Out of Pod Experience

Hey all

My old desktop is gettin really old and I think it is time to retire it. It was initially something I just bought cheap, so it's better to just replace it all.

I am not interested in a highend machine, but rather something resonable, but still able to run multiple monitors (2 monitors for gaming and a TV hanging above). It should run 2-3 eve clients without trouble and should be able to run fraps as well. Should also run SC2 and GW2 with good graphics and should be able to run future games without having to be on low settings.

Alpheias suggested a setup for me, and I want your opinion on it:

Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H, Socket-1150
Intel Core i5-4430 Processor
EVGA GeForce GTX 660Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA
Kingston DDR3 HyperX Beast 8GB
Intel SSD 330 Setires 120GB 2.5", 25nm
Seagate Barracuda 2TB (Alpheias initially suggested a WD Desktop Black 2TB, but I doubt the huge increase in price is worth it)
Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 520W PSU
Fractal Design Define Mini

To me, it seems like a great setup with possibility to upgrade in the future. Yet I am not an expert so there might be things I have missed and there might be better alternatives.

-Miz

AkitaT is your man, your woman, your everything.

Budget is about 7500dkk, which is roughly 1k euro.

Aside from your post not making much sense to me, shouldn't you be use something like pcpartpicker rather than relying on just newegg?

While 16 GB is certainly handy when photo editing, video editing or running VMs, I don't see much need for it in gaming when most games (if not all) are still 32bit applications and it is not like Mizhir can't upgrade down the road. But could you elaborate your reasoning behind downgrading the GPU for a slightly larger SSD and 16 GB because that really made no sense to me.

The motherboard is a mATX, just throwing it out there.

Here's my build idea for a mini-monster http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1qWsd

It shows the price as being about $200 over budget, but i cross checked with newegg and several of the items are a bit cheaper than listed.

I tried to select the absolute best parts for the budget and in the interest of future proofing.

Oh, and taxes were not factored in, so I may have went a little overboard >.> If I happen to be in the market for a new pc during a time when money is tight, I just buy a part or two at a time when money is available. Eventually you'll have a new, shiny, relatively future-proofed machine

Huh. Nice site. Good for later.


Double-checked, my bad, it is.


The main reason was a desire for cheap upgradeability (minimal shuffling of existing components), with his current budget in mind.

Windows will use the entirety of your otherwise unused RAM as file cache, so even if you have no SDD at all, you will still enjoy SSD-like load times for the second and later times accessing various files that are still in that cache.
The more otherwise unused RAM you have, the more files can be stored that way, and the more likely it is your drives will stay unused longer, which in case of SSDs (especially if you keep the swap file on it) will translate in much a longer expected lifetime.
I had a mere 4 GB not so long ago, but upgraded to 16 GB (with absolutely no other change), and even if I seldom used up much more than 3 GB before, the performance difference is staggering (I kept postponing purchasing a SSD, and I have a quite slow WDC Green as my main drive).
Having a lot of seemingly unused RAM is actually a very good thing in quite a few unexpected situations.

A SSD is not something you want to swap out often, and you want it to last as much as possible.
Also, the less free space left on a SSD, the faster the performance and average lifetime will deprecate, so you really want a larger drive with as much free space on it as possible and financially feasible.
And you also want as much additional system RAM as possible to minimize SSD usage.
So, instead of getting a not-so-cheap modest sized one and abusing it by keeping it nearly full and swapping installed games on a semi-regular basis, better EITHER get a dirt-cheap tiny one (which you don't really care if it croaks early) and use it as SSD cache for your HDD (then later on, get a large one, when you have more cash), OR get the largest one you can find with a good price/size ratio from the start and stick with it (saving the cash from some other components which you'll upgrade later).

For the time being, most games are still focused on DX9 tech (with the odd DX10/DX11 "upgrade" here and there) and partially bound performance-wise by the current (nearly obsolete) gaming consoles.
That means, for the vast majority of games today, a 660 Ti is still overkill even on high-ish graphics detail settings (let alone medium), and you can count the good games where you really need that fast of a video card (or something better) in order to properly experience them at decent graphics detail levels.
A lowly GTX 650 will be borderline sufficient for the near future.

As the next crop of consoles starts getting sold in significant numbers, baseline graphic performances will start slowly sliding upwards, and it will be at least a year (probably even longer) until a much better video card would be justifiable.
Since the price/performance level noticeably shifts with each subsequent video card generation, and since the the best moment to get a brand new video card will be about half a year after it gets released, also since the mid-range video cards have the better price/performance ratios in most line-ups, the best moment to buy a new video card will be when the GTX *50-*60 models have been out for a few months (most likely that would be somewhere in the late 2014) AND about a year after the XBOne/PS4 (so, again, near the end of 2014).
Combine with very likely holiday discounts, and the best moment to buy a DECENT video card should be December 2014, and the best purchase will probably be a 3GB GTX 860 Ti (noticeably faster than the GTX 660 Ti, using up less power, and not much more expensive).

If you get a SSD and keep the swap file on the HDD instead of the SSD, you should be fine with 8 GB too.
There won't be many slowdowns (and when it happens, they'll most likely be brief) due to the OS using the swap file anyway.
You could keep the swap file on the SSD though, but it might reduce its expected lifetime quite a bit, especially if you won't have too much free space on it usually.


W64Ult over here, with a 80 GB OS partition. ~16.5 GB free. ~13 GB hyberfile. ~1 GB swap.
"My documents" is on a separate partition, no games installed on the OS partition either (it's not a separate drive, so why bother).
If you're not going to have too many other large games beside EVE, I suppose a 120 GB SSD would be adequate (especially if you keep the swap file on the HDD and disable hibernation).


If you get a SSD on which you'll be putting your apps and games, not really, no. Even a slower drive might do fine.
The only possible exception would be if you plan to use FRAPS heavily both at high FPS and high resolutions, and even then, just barely worth it.


Depends on exact models you compare.
If you're talking stock speeds, then the 760 is allegedly only about 10% faster at best than the 660 Ti and probably less than 5% faster on average (it has a pixel fill advantage but a texel fill disadvantage, so it depends on what you use it for and in which resolution - could actually run slower than the 660Ti in some cases, especially for compute tasks - in games it's usually better though), but it could be using up to 170W instead of 150W while operating, so I guess it depends on what you care about more, processing power or electric power usage/ heat generation AND on exactly what you'll be playing.
Also, side note, on newegg at least, similarly specced 760s are cheaper than 660 Tis, not the other way around.

I'd say go with 16gb ram if you're planning to run multiple clients of any game, ram isn't exactly expensive these days.

As for the hard drive, I trust WD not to die on me at some point in the future. I've been using WD drives since the late 90's and not a single one has failed. Many of my friends have used seagate drives before and I've seen them experience quite a number of dead drives which made me paranoid about them

For your build, yes it is.

I have SSDs in my main box and in the "steam" box, with 8GB of RAM each, and while it is true that Windows gobbles up all RAM available if you have a lot of processes running (superfetch being the worst) I largely consider it to be a non-issue if you run a majority of your applications from a SSD in which case, superfetch should always be disabled.



I think your argument falls apart completely because SSDs has seen a increase in space, reliability and price drops in a short amount of time, in the context of computer hardware. And there is plenty of of helpful pointers out there how to maximize lifetime on your SSD online.

If anything, I'd be more concerned about backups than any of my SSDs.



While it is true that a crammed SSD will not perform well but having a 120GB is enough for Windows, your documents, key applications for your productivity. Anything else can be stored on a standard HDD so again, a non-issue.



I don't think Mizhir plans on playing just those games that has been held down by old consoles to be fair.



Plenty of good offers as is now. I have spotted a few 670s going for around 2000-2900 SEK which will last a while.