Build Thread 3.0

[Malcador]

4 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Y'all are gonna make me put in a 5 1/4 floppy drive so that I can out-grognard you. 

Only counts if you load modern games that way!

[Keyrock]

2 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Only counts if you load modern games that way!

Cyberpunk 2077 installation.

_______............................. 32%

Please insert disk 478436 of 98736432

[Azdeus]

  

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

Y'all are gonna make me put in a 5 1/4 floppy drive so that I can out-grognard you. 

 

You get that to hook up to your new computer, and I will admit defeat

Edited July 21, 2020 by Azdeus

[Humanoid]

MS Flight Sim will be releasing next month on 10 double-sided DVDs (so 20 DVDs really) for a 90GB installation.

 

So much for my Blu-ray drive. Bloody hell Microsoft.

[Bartimaeus]

5 hours ago, Malcador said:

I am sure I am the only one that still uses an optical drive

I occasionally buy and rip audio CDs, so you're definitely not the only one. My next build won't have one with the case that I have for it (Fractal Design Meshify C), but I'll be keeping around my old system for HTPC purposes and will continue to rip CDs on there.

[Keyrock]

So, with my X570 mobo I get PCIE4.0. That doesn't do anything for video cards yet, even a 2080 Ti doesn't come close to saturating PCIE3.0. It's unclear whether any Ampere or Big Navi cards will fully saturate 3.0, but for now the only tangible advantage of the newer PCIE standard is with NVMe SSDs. Here's the thing, though, as of right now, there's only 1 PCIE4.0 capable memory controller out there and so basically all the PCIE4.0 SSDs read and write at the same speed since the memory controller is the bottleneck. While it is faster than what PCIE3.0 is capable of, the Phison memory controller does not come close to pushing the limits of PCIE4.0.

This is a long winded way of saying that, for now, I'll probably just reuse my existing SATA2 SSD as a stopgap until new memory controllers come out that push the limits of PCIE4.0, since the existing PCIE4.0 SSDs, while faster than 3.0, are not that much faster and they are a bit more expensive. Better hold off for now and get something BLAZING FAST 6 months or a year from now.

[Bartimaeus]

...You have a SATA2 SSD? Just how old is that thing, and what did you pay for it at the time for its capacity?

[Azdeus]

6 hours ago, Keyrock said:

So, with my X570 mobo I get PCIE4.0. That doesn't do anything for video cards yet, even a 2080 Ti doesn't come close to saturating PCIE3.0. It's unclear whether any Ampere or Big Navi cards will fully saturate 3.0, but for now the only tangible advantage of the newer PCIE standard is with NVMe SSDs. Here's the thing, though, as of right now, there's only 1 PCIE4.0 capable memory controller out there and so basically all the PCIE4.0 SSDs read and write at the same speed since the memory controller is the bottleneck. While it is faster than what PCIE3.0 is capable of, the Phison memory controller does not come close to pushing the limits of PCIE4.0.

This is a long winded way of saying that, for now, I'll probably just reuse my existing SATA2 SSD as a stopgap until new memory controllers come out that push the limits of PCIE4.0, since the existing PCIE4.0 SSDs, while faster than 3.0, are not that much faster and they are a bit more expensive. Better hold off for now and get something BLAZING FAST 6 months or a year from now.

It was great fun watching Linus TT do a blind test on SSDs and have almost everyone come up short on it if they weren't allowed to count in their head. XD

[Keyrock]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

...You have a SATA2 SSD? Just how old is that thing, and what did you pay for it at the time for its capacity?

My rig is 6 years old, so 6 years. I honestly don't remember what I paid.

[Humanoid]

My 120GB G.Skill Falcon from 2010 is still in a secondary machine of mine, one I admittedly don't think I've booted up this year. Cost me $400 AUD.

And the next year I bought a pair of Crucial m4 drives, one a 128GB and the other 256GB. Both of those are in service, one in a NUC that serves as my bedroom HTPC, the other in my living room HTPC. Probably around $250 and $500 respectively, bought from Crucial US directly back when the Aussie dollar was stronger than the US dollar.

Definitely going to need to buy more storage for the glut of games coming soon, but undecided what to do. Currently there's 2TB of SSD space in my main desktop spread across four drives. Happy enough to just buy another higher-capacity 2.5" drive really since I'm not the type to notice any speed difference, but thinking the smarter thing to do is to buy a PCI-E card with M.2 slots on it so any new SSD I buy can be re-purposed as the system drive of my potential new PC around the end of the year.

[Bartimaeus]

I can't wait for 2TB SSDs to start becoming cost efficient  dollar per gigabyte. I've been purchasing other people 1TB SSDs because they've been very cost-efficient, but I'm waiting on myself for a 2TB. I have 1TB across three drives (500, 250, 250), and it's rather annoying to deal with, and I've run into space limits as it is. Within the next year, perhaps...

Edited July 28, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

Yeah, I'm stuck with 4 SATA ports because using my M.2 slots (in SATA mode) disables two SATA ports (which also functioned as a SATA Express port, as useless as that standard was). And with my Blu-ray drive, that means I only have three ports to play with. So currently I have 500GB in the M.2 slot, and 1x 1TB and 2x 250GB 2.5" drives. I'd have to drop one of the 2.5" drives, or the SATA M.2 drive to add more space without adding an expansion card.

Not that they're expensive or anything, and I use one in my NAS box. But I'm also aware of my itch to just build a new PC towards the end of the year, not that my 6700K is underperforming or anything (though my 290X is) but I feel like spoiling myself. So I need to be mindful of my future setup when adding capacity now.

[Keyrock]

I also want to get a 2 TB SSD, but I'm going to wait until faster PCIE4.0 memory controllers hit the market and go all out. If that happens by November-ish when I build a new rig that's great. If not, then I'll use my 500 GB SATA 2 as a stopgap.

[Raithe]

It's when you pick up a $12 128 GB memory stick... and then remember the day when you picked up that aaaabsolutely massive 20 MB hard drive to put in the IBM/PC Compatible desktop back in the early 90's that you were never going to manage to fill.....

[ComradeYellow]

On 7/28/2020 at 6:45 AM, Bartimaeus said:

I can't wait for 2TB SSDs to start becoming cost efficient  dollar per gigabyte. I've been purchasing other people 1TB SSDs because they've been very cost-efficient, but I'm waiting on myself for a 2TB. I have 1TB across three drives (500, 250, 250), and it's rather annoying to deal with, and I've run into space limits as it is. Within the next year, perhaps...

The 2TB SATA SSD I bought wasn't too pricey, it's not as blazing fast as M.2 or anything but I prefer raw storage over killer efficiency on this issue.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, ComradeMaster said:

..not as blazing fast as M.2..

You mean not as fast as NVMe. M2 is a form factor rather than an interface; there are SATA SSD with M2 form factor but they have the same speed as their 2.5" form factor equivalents.

But yes, having shifted from a M2 SATA to a NVMe drive for most things there's almost no difference, though it does make loading a bit quicker. However, there was little practical difference in cost at that time (and as of today, model for model, literally a dollar here) between SATA and NVMe drives so there's no reason not to save that 30 seconds a day.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Zoraptor

[ComradeYellow]

https://www.newegg.com/p/0JC-0004-00551

Oh my goodness how did I miss this little gem?

24" 1440p 165hz on a TN panel.  We're talking diamond smooth gaming with the right hardware to back it up.

[Sarex]

25 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

https://www.newegg.com/p/0JC-0004-00551

Oh my goodness how did I miss this little gem?

24" 1440p 165hz on a TN panel.  We're talking diamond smooth gaming with the right hardware to back it up.

I mean for that price you can get a 27 inch 2k ips at 165hz.

[ComradeYellow]

Just now, Sarex said:

I mean for that price you can get a 27 inch 2k ips at 165hz.

That's what I have now, but the smaller screen makes the resolution look even better and the TN panel gives it faster response times.  The only drawback I see here is the color quality may be a bit inferior to the IPS but reviews are suggesting it's very fine tunable to get it close.

[Keyrock]

On 7/28/2020 at 12:06 PM, Keyrock said:

I also want to get a 2 TB SSD, but I'm going to wait until faster PCIE4.0 memory controllers hit the market and go all out. If that happens by November-ish when I build a new rig that's great. If not, then I'll use my 500 GB SATA 2 as a stopgap.

As it turns out, faster memory controllers have hit the market. Samsung's 980 Pro is already available, featuring Samsung's own memory controller with 7000 MB/s read and 5000 MB/s write (for reference, PCIe 3.0 SSDs top out at 3500/3300) max transfer rates. What I'm waiting for is the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, featuring the brand new Phison E18 memory controller and 7000/6850 max transfer rates, plus a BEEFY heat sink.

The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus isn't on store shelves yet, but hopefully it arrives soon. I'm sure the price of the 2 TB model will make my wallet scream in agony, but that should be enough to cover my needs for the life of the rig I'm currently building (hopefully 5-6 years) and make those 200 GB games (you know they're coming) load nice and snappy like.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Keyrock

[AwesomeOcelot]

I have ordered a Gigabyte AORUS 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe, Samsung's 980 Pro 250GB, and a Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB. I am betting on only needing the AORUS for RTX IO/DirectStorage. I may expand with another 980 Pro or Rocket 4 Plus 1TB if necessary. Real world applications for me aren't benefitted much from PCIe 4.0. The 980 Pro and Rocket 4 Plus look really good in synthetics, but unless you're editing a lot of video in 4K/8K, I can't really see the use case compared to cheaper drives, even PCIe 3.0. I doubt you could notice the difference.

Edited October 9, 2020 by AwesomeOcelot

[Keyrock]

29 minutes ago, AwesomeOcelot said:

The 980 Pro and Rocket 4 Plus look really good in synthetics, but unless you're editing a lot of video in 4K/8K, I can't really see the use case compared to cheaper drives, even PCIe 3.0. I doubt you could notice the difference.

Yeah, but imagine how big my ePeen is going to be. 

Plus, the added speed might not matter much, but what about 5 years from now? I'm old enough to remember people saying "why would I ever need more than 40 MB of storage?" Brings back memories of that BLAZING FAST 486 DX2 processor. 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Keyrock

[AwesomeOcelot]

I imagine the price of them will decrease year on year in the next 5 years. The way I look at it is, I could spend twice as much on a SSD now, or I could spend half now half in 5 years time, and have twice the capacity, the same speed for half of it. I understand not wanted to upgrade every 5 minutes, but if we're talking 5 years, I'll probably be looking at replacing everything anyway.

[Keyrock]

I'll be the one laughing when your copy of Cyberpunk 2077 takes 5.67 seconds to load and mine takes 5.42 seconds. 

[AwesomeOcelot]

Considering how many hours I put into Witcher 3, that would save me a year of my life.