Computar VII : RAM Harder

[Dration]

So... I'm working on building a new gaming rig, as my current setup is starting to flag on me a bit. And since I have an intelligent group of PC gamers who aren't going to troll me for asking for ideas/opinions/inspirations, I wanted to know what you guys think about all the stuff floating around out there.

Things like using SSD's instead of (or in tandem with) standard Hard Drives. Or if it's worth running multiple Graphics Cards over one really good one.

Even things like solid motherboards to run with and things like that. I've been a bit of a bum and purchasing prebuilt stuff lately, and with SW:TOR on the horizon I feel like it's time to make something that'll handle the abuse I'm going to be putting it through.

Any ideas/recommendations?

[Ash]

It seems these topics come up every few months (I think I've even created one once) but it's always good to hear what the latest hardware is out there.  I'm toying with the idea of building a custom machine (or having one custom built) so I'd love to see what the group throws down.

My 2 sticking points are these:

1) With PCI Express 3.0 coming out this year (4Q) would it be best to wait and build one that supports 3.0?
2) I have 3 monitors and would love to do surround gaming but no one can give me a straight answer on the type of setup I'd need (3 separate graphics cards with each monitor plugged into each card, or all 3 cards SLI'd together and use a 3-cable splitter, or one card that is as powerful as 3 cards and has 3 or more ports, etc...) I just don't know.

[Dration]

Yeah, it really seems to be difficult to get a straight answer on everything. So many people are running wildly different setups, and all run into weird problems and sometimes weirder solutions.

I'm not trying to do anything too ridiculous, I just want good solid power and response time. Hence taking a good hard look at the SSD. A friend of mine got a new laptop that was all SSD, and when he turned it on, it was like BAM... done. Ready to go. None of this snooze-time while you're waiting for Windows to get out of bed and get the coffee going.

But then, you have that nagging issue that SSD's have degradation over time. I keep wondering when that would start to be a problem, as the things aren't exactly cheap. But maybe by the time it would be a problem, they'd have dropped in price and I could just snag a new one.

Slowly the list of parts is starting to take shape, but the GPU is still the thing that escapes me. I know I'm probably not going to wait for PCI Express 3.0. This is going to be a summer-ish project, and I don't think I need my next rig to be 'that' much in the latest/greatest category.

Why can't it be 1999 when I still knew what the hell I was doing when it came to this crap...

[JP]

Dration

- SSD tech has come along way from the 1st generation drives, they've fixed alot of the issues and altho are still far most expensive than mechanical worth the performance. For SSD stuff read this article to convince you - http://kotaku.com/#!5789060/if-you-buy-one-pc-upgrade-this-year , spoiler - they're bad ass
- Vid cards i've always prefered one good card over 2 lessers, for example my buddy just picked up the ATI 6950 which has a firmware upgrade that actually turns it into a 6970 which is one of the best cards on market atm, troll tom's hardware as they bar none the best hardware info out there.
- CPU the intel sandy bridge is by far the best chips out there, and cheap. just finding a good mobo that supports that socket is kinda a whore (or was last time i checked)
- Motherboards i swear by asus, my buddy loves gigabyte, msi is pretty solid as well, id stick to those 3 brands check newegg for reviews before purchasing


Yotogi -

- 3 monitor setup would be done the easiest way by running a card that has AMD's Eyefinity - 1 card that supports 3 monitors if you wanted to make it run smoother, double up on cards.

Good example is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102916 has 2 dvi and 1 hdmi makes it nice and easy to connect 3 monitors.

hope that helps

[Ash]

- 3 monitor setup would be done the easiest way by running a card that has AMD's Eyefinity - 1 card that supports 3 monitors if you wanted to make it run smoother, double up on cards.

Is Eyefinity similar to Nvidia's SLI? so by doubling up on the cards I'd still only be plugging them into the first card?

Nice SSD article BTW.

[Eroz]

SSD drives work great for the OS (this is why your buddy has great system boot time), and maybe a 2-3 games that you know you are going to be playing alot. The rest of the games, dump to a secondary HDD, and symbolic link their folder from the SSD to the HDD. Thus you have a fast OS, fast current/play a lot games, and nothing special everything else.

SLI and Crossfire (AMD/ATI's SLI) have serious diminishing returns. Your talking twice the price for generally only 10-20% performance increase. Generally just go with the best on the market.

Now in terms of EYEfininty and multiple moniters, I didn't see anything about performance on them, it just seems like you have to have the right card and it will support it, but since your drawing twice the screen resolution 2 cards seems like it would make it run faster, but the real bottleneck could start being the game code itself.

[JP]

AMD version of SLI is crossfire, eyefinity is there multi monitor tech on their new cards.

http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/TECHNOLOGIES/AMD-EYEFINITY-TECHNOLOGY/Pages/eyefinity.aspx

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-eyefinity-technology/for-consumers/Pages/experience-eyefinity.aspx

[Tbone]

http://www.ibuypower.com

[Ash]

SSD Question then:  Can you boost performance even more by joining two SSD's into a RAID 0 (striping) configuration like you can with standard hard drives or are SSD's already so fast that it's not really worth doing?

[NoCry]

I have an SSD (a decent one) in my main computer. I must say that if I were building a computer I would spend the price difference between a decent harddrive (normal) and an SSD on upgrading a different component. To me it makes no discernable difference. I am not saying it is not faster but I have always found the bottleneck to be software or graphics card orientated.

Just my two pennies worth.

[Broin]

http://www.ibuypower.com

Yeah what he said....

[Eroz]

SSD Question then:  Can you boost performance even more by joining two SSD's into a RAID 0 (striping) configuration like you can with standard hard drives or are SSD's already so fast that it's not really worth doing?

http://hothardware.com/News/Intel-SSDs-RAID-0-A-Case-Study-In-Speed-Take-2/

Survey says.... not really, less then a tenth of a second difference, and it's less then a quarter second anyways.

Here's how I view RAID and SLI/Crossfire setups, get the motherboard to support them, but only get what you want to pay for now, eg. SSD and a single card, if they aren't fast enough for you, get the second one and use it. The hardware may even be cheaper by then anyways.

[Lithium]

SSD Question then:  Can you boost performance even more by joining two SSD's into a RAID 0 (striping) configuration like you can with standard hard drives or are SSD's already so fast that it's not really worth doing?

I raided two SSDs in RAID 0 on my desktop. It's something only very savvy users should do!!

This is because Windows 7 will NOT detect the raid as a SSD setup. You need to find a utility or change lower level windows properties manually. These include but are not limited to, prefetch, superfetch, defrag service, and a bunch of other optimizations. This is obviously because access time is <1ms on an SSD and all the optimizations made for HDDs hurt performance when running an SSD. Additionally, a function called TRIM is not passed from the OS to raided SSDs and if garbage collection is not implemented correctly by the SSD manufacturer you can experience decreasing write speeds over time.

My SSDs are SATA6 and alone achieve around 300-325 MB/s sequential read. In raid I get sequential read around 580-600 MB/s.

[Dration]

Yeah, after comparing some of the prices on Ibuypower.com to my list of possible components, it's almost about even price-wise.

But the simple fact that I wouldn't have to assemble and install everything really makes me feel like I should just buy one already done and enjoy someone else's labors.

That being said... one of the things on Ibuypower's list, besides thermal grease and professional wire-ties is... Special Packaging to make sure my stuff doesn't get broken in transit? What the hell? 20 bucks extra to make sure my 1300 dollar PC doesn't get manhandled? I feel like some mafioso is looking at me demanding money or some not-nice things might happen to my store.

[Broin]

Don't do the special wiring... It's not needed.  The system I got didn't have it and it's still really clean.  The special wiring is for those perfectionist who are obsessed with everything being perfect.  

Special packaging?  I don't remember paying extra for that.   They pretty much just sent it with a good package job.   I would say the standard stuff of wiring and shipping should be fine.  

Spend the money on the machine.