[ADVICE] Complete new PC setup - all the trimmings.

Brando_ie

BeansBeans wrote: »

Sorry about this, I can't help myself. Every time i see this thread i think of a big christmas dinner with all the trimmings :pac:

True, and perhaps done deliberately to influence the
Unaware. After all, which man woman or beast can
Resist the thought a piping hot Christmas dinner as they huddle over their
Keyboard, and sure, why there, they will impart some
Expert advice to set me straight on my new PC!!
Yeah, Christmas dinner's with the trimmings are just fine by me.

p.s... possible additional blatant subliminal messaging included in this message to ensure one final push this morning before the big order goes ahead. Apologies to the now hungry.

Brando_ie

DECEiFER wrote: »

Listen, I know you've gone a bit over budget, but I do have one concern. It's not of a technical nature, as those have been pretty much ironed out already. It's the size of the SSD. I'm a Windows 7 user since July and I have both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions. You can be sure that 32GB is going to present problems very soon.

First of all, virtual memory (page file). You're going to want that on the fastest drive (the SSD), and with your set-up, I predict a further loss of ~4-6GB to the page file alone. I re-installed my Windows 7 64-bit OS last week. The Windows directory comes in at ~15GB.

You'd also be sure better off putting some of your more high-demanding applications and games on the SSD, too. So you'd need some more room for that, a lot more room.

You might be better off thinking about the already suggested drive's 64GB counterpart:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=487793
(also available, and in-stock here: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169566 - £10 delivery to Ireland)

I know fu*k-all about SSD's, and which of them has the best performance. You could get a bigger one, say 128GB, for about the same money on Ebuyer (Kingston - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173954 or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173958). How they'd stack up performance wise against the Corsair X64, I couldn't tell you. Maybe someone else can chime in and shed some light on it.

15Gb..... is that for real!!!..... holy moley. In which case, that advice is well received. At the minimum I'll opt for the 64Gb option from Komplett for ease of ordering but will consider the 128Mb ebuyer version should it be endorsed by others prior to going ahead with the order this afternoon. I intend to be religious in only filling the SSD with key programs but would have liked to stop installing at around the 20Gb (of 32Gb) mark which leave SFA after the OS.

Cheers for the advice

DECEiFER

Brando_ie wrote: »

15Gb..... is that for real!!!..... holy moley. In which case, that advice is well received. At the minimum I'll opt for the 64Gb option from Komplett for ease of ordering but will consider the 128Mb ebuyer version should it be endorsed by others prior to going ahead with the order this afternoon. I intend to be religious in only filling the SSD with key programs but would have liked to stop installing at around the 20Gb (of 32Gb) mark which leave SFA after the OS.

Cheers for the advice

Yeah, do hold off to hear what some SSD enthusiasts have to say about the Kingston vs. Corsair. I'd imagine the Corsair would win out on performance, which is why the price is higher for half the Kingston's capacity.

But, yeah, I'm not joking. Windows Vista and Windows 7, compared with XP, are much bigger. One thing I did forget to mention is that you're getting Home Premium. I'm using Ultimate. I'd say Home Premium would still rank in pretty damn big, though. Even if it was ~10GB, and I can't imagine it being any less, you wouldn't be leaving much room for your other stuff. Also, the 64-bit platforms are always bigger than the 32-bit ones. My 32-bit installation of Ultimate, also re-done last week, is ~10GB (compared to ~15GB for the 64-bit one).

jonny72

I think a lot of people put the swap file onto their secondary HDD and not the SSD, because of the constant read/write

Might be a wee bit slower but will make your SSD last much longer, that said though, SSD buying and knowledge is a bit of a fine art now, the latest gen might have solved some of these little niggles

DECEiFER

My secondary disks are IDE so I choose to keep mine on the primary disk, a Samsung F1 1TB. I figure it's the lesser of two evils... A good hard drive will last, regardless. At least it will last longer than you'd expect. Any good disk I've had, I've been able to retire or give away, none of them have died. The last disk that died on me was a 2GB Seagate (actually, two of them did) in the 90's.

Farcear

What do you even need a swap/page file for with 6+ gigs of RAM?

(Apart from a very small one to prevent system crashes on windows.)

Brando_ie

Thanks for the SSD comments. I am actually going to run with the stocked

1 No Corsair SSD Performance P64 2,5" 64GB = €172

Which offers the little more space to park some primary applications at the least without getting too packed and is only a small bit dearer. I will mull over where to locate the page file but at least as Rafa say's.... options, no.

One of my main bugbears about my current rig is the amount of scratching required to do just about anything and it takes a solid 2 minutes to get even firefox up and running in the evenings (not to mention AutoCAD!!), at least I may have a quieter option should I need it.

I have monitors ordered and just need to straighten out a query on delivery from Komplett before taking the plunge.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and hopefully I will be okay putting all this stuff together.

DECEiFER

Farcear wrote: »

What do you even need a swap/page file for with 6+ gigs of RAM?

(Apart from a very small one to prevent system crashes on windows.)

I normally just let Windows manage it automatically. I know a guy in Sweden who could be considered a computer + programming + networking expert who would advise the same. The man's in his late 30's and has experience dating back into the late 70's. But that's an opinion. Of course, others would suggest differently.

Brando_ie wrote: »

Thanks for the SSD comments. I am actually going to run with the stocked

1 No Corsair SSD Performance P64 2,5" 64GB = €172

Which offers the little more space to park some primary applications at the least without getting too packed and is only a small bit dearer. I will mull over where to locate the page file but at least as Rafa say's.... options, no.

One of my main bugbears about my current rig is the amount of scratching required to do just about anything and it takes a solid 2 minutes to get even firefox up and running in the evenings (not to mention AutoCAD!!), at least I may have a quieter option should I need it.

I have monitors ordered and just need to straighten out a query on delivery from Komplett before taking the plunge.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and hopefully I will be okay putting all this stuff together.

Excellent stuff. Whatever about the page file, 32GB is a bit low these days for the OS. Sure, give it a few years and we'll be buying 1TB SSD's for the same price you're paying now for the 64GB one. I think I'll jump in then and get one.

BeansBeans

Brando_ie wrote: »

True, and perhaps done deliberately to influence the
Unaware. After all, which man woman or beast can
Resist the thought a piping hot Christmas dinner as they huddle over their
Keyboard, and sure, why there, they will impart some
Expert advice to set me straight on my new PC!!
Yeah, Christmas dinner's with the trimmings are just fine by me.

p.s... possible additional blatant subliminal messaging included in this message to ensure one final push this morning before the big order goes ahead. Apologies to the now hungry.

Haha, you would probably have more help if there wasnt a bunch of people dreaming about turkey :P

Brando_ie wrote: »

15Gb..... is that for real!!!..... holy moley. In which case, that advice is well received. At the minimum I'll opt for the 64Gb option from Komplett for ease of ordering but will consider the 128Mb ebuyer version should it be endorsed by others prior to going ahead with the order this afternoon. I intend to be religious in only filling the SSD with key programs but would have liked to stop installing at around the 20Gb (of 32Gb) mark which leave SFA after the OS.

Cheers for the advice

my windows folder is 19.4GB bloody Vista (bisto! damn you roast dinner thoughts, not that i like bisto). Its mad, i had thought that it include Visual Studio and MySql Server etc. But apparently not, what a pig of an OS.

Brando_ie wrote: »

Thanks for the SSD comments. I am actually going to run with the stocked

1 No Corsair SSD Performance P64 2,5" 64GB = €172

Thats a bloody brilliant price, cant get over that. Especially coming from Komplett.

DECEiFER

BeansBeans wrote: »

Thats a bloody brilliant price, cant get over that. Especially coming from Komplett.

Just remember that it's cheaper for a reason... Though, it'll still kick some ass out of your bog standard 7,200 RPM drive at the very least!

Leman_Russ

Just to chime in on the SSD discussion, I run W7 Ultimate off a 40GB Partition on my HDD.

ATM I have 24GB Free after installing windows, drivers, Firewall+Antivirus and a system managed Pagefile. 64GB is more than enough for an OS, Browser and 1 or 2 essential Games. The rest of your files/programs can be stuck onto a HDD.

DECEiFER

Leman_Russ wrote: »

Just to chime in on the SSD discussion, I run W7 Ultimate off a 40GB Partition on my HDD.

ATM I have 24GB Free after installing windows, drivers, Firewall+Antivirus and a system managed Pagefile. 64GB is more than enough for an OS, Browser and 1 or 2 essential Games. The rest of your files/programs can be stuck onto a HDD.

Agreed, but the more the merrier. If only they were cheaper and more it would be!

BeansBeans

DECEiFER wrote: »

Just remember that it's cheaper for a reason... Though, it'll still kick some ass out of your bog standard 7,200 RPM drive at the very least!

I thought the revision 2 had an indillinx controller no? I wouldnt have gone near the older Corsair drives anyway.
I think i was more suprised that the drive is €20 - €30 cheaper than on HWVS. :eek:

Apparently the 2 lower level series of Kingston drives arent up to much, but the M series is equivalent of the Intel. Ah they need to start making model numbers of drives clearer. I like the G.Skill and OCZ ones, nice clear names.

Edit: Actually OCZ will be releasing some interesting SSDs- They wont be cheap

Leman_Russ

The older Kingstons use the Dreaded jMicron Controler, that is why they are cheap.

The New More expensive Kingston ones use the indillinx one iirc.

BeansBeans

Leman_Russ wrote: »

The older Kingstons use the Dreaded jMicron Controler, that is why they are cheap.

The New More expensive Kingston ones use the indillinx one iirc.

Ah ok, no trim support though.

But what is the rev. 2 Corsair one? Im getting incredibly confused now, it seems like manufacturers release a few new lines of SSD every day. Horrible gimps . Ah good for us if you can keep up.

Actually just noticed that G.Skill are releasing the Falcon II soon. 32nm NAND flash, Trim support, Indillinx Eco, and improved speeds it seems.


Ah yes youre right about the Kingston, the old V Series used the JMicron, the M series is the Intel X25-M Gen1 (thought it was gen2), and the V+ Series the one i was thinking of is a Samsung controller, Corsair is Samsung too.
Right i give up.....

AlmightyCushion

BeansBeans wrote: »

Ah ok, no trim support though.

But what is the rev. 2 Corsair one? Im getting incredibly confused now, it seems like manufacturers release a few new lines of SSD every day. Horrible gimps . Ah good for us if you can keep up.

Actually just noticed that G.Skill are releasing the Falcon II soon. 32nm NAND flash, Trim support, Indillinx Eco, and improved speeds it seems.


Ah yes youre right about the Kingston, the old V Series used the JMicron, the M series is the Intel X25-M Gen1 (thought it was gen2), and the V+ Series the one i was thinking of is a Samsung controller, Corsair is Samsung too.
Right i give up.....

The corsair P series are samsung, the x series are indilinx controllers.

I wish manufacturers would stop going after faster and faster speeds, they just aren't that noticeable. Someone should just stick together one with decent speeds (half that of the vertex or there about) with trim support and make it cheaper.

BeansBeans

Ah thank you

Yep the price is whats important at this stage. They will be releasing more of those SSD RaidDrives before they lower the prices .

Leman_Russ

Yup, it's new stuff, so it follows a very set pattern:

Retail Protoypes: Expensive and Crap, for the Hardcore Enthuiast
Early Adoption: Expensive and only a little Crap. For the Enthusiast
Early Mainstream: Less Expensive now but still high. For the Low-Mid Range Enthusiat
Mainstream: Everyone has it, untill they come up with SSSDs, Super Solid State Drives with 3.7% moar Ramz!

Also, nice tip about the G.Skill, gonna have to look into that.

Brando_ie

Just to add to this thread. I got all the components discussed in this thread and as recommended by fellow boardies and put the PC together last weekend.

Its just turned out great and has converted me to the virtues of self building which I had got seriously out of touch with.

Total build was numerous hours split over the weekend but I suspect next time around it would be considerably quicker as I was super cautious over fixing stuff.

As I was working on the machine I thought it would be useful to point out some banana skins I encountered and things that worked out well to help anyone newbie self builders out there who are (mistakenly) holding off going for it. I'm sure a lot of my minor problems are well known but just to collect them together as a round up to this thread might be a good thing.

I'll put some brief descriptions under various headings and hopefully it will prove useful to other folks down the line.

ORDERING:

• I contacted my CC company prior to the orders and gave them general details of the upcoming purchases particularly as I was billing to my home address and delivering to work address. All ordering was very smooth afterwards with no validation tomfoolery (primarily pixmania and komplett)

MISSING ITEMS FROM ORDER.

• I never though to get or borrow a wired keyboard / mouse and had to go looking for one on Sunday morning to install OS (obvious oversight)
  
• Could have done with something to retrieve dropped screws in the chassis (ended up magnetising screwdriver head from a speaker but lost some a lot of time)
  
• 3.5" bay converter for SSD drive. (ended up using velcro on advice from boards but would have preferred a proper bay converter)

BUILD

• I found I kinda knew what I was doing as have cracked open PC's since back in the day but a few connections slowed me down somewhat (HD Audio) and had to take a bit of a punt on using the power fan motherboard (PWR FAN) connection to connect last of the 3 case fans. Having my old PC up and running and watching the odd youtube guide proved very useful if for no other reason than to take stock or confirm what you already (or think you) knew.
  
• I found dry fitting my CPU cooler clear of the motherboard handy, just so I knew what to expect during the real thing.
  
• Pint glass with all screws in saved a lot of searching around.
  
• CONFIRM EVERYTHING even if you are certain you know it. For example, the RAM went in bay 1,2 & 4 for some reason and I would have just gone with 1,2 & 3 had I not taken the time to check prior to installation (may not have been catastrophic but you get the idea) Also, closely followed CPU fan motherboard connection instructions but it was poorly worded and fans were inoperable (used Y splitter into 1 connection so no good) until I made a small change so that could have made short work of my CPU.
  
• First few boots of the rig with the case fully open highlighted the fan problems so I would advise that.
  
• Get it right, then get it looking smart. I had the machine fully working before I got involved in the cable management side of things. It gave me a much better idea of how I wanted to collect the cables and to my credit, the wife thought it wasn't finished as 'there are no wires in it' I could have got bogged down trying to do both and my way meant only a few cables were rerouted afterwards.
  
• Confirm drivers. I discovered (online) that my media card reader had a peculiar installation process for Win 7 and neither Windows or the device CD did the job automatically. Straightforward but a nusience
  
• Format drives. Was freaked out when the device manager could see both my SSD primary and HDD secondary drives but explorer only saw the SSD. Discovered that I needed to format the HDD after the OS was up and running to get it recognised. Again likely obvious.
  
• Used NiNite.com to install a lot of my programs but found out afterwards that it installed them on the SSD so ended up going the manual route with a lot of them so as to keep the SSD clean. Would avoid in future although great idea.

---

Couldn't / Can't get Easy Tune 6 (motherboard tuning software) to run with Win7 so it looks that overclocking down the line may be out. There may be a working version in the future but for now I'm just happy with the stock speeds.

All in all I am absolutely delighted with the new rig and the dual monitors are just freaking awesome. I'll do a benchmark or 2 later but have been downloading a heap so far this month and don't want do get 3DMark in case I end up over my cap but the Win7 internal benchmarks have 7.4 for the first 4 and 7.2 for the last item so I'm fairly happy.

Cheers boardies for all your help.

Anti

Dont ever use that software overclocking bollocks its a pile of shit. Just do some research on the internet and do it all in the bios, its so easy a retarded monkey could do it by bashing his plums off the keyboard while chewing on a banana.