Help Me Build My PC Catch-All

MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Is there going to be any kind of performance hit if I use Windows 7 home vs pro?

Only thing that I think of off the top of my head is Home Premium limits you on the 64bit version to 16GB of RAM, where as Pro goes way up to 192GB.

But most people don't really go past 16GB anyway.

Oh yeah, that's true.

I finally found some time to do a cold boot test with everything unplugged. Looks like the problem is a bad DIMM. I don't know why the system will pass a memory benchmark using SiSoft Sandra but oh well. Replacements are on the way.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Is there going to be any kind of performance hit if I use Windows 7 home vs pro?

Only thing that I think of off the top of my head is Home Premium limits you on the 64bit version to 16GB of RAM, where as Pro goes way up to 192GB.

But most people don't really go past 16GB anyway.

Oh yeah, that's true.

Some people have noticed that Win8 will use a boatload of ram, at least up to 20GB for caching if you've got the RAM. I personally think if you've got 20GB of RAM lying around idle you might have overspecified, I'm struggling to think of the variety of apps you would need to use to make that much cache worthwhile.

No doubt it won't be long before we get "just throw 32GB of RAM in the spec" comments.

NathanialG wrote:

I have EXACTLY 16 megs. So I will be buying the cheap one. Thanks guys.

I suggest you upgrade

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

Is there going to be any kind of performance hit if I use Windows 7 home vs pro?

Only thing that I think of off the top of my head is Home Premium limits you on the 64bit version to 16GB of RAM, where as Pro goes way up to 192GB.

But most people don't really go past 16GB anyway.

Oh yeah, that's true.

I have EXACTLY 16 gigs. So I will be buying the cheap one. Thanks guys.

why not get 32GB of ram.. its so cheap these days..

MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

I have EXACTLY 16 megs. So I will be buying the cheap one. Thanks guys.

I suggest you upgrade :)

What are you talking about!?!? I am very confused.

TheGameguru wrote:

why not get 32GB of ram.. its so cheap these days..

I am squeezing my budget a bit.

NathanialG wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

I have EXACTLY 16 megs. So I will be buying the cheap one. Thanks guys.

I suggest you upgrade :)

What are you talking about!?!? I am very confused.

It was a joke. You said "Megs". Not gigs or GB.

MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
NathanialG wrote:

I have EXACTLY 16 megs. So I will be buying the cheap one. Thanks guys.

I suggest you upgrade :)

What are you talking about!?!? I am very confused.

It was a joke. You said "Megs". Not gigs or GB.

I deny your accusations! That never happened.

Spoiler:

I know you were joking, I just went back and changed it hide my terrible shame.

Home Basic supports only 8 gigs, where Home Premium supports 16 -- could be an issue. Pro, Enterprise, and Ultimate all support 192 gigs.

No doubt it won't be long before we get "just throw 32GB of RAM in the spec" comments.

Actually, now that SSDs are getting cheaper, I'm leaning more in the direction of just doing 8, and using the money to buy an SSD instead. 16 was the poor man's SSD, but since you can now get the rich man's version without being rich, that seems like a better way to go.

If you're into virtualization, though, the extra fifty bucks for 16 gigs is a good idea.

Malor wrote:

Home Basic supports only 8 gigs, where Home Premium supports 16 -- could be an issue. Pro, Enterprise, and Ultimate all support 192 gigs.

Yet another reason I am glad to primarily be a Mac user. Two versions of the OS: one for users and one for servers (which is just an upgrade to the user version).

Yeah, that artificial segmentation is really BS. There's no reason even for the 192 gig limit, except to force people to upgrade once memory totals get that large.

edit: well, and to make sure that people using an OS on a machine with a crapload of RAM have to pay a bunch of extra money for their OS, so that businesses aren't allowed to run their 256 gig fileserver on a cheap OS.

Malor wrote:

Yeah, that artificial segmentation is really BS. There's no reason even for the 192 gig limit, except to force people to upgrade once memory totals get that large.

edit: well, and to make sure that people using an OS on a machine with a crapload of RAM have to pay a bunch of extra money for their OS, so that businesses aren't allowed to run their 256 gig fileserver on a cheap OS.

Yea they can run it on a free one

Can you guys recommend me a mother board? I am going to be putting it in a 650d, I have 16 GIGS of ram, and a i5 sandy bridge. I don't plan on overclocking. I want to pay less than 200 for it.

These are cool:

Looking for recommendations for a HD replacement for my 6+ year old Seagate 320GB SATA drive, that decided not to be found by my BIOS today for a bit, not taking chances gonna replace it.

Not really interested in SSD, but I'm also not really interested in a super huge TB drive either. I'd like a speedy standard drive with around a TB of space (way more than I actually need, since I'm used to living off the 320GB and have an external 1.5 TB backup drive).

My MoBo is a Gigabyte P55-UD4P and only has 3GB SATA, I assume I can run 6GB SATA at a restricted speed?

Quick glance at Newegg:
This WD raptor has caught my eye http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

any thoughts?

That's probably about as fast as you're going to get, unless you buy an SSD. (or SCSI, but that's ridiculously expensive.)

Spending $100 on a 600GB spinning drive seems backwards to me. Why would you not want an SSD if you need a smaller drive and have $100+ to spend? Are you slowing down your computer on purpose?

LeapingGnome wrote:

Spending $100 on a 600GB spinning drive seems backwards to me. Why would you not want an SSD if you need a smaller drive and have $100+ to spend? Are you slowing down your computer on purpose? :)

To be fair, it's a about 5x more space than the average SSD will get you for the price.. Slower, sure, but depends on what you need.

Since I recently lost my 500GB OS drive, and price really is a limiting factor, I wonder if it's worth waiting for black friday, or jumping on this 1TB HDD at only $50 (which is pretty much the best price I've seen for even 500GB drives) to step in to replace it. I'm hesitant since it's only 32MB cache and an older model type. I'd like the drive to have decent speed, but that's also 1 generation newer than the 500GB it's replacing so it'd technically be faster to me. Any thoughts?

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Since I recently lost my 500GB OS drive, and price really is a limiting factor, I wonder if it's worth waiting for black friday, or jumping on this 1TB HDD at only $50 (which is pretty much the best price I've seen for even 500GB drives) to step in to replace it. I'm hesitant since it's only 32MB cache and an older model type. I'd like the drive to have decent speed, but that's also 1 generation newer than the 500GB it's replacing so it'd technically be faster to me. Any thoughts?

That is the best deal I have seen on one of those since before the flood or whatever caused the prices to go through the roof. I say go for it.

Rykin wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

Since I recently lost my 500GB OS drive, and price really is a limiting factor, I wonder if it's worth waiting for black friday, or jumping on this 1TB HDD at only $50 (which is pretty much the best price I've seen for even 500GB drives) to step in to replace it. I'm hesitant since it's only 32MB cache and an older model type. I'd like the drive to have decent speed, but that's also 1 generation newer than the 500GB it's replacing so it'd technically be faster to me. Any thoughts?

That is the best deal I have seen on one of those since before the flood or whatever caused the prices to go through the roof. I say go for it.

I just thought about it some more and since the budgets tight around the house, and i got a smaller drive from a buddy for free that's working, despite being only 160GB, I think I can hold off. As you so, that's the lowest it's been since, so it's likely more drop in prices on better drive will happen, and I figure I can wait 6 months to see what happens.

I read a report somewhere that prices on spinning drives are not expected to drop much more than they have except at the higher capacity (3TB+) end of the spectrum since those have nowhere to go but down. Supposedly most of the manufactures are switching over to SSD so the price on those should drop.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/...

Good write up of the current state of hardware and drivers for both camps at various price points.

My current PC is starting to feel a little underpowered, especially as I find myself running upto 3 distinct Virtual Machines from time to time. Here's the core of my current setup:

  • Core i7-860 (late 2009 model)
  • 8 GB RAM OC'ed to 1600Mhz (in 4*2 GB config)
  • ASUS HD5870

I've checked that my current CPU/chipset can support a maximum of 16GB RAM. Should I just swap out my current RAM and go for the supported max? Or am I better off upgrading CPU & chipset? I haven't actually felt limited by my CPU yet, it's just the lack of available RAM at times that's bothering me.

I am also thinking of switching to a bigger monitor next year - would love to get one of those Korean 27", but may have to settle for a 23". Any suggestions on a video card?

I'd say that for most, 8gb is probably fine for RAM, but in your position, 3 VM's at once would suggest 16gb would help a lot.

DDR3 RAM is real cheap these days, I'd say upgrade and see how it feels. It would probably only be around a $50 upgrade, instead of a $600 upgrade for a newer i7 + mobo + 32gb RAM. At least you can give it a try.

As regards to the monitor, I've only gone up to 1920x1080, but that's been on 17" and 15" laptops. If you are working, the more pixels the better. You'll never complain about seeing too much.

For gaming though, I'm not sure what the minimum would be for 1440p, but I assume you'd need a newer mid to high tier graphics card. Not that your 5870 is necessarily a slouch.

Citizen86 wrote:

I'd say that for most, 8gb is probably fine for RAM, but in your position, 3 VM's at once would suggest 16gb would help a lot.

DDR3 RAM is real cheap these days, I'd say upgrade and see how it feels. It would probably only be around a $50 upgrade, instead of a $600 upgrade for a newer i7 + mobo + 32gb RAM. At least you can give it a try.

As regards to the monitor, I've only gone up to 1920x1080, but that's been on 17" and 15" laptops. If you are working, the more pixels the better. You'll never complain about seeing too much.

For gaming though, I'm not sure what the minimum would be for 1440p, but I assume you'd need a newer mid to high tier graphics card. Not that your 5870 is necessarily a slouch.

probably want something with 2GB at least for 1440p gaming though.

Drives probably won't drop much below $50; if you notice, all drives of pretty much any size rarely cost much less. There's a hard overhead in sourcing the materials, constructing the various components, and assembling the drive that just can't be escaped. It's not really worth taking the time to build a drive that will retail much under $50, no matter what the actual capacity is.

I think what you'll see, instead, is bigger and bigger drives, over time, coming down to $50ish.

This means, by the way, that drive prices are finally more or less back to normal after the big flood last year. 1TB drives were $50 then, and then got much more expensive for many months.

This really gave a huge boost to SSDs; it made them much more cost-competitive than they'd otherwise have been. I assume that means they moved high volume. I wonder if that's part of why they've come down the price curve so fast this year, artificial demand from overpriced spinning drives?

Looking for recommendations for starting from scratch. I've had Macbook Pros forever and while it'll do the job in a pinch I'm tired of it either being slow in Parallels or dual-booting to Windows. My wife is in need of a new system, too.

Budget would be somewhere under $1000 per system.

Starting from scratch to do what? You didn't even say laptops versus desktops, though if you're in the build thread, you probably want desktops.

Basically, are these business or gaming machines? If it's business, what are the major applications you need? Business programs range from Word (runs on pocket calculators) to Photoshop (likes a solid system) to video editing (wants everything you can throw at it).

If it's gaming, or a mix, are you going to be buying new monitors, or using something you already have? If it's something you've already got, what is the resolution of the screen or screens?

And what kind of gaming do you like to do?