I was kind of hoping you'd go laptop-specific (I did specify laptop), seeing as your source shows nothing about price of those various drives, and, again, I somewhat trust Sony not go pay the same price for a strongly inferior product to stick in their laptops. So, yeah. Even if samsung drives are generally worse, I consider that mostly irrelevant because I haven't seen the issue come up anywhere, and because I trust Sony not to be stupid. The 'general trends' are fairly irrelevant here. Price is usually determined, more specifically, by demand, not storage; if the storage is nice but the rest is crap, and you can get, for the same price, something with the same storage and significantly better speeds... then the price of the bad drive will go down.

The thing is, you bought a name-brand laptop that came with the SSD in it, you didn't get to choose the drive yourself. If you had gone to a shop like Newegg or whatever, you would've found that the samsung drive probably is cheaper, or not even available because they can't sell them.

From that same article: "These Samsung based drives have at least been validated by thousands of systems as they are the ones used in OEM machines including systems from Apple, Dell and Lenovo."

Note that it doesn't say "Sony" in there, but that doesn't change that the fact that samsung drives are the OEM drive of choice. You "trust Sony not to be stupid", but wouldn't you also trust Dell, Apple and Lenovo not to be stupid? At least, not so stupid as to put an inferior drive in their products? Yet they did it any way. That's because OEM computer companies are more concerned with dealing with other big companies like samsung, who can supply volume, support and verification for the drives. They're more concerned about a marketing tickbox that says SSD than they are about good performance, simply because the average consumer doesn't know (you, for example).

Samsung have put out a new drive since that particular review was written, however I don't think it was significantly better than that old one.

And sure, the drive you've got is better than an old mechanical HD, but not by very much, compared to other SSDs.

... Are you actually trying to convince me of something? If so, I really can't tell what. If you're trying to convince me that my drives aren't worth bragging about, then it doesn't matter because they're probably not the bottleneck of my system, unlike those on most other computers, and that means they're as good as they can be. And if Sony saved everyone a few bucks by getting the cheaper SSDs (you said price was identical at first, but now you say that the samsung drive is cheaper), that's good too. It means I'm not paying for extra speed that I can't use.

And you're basing all of your information on one or two drives that were outperformed by the competition in a scenario where price and everything else wasn't even monitored, so I don't know what you're basing any of your data on. It's like comparing a 8800 GT to a 5770 and saying that the 5770 is unequivocally better, without giving us when they were released, how much they cost, how much power they need, etc.

So, again, I have no idea what you're trying to achieve here. You can't even really claim to know that much about the subject, since you didn't know about the RAID trim and all the other good stuff.

Actually if you read my edit to that post, you will see that I am in fact correct, there is no RAID TRIM support. The article at bit-tech (and many other websites) mis-interpreted the initial Intel press release. The firmware they released allows you to run an SSD in addition to a RAID array of regular HDs, but it does not allow you to run actual SSDs in RAID.

I certainly know more about the subject than you do. You would've been better off buying the same laptop but without the SSDs, and buying better-perfoming SSDs and installing them yourself.

I think your discussion is not really helping the thread, so lets go back to his actual questions.

SSDs are so small that I would advise against partitioning it, especially if you get a 32GB.

You can install games wherever you want.

In a desktop there's plenty of space, so it'll be capable of holding 2 hard drives.

Loading times significantly decrease for any program (games are programs too) you put on the SSD, but once the loading is done you'll work from your RAM so performance is unaffected after that. If you get only a 32GB SSD you'll be really tight if you want SC2 and a few other big programs (Office, Photoshop, Windows, etc.) on that drive. Remember that you also need some free space on it for working. For example unpacking rar files, photoshop projects, etc. Those all need some temporary space which you should keep free at all times. At least 2GB is reasonable. If you get a 64GB you can handle a game or two on it just fine.

RAM is rarely the bottleneck of a system so it usually doesn't make sense OCing it. If you got a good CPU with plenty of headroom it can make a big difference, but personally I wouldn't recommend OCing video cards. I'm no expert but from my experience an OCed gfx gives you about 10% more FPS. From 20 FPS to 22. Not worth it imo. But Ex is the OC guru here, maybe he can give more insight...

The problem with 64Bit OSes is that they just won't run some older 32Bit applications. But 32Bit OSes only allow to address 3.5GB of main memory. So if you have 4GB RAM you'll lose 0.5GB which is not that bad. But if you have 6GB RAM or more you should definitely use a 64Bit OS and maybe install a 32Bit XP on another partition for compatibility. At least that's what I'm going to do when I switch to Win7.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 6 2010, 10:01 am by NudeRaider.

Also, by default Windows 7 (and Vista) put the swap file on your system drive, and by default it is equal to your RAM size. I'm on a 64gb SSD, so I jiggered it around so only 2gb is on my SSD, and another 2 gb on my HDDs - which are 2x1tb drive in RAID 1.

CAFG, post your current build, I'll see what I can do to either make it cheaper or better without changing the price. The parts I linked were extremely low tier, and most of the sales are probably over.

I just tried picking like 3 parts, and just feel retarded. I know some motherboard+cpu combos run better for some reason. I don't know what those are, so I'm dead fromt he start. Just try building around that SSD you linked me to. I definitely want that. I want everything to complement itself. I want things like "X was MADE to be used with Y"
I guess I prefer AMD over Intel. I want windows 7 pro. Is it practical to also have ubuntoo installed somewhere? Don't bother with a monitor. I want the cheapest cd/dvd-rom drive; I already have a cd burner. The $800 limit is flexible.

Also, I'm disturbed by the lack of Ex in this thread.

A RL friend just sent me this. Thought you might like to look:


Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 7 2010, 5:20 pm by ClansAreForGays. Reason: spelling

........Wow. Clans, your friend is one really dull tool.
Shitty over priced case? Check.
Seagate made-to-fail drive? Check.
Two or three generations old GFX? Check.
Overpriced I'M SO FLASHY RAM? Check.
And he picks some of the worst cooling (the compound and cooler) around besides stock? Christ.
Not to mention everything he wrote above right there is WRONG. LOL OVERCLOCK FOR SYSTEM AS GOOD AS 2000$!. What a tool. He also knows jack shit about overclocking. You either do it by the BIOS, by hand, or you don't do it at all. Unless you like your components like your eggs: Fried. I can already tell what kind of 'tech enthusiast' this guy is and he's the type that buys the 20$ fans because they have a SUPER COOL BLUE LED on them.

Clans, I advise you avoid this simpleton at all costs lest he cost you a lot of money for a lot of bullshit.

Alright clans, I'm ready to post my counter-build. Both to your simpleton friend and to Rockz who did well but most of the sales he encountered will expire before you buy. Some notes:
1. No SSD. That's right. No matter how much you want one, it isn't right for you, and I need you to understand why. An SSD requires a lot of tinkering, customization, and sheer luck. For all its benefits there are a lot of things that can go wrong. If you go over to Anandtech's forums you'll see they're filled with topics of people who are wondering why their SSDs, from all manufacs, will get really low speeds without any idea as to why. Believe me when I say they're more trouble than they're worth right now, and if they weren't I'd be sure to include one. Because I know you want that responsive speed, but for a rigg that is going to game and need to do it well, their reliability just falls short.

2. If you're going Win7, you're going 64bit. 6-18 months ago, I'd have not said this. 6-18 months ago, drivers would have been scarce. And 6-18 months ago, the problems you would encounter would be 64bit based rather than Win7 based. I've been on Win7 for the past 8 months and I can tell you any problem I encountered was due to it being Win7, not due to it being 64bit. You're only depriving yourself of RAM, which is stupid.

3. I like that you want to understand why we're recommending the parts that we are, and I'll do my best to explain. But there are points where on my reputation and dedication to this area, you're going to have to just trust me.

-DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106276
Why this one?: A generic SATA based DVD combo drive that can read and write at high speeds is sufficient for anyone not looking for Blu-ray, which I believe you're not. There's no reason to pay more than you have to on this.

-Case and RAM combo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.469344
Why these?: The case is the M59, which is based off the CoolerMaster RC590 design. Its a clone, a re-brand. The 590 is a well thought out, bottom mounted PSU design and the NZXT version you see here allows for a lot of fan choices for different airflow patterns.
The RAM is by Corsair, a respected name that is known for their reliability and superb warranty should anything go wrong. At DDR3 1600 with reasonable, though not the best of voltage and timings, its decent RAM that will do what you need it to do.

-HHD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136316
Why this one?: This is no Caviar Black, or any ordinary WD drive. This is an RE3, and I don't mean Resident Evil. The RE series are enterprise class drives capable of extremely fast RAID performance and are extremely reliable. They are faster than a Caviar Black and have some extra error correction and safety features due to their being enterprise class rather than consumer or enthusiast class. If you feel like it, get two, throw them in RAID0, and feel the power.

-Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128443
Why this one?: You'll see now I went the AMD route with this build, to save money, and because I still have some standing issues with the i5 line. This board is the newer 800 series chipset, and if you know about AMD setups you know they encounter chipset bottlenecks before much else. The 800 series removed some of that bottlenecking, though you may have to do some minor tweaking, and being made by Gigabyte, you know it is a quality board. Its loaded with SATA III and USB 3.0, neither of which I consider needed, but they're nice to have. The layout and features will serve you well and I can't think of any area in which this board would fall short.

-GFX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102873
Why this one?: I have applauded the HD 5770 time and again as a cheap, effective, power-efficient, cool running card that puts out some serious bang for the buck. This offering by Sapphire is no exception. You need only google HD 5770 reviews to see the power these babies provide, and due to your board allowing it, you can crossfire them if you wish.

-PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371031
Why this one?: Antec, Antec, and more Antec. Its like getting a SeaSonic for less. There may be sales or deals or mail in rebates that might offer you a similar PSU for less, but this is generally speaking what you want. Its a solid design, highly efficient, tons of connectors, and hell I just like the color on this one. Its a solid PSU and will deliver all the power you need and then some.

-CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
Why this one?: Finally, we get to the last piece. The Callisto if you recall my build for BioAttk, is a Phenom II X2 that can unlock into an X4 if you're lucky. Even when it doesn't, its a very nice, very over-clockable CPU that is at a very nice price point. I imagine you could get this thing in the best case scenario unlocked to an X4 running 3.8GHz or 4.0 if you're real lucky 24/7 stable, with a good cooler thrown on it.

So what'd we spend?
$744.55 after tax and shipping but as I always say, that's based on my zip and NJ has tax that you might not have to pay. This is with only one of those HDDs and GFX, so you could double either one, or both if you feel like spending. Though if you crossfire, we may or may not need to bump up the PSU. I consider this a balanced build and although you might be able to pay less on other sites, I think the security of buying from Newegg is worth something, at least it is to me anyway.

I'm off to work the nightshift. I'll respond to any questions you have when I get home at 6am. I hope I've helped.

About the RE3:
I'm disappointed. Here's a review with results saying it's exactly like a caviar black with raid goodies. That's all well and good, but it's $110. Passmark's data on the RE3 (search for WDC WD7502ABYS) scores exactly the same as the WD7501AALS, aka the caviar black 750 GB, which is outdone by the spinpoint f3 by a good 200 passmark points (search for SAMSUNG HD103SJ), enough to put it in the 100s on the best hard drives, and that's including SSDs.

If you really want speed, and are willing with doubling your chance of complete data loss, then buy 2 500 GB spinpoint f3s for $90 at ewiz. It should give you ~200 MB/s transfer speeds, and ~10 ms response times. What you'll sacrifice is the WD name, and the raid optimizations. However, I don't know how well the RE3 performs while in a raid, but I can't assume it's any better than the spinpoints. I have 2 hitachi deathstars in raid 0 and haven't had a problem with them (though my new WDC green is almost as fast as the two of them in raid 0). If you want load speed, and DON'T want data loss, then raid 1 will make you lose 500 GB, but you'll get double read speeds. If you add a 3rd drive, you can raid 5 and get even faster speeds with data loss protection, but lose 1 drive's total storage space (1.5 TB -> 1.0 TB). The reason is that every single piece of data is stored on 2 hard drives at the same time, so if one fails, you can get it all back. Here's an example of why raid is nice: 12 Spinpoint f1s.

Case: I'm a lian li fanboy.
DVD: old tech. Get the cheapest you can find.
Motherboard and RAM: I know too little about these. I just know Gigabyte, Asus, DFI, MSI, in that order for motherboards, and stay away from foxconn. DDR3 is completely new territory for me. I'm in a personal belief that RAM speed doesn't help system performance much. Here's a review which gives me that impression.
GFX: GTX 460 review. This page shows relative price/performance. You'll note that the 5770 is the best in the current gen graphics. The old g92 core (9800 GT and GTS 250) and the 4850 are battling for top place, but they're power hogs. Note that the GTS 250 is theoretically better than the 9800 GTX+ and is cheaper too.
PSU: I've gotten good at PSU stuff. Seasonic makes the best PSUs, and makes them for OTHER companies as well. Many Antecs are actually made by seasonic (all the earthwatts are). The 400 and 450W corsair units are seasonics, as are the expensive HX units. The VX units are made by CWT (and thus not quite as good, but the 400 and 450W seasonics are very old now). I think all XFX units are seasonic. Here's an example of an XFX seasonic unit. I can only assume that the one you posted for $80 will perform similarly. Actually, it's probably the same S12II unit with slightly worse parts, which is what the Neo Eco line is, I think. In any case, the 620W S12II seasonic is $70 with $10 shipping.
CPU: I just found this out for certain a few weeks ago: the 1156 socket, and 1366 sockets are dead ends The new sandy bridge cores will use 1155 and like 2000 pins. Intel is full of money grubbing idiots who make excellent CPUs. Support the little guy with AMD and hopefully we'll get better competition on the high end (the phenom II x4 965 is on par with the i5 750, can't touch anything higher).

sorry for the long block of text, hope you learn something.

Eh? I have an SSD and it did not requiring any tinkering, customization or sheer luck. All it requires is research to know you aren't buying a shit drive, know whether you need to upgrade the firmware to support TRIM, and that's it. Anandtech has very in-depth reviews of all current SSDs available, all you need to do is read that and buy one from it.

Most of the SSDs you buy now are fine, the old 'stutters like crap' behaviour from early drives is well-understood and easily avoided. Also I don't know what you mean by "reliability just falls short" - MTBF on a SSD is actually longer than that of a regular HD.

Guys, just trust Ex. His build for me was, incredibly, everything I could have dreamed, and that's not a dramatic exaggeration. The 5770, needless to say, is a fucking powerhouse at 150$. I absolutely ADORE my X2 555 (which is now a COMPLETELY stable X4 B55 OC'd to 3.7Ghz for complete stability (3.8 was fairly stable but under strenuous testing ala Prime95 failed) and it's only peaked there because I don't trust myself enough to change voltages. My WD HDD (a Caviar Black, because of his recommendations) is an incredibly fast and responsive HDD. I've always loved CM cases (mine is a 690, but the 590 looks pretty damn good too) that Ex recommends. (Also, Ex, why do any cases have top mounted PSUs? I don't understand at all.) I love the RAM Ex recommended; it has very good latency and speed.
Basically, I'm saying Ex built me a fantastic computer that fulfilled exactly what I wanted and that you should trust him completely. If he says Rockz is right, then you should follow what Rockz said, but if not, follow Ex.

What Ex recommends is always a good build, no doubt, but I too doubt his assessments of SSDs. They can indeed be problematic, but with thorough research the chance of running into trouble can be reduced to a minimum.

Tbh I don't get why there's cases with bottom mounted PSU, except maybe for cable management.
Air flow for top mounted PSUs is very beneficial because the air is sucked in bottom front and then passes the CPU/GPU and is blown out through the PSU top rear.
Air heated inside the case tends to move upwards, you'd essentially waste an exit for the air or have to add another fan where the PSU would be in top PSU configurations.

That's true, about the fan. However, you don't have to worry about an overheating PSU.

Seasonic PSUs don't overheat. Any decent PSU survives the 50 C test with ease. Having the PSU at the top is designed that way to reduce the number of fans. That being said, I think it's best to have the PSU at the front of the case.

I'm not looking for an easy way out, and don't mind stumbling a few times; so I still really want to go with that 32GB SSD just to install win7(64bit), firefox, and other small programs. Then I'll have a regular non-RAID'd HDD. I don't see myself needing more than 250GB.

Ex, it sounded like you were hold yourself back on the RAM you picked. What would be the next one up for you?
@the dvd drive: Can I get something even cheaper, because I don't even want writing functionality at all.
@the GFX: did you want me to buy 2 of these?
@motherboard: were you holding yourself back here too? Is there something better for more money w/o that bottle necking problem?
@PSU: What's this talk of people being disappointed at a lack of modular cables?

I still need to buy cables right? Help with that.

I think I'm gonna livestream the assembly.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 7 2010, 4:26 pm by ClansAreForGays.

You don't need 2 5570s. Lol. One will run SCII at max settings.

Also, since I'm going to be OCing manually through the BIOS now, I don't suppose I can still 'throttle' it? Like have it run at standard speeds unless I'm playing SC2.

And alot of my reasoning for being stubborn with the SSD has to do with lathanide being to only one here to have first hand experience, with no regrets. And I won't even be RAID'ing it so it should be even easier for me.