potential. The thing about SSDs is that they lose the ability to hold information after excessive writes. I don't think that any everyday PC user will have that issue.

Of what I've read I understood it this way, that SSDs don't lose the ability to hold it, but the ability to write. So data that is already on it can be read but nothing new can be written on.

What bugs me about SSDs is that you can't get reliable information because every other site/article states the opposite.

I for myself am very happy with my "SSD for OS and HDD for everything else"-combo (Samsung 840 Evo + WD Blue)

 

[cw1988]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

It depends on your budget and usage, I built a computer a few weeks ago for myself and went with the amd fx-8.

For the discussion i saw on this page, I don't have a ssd at the moment but I'm getting one. The way in going to be using it is ssd fir the Operating system, programs and games to be installed to, and then large high speed hdd which I currently have for document and pictures etc.

It really depends on budget but what might be a good idea is to go on a website that allows you to configure computers and you can figure out from that what parts work together as the only options available will be parts that work together.

Www.overclockers.co.uk is a good website, it's based in the UK but you can still get a good idea of what to do.

 

[QwarkDreams]

Re: AMD vs Intel - or - How to assemble your own desktop PC

It depends on your budget and usage, I built a computer a few weeks ago for myself and went with the amd fx-8.

[....]

It really depends on budget but what might be a good idea is to go on a website that allows you to configure computers and you can figure out from that what parts work together as the only options available will be parts that work together.

Overclockers UK - Computer components, hardware & gaming PC is a good website, it's based in the UK but you can still get a good idea of what to do.

Thanks for the advice but as you can see on the previous page, my PC is already assembled and running ;-)