New graphics cards and HDD

[pevergreen]

So, although I keep thinking that my computer is all brand new and flashy, it isnt really.

I'm planning to do a reinstall of windows, and i thought "What better time to upgrade".

So, its time for a new graphics card. Currently I run a 275.

I'm also thinking about either improving or increasing the quality/number of hard drives i'm using. The slowest point of my computer currently is definately the harddrives.

Currently I was thinking:


Asus GTX560 1G DCII 2DI GDDR5 $305.00
For my new graphics card

and for hard drive, probably one of the flashy new SATA 3 WD blacks. But then I saw the VelociRaptor.

Is that thing even worth it?

Western Digital 600G SATA III VelociRaptor $339.00
Western Digital 2TB SATA3 64M Black(WD2002FAEX) $209.00

Thoughts? Other recommendations?

[Furunculus]

one other option is spend the equivalent of the Western Digital 2TB SATA3 64M Black (£120) on the following:

Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB - £80
Samsung F3 1GB - £40

awesome boot-drive and really fast games drive.

but no, the raptor isn't worth it.

[pevergreen]

Is the F3 better than the WD black?

Sata 6gb/ps vs 3, plus same spindle speed, not seeing where the improvement is coming from, especially with a lower cache?

Then again, reading a review:

These awesome theoretical speeds translate directly into both our MP3 and ISO file patterns in FC-Test. With the MP3 test in particular the F3 is an absolute monster, writing the 1GB file pattern in less than 11 seconds, copying on the drive in an incredible 5.49 seconds and reading the file in an awesome 4 seconds flat!

Although that review was october 09

It is only $57 for me though.

The SSD isnt for sale where I buy my parts, but I gather the SSDs in general are best used as the boot drive, as the fast read times and slower write times?

In fact, it doesn't seem to be for sale in Australia.

Hmmm, none of the SSDs seem to be SATA 3. At least nothing under hundreds of dollars.

I'd be willing to keep looking though, is SSD the best choice for a boot drive?

Similar-ish product:

OCZ 60G Vertex II E Series SSD $139.00

Though its on SATA 2

[Furunculus]

don't worry about SATA 3 (600MB/sec) for mechanical harddrives, none can sustain a faster transfer than 145MB anyway which is less than SATA 1, so the extra bandwidth is useful only until you have exhausted the 64MB cache.

The F3 drives are supposed to make awesome system/games/apps drives given the fast response times and speedy transfer.

Shame the Crucial SSD isn't available in Oz as it is thoroughly brilliant, i have the 128GB version. But again SATA 3 doesn't matter that much as the majority of SSD's don't exceed the 300MB/sec of SATA 2. Yes, they are best used as system/boot drives.

An alternative would be a Sandforce based drive as they are both reliable and cheap, in addition to being very fast.

--------------------------

p.s. the GTX 560 is a very nice card. but if you can stretch to a 6970 i would recommend that (£200 vs £260).

[pevergreen]

don't worry about SATA 3 (600MB/sec) for mechanical harddrives, none can sustain a faster transfer than 145MB anyway which is less than SATA 1, so the extra bandwidth is useful only until you have exhausted the 64MB cache.

The F3 drives are supposed to make awesome system/games/apps drives given the fast response times and speedy transfer.

Shame the Crucial SSD isn't available in Oz as it is thoroughly brilliant, i have the 128GB version. But again SATA 3 doesn't matter that much as the majority of SSD's don't exceed the 300MB/sec of SATA 2. Yes, they are best used as system/boot drives.

An alternative would be a Sandforce based drive as they are both reliable and cheap, in addition to being very fast.

--------------------------

p.s. the GTX 560 is a very nice card. but if you can stretch to a 6970 i would recommend that (£200 vs £260).

So a 60gb Corsair force series (sandforce controller) is still pretty good?

Its an extra hundred -$170 dollars for the 6970, is it that much better? I'm a much bigger nvidia than ATI person.

Also, since im asking so many questions, what brand for video card? :P

[Furunculus]

So a 60gb Corsair force series (sandforce controller) is still pretty good?

Its an extra hundred -$170 dollars for the 6970, is it that much better? I'm a much bigger nvidia than ATI person.

Also, since im asking so many questions, what brand for video card? :P

It will make a fine boot drive, anandtech loves the Sandforce controller.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3756/2...-take-on-intel

the 6970 is faster, comes with 2GB of memory which will begin to be an advantage, and can run three monitors on its own:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/n...-250-market/10

but the 560 is a fine card if those advantages above don't appeal to you.

[pevergreen]

The memory I can see the advantage of, but an extra screen isn't a big thing, and its a bit too much extra money.


Graphics card choices:

Asus GTX560 1G DCII 2DI GDDR5 $305.00
Gigabyte GTX560 OC 1G GDDR5 PCIE DualLink DVI $289.00
Leadtek GTX560 1024M 2xDVI-DL Mini HDMI PCIE $285.00
MSI GTX560 Twin Frozr II OC $289.00

This'll be my last question

[Husar]

I just want to remind you that the 64GB version of any SSD is slower than the 128GB version of that same SSD, most likely because it can do more things parallel when an SSD is bigger. More space also increases the lifetime in write cycles, ones made in smaller nanometer structures also live shorter (they work by transferring electrons through some kind of insulation and the more often they do it, the more that insulation gets damaged until it fails, which is when that particular cell cannot be written into anymore, so more cells and thicker "walls" = better).
I wouldn't get one below 120 or 250GB anyway as I always manage to clog my C-partition somehow.

Concerning the graphics card, if that asus has 2GB RAM, then maybe take that, otherwise take the cheapest one with the features you want (do you need HDMI for example?) Anything that doesn't have a custom cooler or isn't overclocked is usually just the reference design anyway, regardless of which manufacturer it's from. Whether they have a good and fast customer service might be another consideration.

[Furunculus]

I just want to remind you that the 64GB version of any SSD is slower than the 128GB version of that same SSD, most likely because it can do more things parallel when an SSD is bigger. More space also increases the lifetime in write cycles, ones made in smaller nanometer structures also live shorter (they work by transferring electrons through some kind of insulation and the more often they do it, the more that insulation gets damaged until it fails, which is when that particular cell cannot be written into anymore, so more cells and thicker "walls" = better).
I wouldn't get one below 120 or 250GB anyway as I always manage to clog my C-partition somehow.

Concerning the graphics card, if that asus has 2GB RAM, then maybe take that, otherwise take the cheapest one with the features you want (do you need HDMI for example?) Anything that doesn't have a custom cooler or isn't overclocked is usually just the reference design anyway, regardless of which manufacturer it's from. Whether they have a good and fast customer service might be another consideration.

can depend on the model, with the Crucial Real SSD the write speed on smaller drives is much slower, but the read speed remains the same, so it makes for a good boot driver rather than an apps drive, which is what the Samsung F3 is for. not sure how the sandforce drives behave in the same circumstance.

about the vid-card - agreed.

[pevergreen]

I just want to remind you that the 64GB version of any SSD is slower than the 128GB version of that same SSD, most likely because it can do more things parallel when an SSD is bigger. More space also increases the lifetime in write cycles, ones made in smaller nanometer structures also live shorter (they work by transferring electrons through some kind of insulation and the more often they do it, the more that insulation gets damaged until it fails, which is when that particular cell cannot be written into anymore, so more cells and thicker "walls" = better).
I wouldn't get one below 120 or 250GB anyway as I always manage to clog my C-partition somehow.

Ok, I'll pay the extra 120 for double the size.

Though I made my C drive 60gb and a year and a half later i still have 16gb free

Probably going with the ASUS 560. Its $15 more, but features seem better, and my mobo is ASUS, while my current and previous g-cards have been gigabyte and I haven't been impressed with them.

Thanks for your help Furunculus.

[Beskar]

I was playing Shogun 2 demo on Ultra with my ATI HD5770, so don't go wasting money, but you can pick up very good graphics at a cheap price.

[pevergreen]

I was playing Shogun 2 demo on Ultra with my ATI HD5770, so don't go wasting money, but you can pick up very good graphics at a cheap price.

Don't get me wrong, I was playing on ultra with no lag on my 275. Its just old and it hovers at 90 degrees C when playing anything recent.

Went with the ASUS 560, the samsung F3 and the corsair 120gb SSD.

Took a while for the thing to get windows 7 installed onto it, the installation failed a few times, but its working now. :)

[pevergreen]

Running into a problem.

Trying to launch a game, after about 20 seconds of the launch screen, the program stops responding. It dumps an error file:

Microsoft (R) Windows Debugger Version 6.12.0002.633 AMD64
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


Loading Dump File [G:\Steam\steamapps\common\game\game_3018_crash_2011_2_26T14_43_32C0.mdmp]
User Mini Dump File: Only registers, stack and portions of memory are available

Comment: 'EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION'
Symbol search path is: *** Invalid ***
****************************************************************************
* Symbol loading may be unreliable without a symbol search path.           *
* Use .symfix to have the debugger choose a symbol path.                   *
* After setting your symbol path, use .reload to refresh symbol locations. *
****************************************************************************
Executable search path is: 
Windows XP Version 2600 MP (8 procs) Free x86 compatible
Product: WinNt, suite: SingleUserTS
Machine Name:
Debug session time: Sun Feb 27 00:43:32.000 2011 (UTC + 10:00)
System Uptime: not available
Process Uptime: 0 days 0:00:12.000
................................................................This dump file has an exception of interest stored in it.
The stored exception information can be accessed via .ecxr.
(c20.4f8): Access violation - code c0000005 (first/second chance not available)
eax=00000000 ebx=00000000 ecx=084e7ab4 edx=0ce128a4 esi=0e02b529 edi=0000056c
eip=77aa0bd2 esp=0018ca14 ebp=0018ca24 iopl=0         nv up ei ng nz ac pe cy
cs=0023  ss=002b  ds=002b  es=002b  fs=0053  gs=002b             efl=00210297
*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found.  Defaulted to export symbols for ntdll.dll - 
ntdll!ZwGetContextThread+0x12:
77aa0bd2 83c404          add     esp,4

I've turned DEP off via command prompt, I'm running as an administrator.

Not having a good day.

Windows 7 freshly installed. Am I missing a driver update or a windows update or something?

[Husar]

Why are you trying to hide the "game"? If it's a secret beta we can't know about, maybe make a bug report.

And what's DEP? Have you tried reinstalling the "game"?

[pevergreen]

DEP = Data Execution Prevention.

To reinstall would take about 15 hours to download the game again.

I've missed something or screwed something up along the line.