[Hardware Question] SSD just for the OS?

[janpitor]

I have one 32G SSD for win and another 64G for simulators together with a normal 500G disc. Win loads fast, so do the simulators. As far as I know, 12G RAM would tend to higher the timings thus decreasing the overal performance of RAM...6 is far enough. As for cooler...noctua nh D-14, and I think for the price i7 920/930 + overclock is the best option. I opted for i5 750 just for the lower money needed

[csThor]

Thx for the opinions overall guys. I may decrease RAM to 6GB but the rest of the components is fixed now because I am limiting myself to a certain vendor who has a retail shop nearby. I have had a not so pleasant experience with online ordering a few years back so I am not going to cherry-pick components from this or that vendor just to save a few €uros. I'm sticking to one where I can actually go and kick up a stink if necessary.

[Madfish]

Originally Posted by T.}{.O.R.

What's the situation with SSD's, RAID and TRIM - I've read somewhere that whne put in RAID TRIM doesn't work. Or is this just for every other OS than Win7?

As far as I know there are some Intel controllers that pass Trim to Raid drives, however that is not an established method whatsoever yet so there is no guarantee. Let me make this a bit more clear. It is possible to use Trim for one SSD in a set of raid drives (e.g. 1 SSD + 1 MD). The operating system doesn't matter and it's not just Windows 7 affected. In fact that's probably part of the problem as a good raid should work on a purely hardware basis anyways.
However, TRIM in raid is already being worked on - at least Intel, Adaptec and Acrea are working on it and I assume others are too. But for now you should avoid the issue.
Also I doubt you'll need an SSD raid. Like I mentioned, even SSD's are already questionable and an added bonus. Yes, they do give performance but there are better options to increase perfomance unless you run I/O apps like databases and such.

I agree with your choice on the vendor and also to reduce the size of RAM for the gaming machine. 6gb is perfectly reasonable right now and you can always stack up with another 3 modules.

Picking a local vendor is always a good choice when you're putting a decent amount of money on the table. Sometimes there are components that are not broken but still not working perfectly either. For example coil whistle, slight vibrations etc. Depending on the vendor it can really cause some problems trying to get hardware with slight symptoms exchanged.

[Insuber]

Go for 80 GB. Some units (namely Intel ones) are really fast but slow down when they are >90% full. Additionally with a bigger SSD drive you can install IL2 on it and enjoy fast startups ...

I bought an Intel 80 GB SSD, and I don't regret the 220€ I had to shell out, because this single upgrade resolved all my issues of slow loading of XP and IL2. There is enough space for Win XP, a couple of IL2 installs and some other stuff, and the drive is still filled at 70%.
I have also a1TB Samsung drives and a couple of 500 GB, Samsung, as work horses.

Cheers,
Insuber

Originally Posted by Madfish

If you got 12gigs of ram you could either use a ramdrive and boost system speed or just rely on windows caching in all the data from the drive.
Most SSD's aren't that much faster than good S-ATA drives in sequential read. In gaming you may have faster load times but mostly everything is cached in the VRAM and RAM so yeah.
Of course it's nice if browsers and other software open up fast but with a small SSD you will run into trouble once it starts to fill up.
I'd recommend aiming for 120gigs or you will probably have to compromise. You can, for example, put the pagefile into a ramdrive or the users directory on the data drive (your 1TB disk) but well, if you can spend the money, sure, go for an SSD. If you really need to save money and can't afford the 120 I'd recommend to wait until they get a bit cheaper. 64gb is really a bit small. I'd consider 80 as the minimum.
But that's just my personal experience of course.

[infirebaptize]

Originally Posted by Madfish

If you got 12gigs of ram you could either use a ramdrive and boost system speed or just rely on windows caching in all the data from the drive.
Most SSD's aren't that much faster than good S-ATA drives in sequential read. In gaming you may have faster load times but mostly everything is cached in the VRAM and RAM so yeah.
Of course it's nice if browsers and other software open up fast but with a small SSD you will run into trouble once it starts to fill up.
I'd recommend aiming for 120gigs or you will probably have to compromise. You can, for example, put the pagefile into a ramdrive or the users directory on the data drive (your 1TB disk) but well, if you can spend the money, sure, go for an SSD. If you really need to save money and can't afford the 120 I'd recommend to wait until they get a bit cheaper. 64gb is really a bit small. I'd consider 80 as the minimum.
But that's just my personal experience of course.

+1

I would go for ramdrive, SSD are overpriced and hyped. 8GB to load game files leaving 4GB for OS. And i would buy two separate hard drives say (2) x 500 GB, i use one for windows and the second one for gaming.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by csThor

I have had a not so pleasant experience with online ordering a few years back so I am not going to cherry-pick components from this or that vendor just to save a few €uros. I'm sticking to one where I can actually go and kick up a stink if necessary.

LOL! I hear you. I just bought a new monitor and it had a bunch of dead pixels, it would have been a horror show to send back to an online vendor, especially since the neck for the base wouldn't come back out of the monitor; It wouldn't go back in the box!

I just walked into the store, plopped the (unclosable) box on the counter and the lady said "do you want to exchange or get a refund?" before I had a chance to even explain why I'm taking it back.

Worth a few extra bucks IMHO.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by csThor

INTEL Core i7 960 4x3.2 GHz BOX
Asus (Retail) Rampage III Gene Republic of Gamers iX58
12GB Corsair Dominator PC2-12800 CL8 KIT
2.5" Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB
3.5" WD 1000GB WD1002FAEX 7200U/min 64MB SATA 3.0
ZOTAC (Retail) GTX480 1536MB mini-HDMI/DVI
Creative (Retail) X-Fi Titanium PCIe
Asus (Retail) BR-04B2T BD-Rom
Windows 7 Professional 64bit OEM

I would like to rephrase my statement about the sound card - loose it.

The thing that comes with Rampage boards is excellent, the only sound card that is better than this is the Xonar Essence, and to actually hear the difference you would need a very good system.

The X-Fi Titanium here is just a waste of money. Go with the Rampage.

[klem]

May I jump in as I am about to spend significant money on a new PC?
BUT This thread has raised a few of questions..

If it's inappropriate I'll post separately.

I am considering (almost decided on):
i7 950 Retail with Nehalem cooler
6Gb G.Skill NQ DDR3 160MHz (Triple Channel for ASUS board)
Coolermaster HAF912 Plus, Black, Chassis
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular
Asus Sabertooth X58 TUF Intel X58 (Socket 1366)
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System, Retail
1GB XFX HD 5870 XXX, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 5200MHz GDDR5, GPU 875MHz, 1600 Cores, DP/ 2x DL DVI-I/ HDMI (why buy PCIe 2.1?)

Plus existing:- 160Gb 7200 SATA HDD for OS, 160Gb 7200 SATA HDD for Documents/Photos/Crud and a R/W DVD.
My current 'Flight' disc is also a 160Gb WD 1600JS-00NCB1 7200 93.5MBps like the others.

So my questions.....
1. Isn't 1366 socket later/newer than 1156?
2. What's the better 'future' of these sockets/processors?
3. I was intending to use the SSD for my 'Flight' Drive (FSX at 17Gb including the SDK and IL-2/mods at 13.6Gb hopefully leaving plenty for SoW). These SSDs are quoted at something like 'up to 355MBps' vs my existing 93.5MBps. Would a new HDD really be better?
4. Does any genius know how much space SoW will take?

btw csThor (original poster? I'm stuck in 'Reply' ) The i7 950 only supports 1.5v memory not 1.6/1.65. (Source: my online chat with Intel Tech Team). Do you know what your 960 supports? I found it very easy to pick unsuitable memory.

Hoping for some replies..

klem

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by klem

1. Isn't 1366 socket later/newer than 1156?

newer/older is irrelevant
1156 is the cutback budget version of the 1366 with less features but they are pretty much the same generation.

Originally Posted by klem

2. What's the better 'future' of these sockets/processors?

Probably neither. The P67 (socket 1155/2011 ??) based motherboards for Sandy Bridge will start to takeover from early next year.

Of course in terms of overclocking it seems the p67 motherboards may well have limitations with PCI bus etc locked to processor frequency which may give an extended life to the current chipsets.

Originally Posted by klem

3. I was intending to use the SSD for my 'Flight' Drive (FSX at 17Gb including the SDK and IL-2/mods at 13.6Gb hopefully leaving plenty for SoW). These SSDs are quoted at something like 'up to 355MBps' vs my existing 93.5MBps. Would a new HDD really be better?

Not sure what you asking here.

Originally Posted by klem

4. Does any genius know how much space SoW will take?

My tarot card guy predicts more than 5Gb and less than 100 GB

[Madfish]

3. I was intending to use the SSD for my 'Flight' Drive (FSX at 17Gb including the SDK and IL-2/mods at 13.6Gb hopefully leaving plenty for SoW). These SSDs are quoted at something like 'up to 355MBps' vs my existing 93.5MBps. Would a new HDD really be better?

If I understand you right you're asking if it was better to use an SSD instead of a regular HD. The answer is: depends on money.

One thing is for certain: If you go for a small SSD then definately put your OS on it. Not the games.
If you want to spend some money either get a bigger SSD or don't get an SSD at all and spend the money somewhere else (2nd GPU/better GPU, bit more Ram etc.).
Games do not run noticably faster / better on SSD. There are only a very few games that really run like 1% faster and load 10-40% faster. But once loaded you won't see any noticable difference anymore. (I linked a review about that in an earlier post but you can just search for one yourself)