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    The New Hardware Thread

    Let us know when you get something new and shiny.

    Recently picked up a 50GB OCZ SSD. Boot speeds are just incredible. You can really notice the difference when loading apps too - I can't go back to a mechanical drive after this.

    Next thing I think I'll need to upgrade is my card; going from a 1GB 4890 to either a GTX 560i or the stupidly cheap 6850.
    Last edited by Kit; 28-04-2012, 10:23.

    #2
    Are you going to be using it mainly as an OS drive? Also, post pix plz

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      #3
      Got one of these:



      My PC is under my desk so USB ports very inaccessible. This gives me 3 USB ports on the desk plus the SDHC and MicroSD card readers all in onle tiny little unit. Works well and was ?6.97 delivered from Amazon). Not terribly exciting I know but solves 2 problems in one for me!

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        #4
        Welcome to the SSD master race Kit. I've used one for 3 years now, just bought my 2nd recently. Original one got shoved in my laptop.

        Recently I have got:

        ASUS Xonar DX - ?50
        ASUS DirectCU 6850 1GB - ?75

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          #5
          If I never boot my machine will SSD make much difference? My PC never gets turned off and firefox never gets closed.

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            #6
            If an always on PC uses the HDD a lot, data transfer will benefit from a SSD but they have a high GB/? ratio and enterprise-class SSDs (with firmwares tweaked for continuous read/write operations and with chips with high cycle life) cost a lot.

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              #7
              Just upgraded my graphics card from a 6870 to a GTX 580 yesterday, it's awesome. However, it's brought out an issue with my antec truepower 650w power supply that was there before but I thought was a problem with my 6870. It squeals/ Squeaks under 3D load, say doing a benchmark or playing the witcher 2, crysis etc. But it got a LOT worse with my 580, I'm guessing because it demands more of the PSU so pushes it more. Also kind of sounds as if the blades of the fan are grinding/ making a rattling noise.

              Scan are going to issue me a replacement, but I have to send this one back first- Not really great timing as I've got hand ins for uni over the next 3 weeks :/

              Also picked up 2 noctua 140mm case fans, a 120mm PWM noctua fan for my CPU cooler and a 120mm antec truequiet case fan for my exhaust.

              Originally posted by charlesr View Post
              If I never boot my machine will SSD make much difference? My PC never gets turned off and firefox never gets closed.


              Depends on what you're doing, literally everything opens much much quicker. Photoshop for example takes like 15-20 seconds on my MacBook Pro, takes around 1 second on my PC. Same for Maya, Illustrator etc. I haven't tried my SSD for any games, since my 1TB loads games really quick most of the time anyway. (apart from Starcraft 2 apparently? Or last night SC2 took ages anyway).

              Originally posted by Kit View Post
              Let us know when you get something new and shiny.

              Recently picked up a 50GB OCZ SSD. Boot speeds are just incredible. You can really notice the difference when loading apps too - I can't go back to a mechanical drive after this.

              Next thing I think I'll need to upgrade is my card; going from a 1GB 4890 to either a GTX 560i or the stupidly cheap 6850.
              I've got a 6870 to sell if you were interested in that... only had it since late October.
              Last edited by Synthesthesia; 28-04-2012, 12:22.

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                #8
                PM me a price, synth.

                Originally posted by StuM82 View Post
                post pix plz


                I've had to custom mount a bracket so it can fit to the bottom of my case - couldn't get it in any other way.

                Originally posted by StuM82 View Post
                Are you going to be using it mainly as an OS drive?
                Going to use it just for games with my OS on my 500gb Samsung spinpoint.

                I have however, recently purchased this:



                An ASUS K53E, which I intend to pop a second SSD in. It's not a bad little laptop; intel quad core i3 2310m, 4gb ddr3, it's only really let down by the onboard graphics card - but it doesn't matter as I have my desktop for gaming.

                Edit: how do you post thumbnails?

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                  #9
                  That's the thing with ssds. I don't care about boot or launch speeds. I do care about compile times though. Would they speed up much?

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                    #10
                    Isn't compiling up to the processor, unless the code is huge and calls for a lot of external references? In the latter case SSDs will help, but I don't think they'll boost performances much.
                    Faster and/or compilers optimized for the processor in use would be much more helpful.

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                      #11
                      SSD was the most noticeable upgrade I've ever had.

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                        #12
                        I have to say, just purchased a new lappy (Samsung NP900X1B) and the boot up time with the SSD is immense, I can be using firefox within 30 seconds. Takes about a second to wake from sleep too
                        Gets a 7.4 on Windows experience so the 7.9 drives must be crazy fast.
                        One weird thing is the machine doesn't seem to handle video any better than my last (Acer 1810tz). Maybe I've got some power saving stuff turned on by accident but definitely seems odd given that the Windows experience rating is 4.7 over the Acers 3.2, with the i5 scoring 6.3 over the SU4100's 4.3 or so...

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by koopatroopa90 View Post
                          I have to say, just purchased a new lappy (Samsung NP900X1B) and the boot up time with the SSD is immense, I can be using firefox within 30 seconds. Takes about a second to wake from sleep too
                          Gets a 7.4 on Windows experience so the 7.9 drives must be crazy fast.
                          One weird thing is the machine doesn't seem to handle video any better than my last (Acer 1810tz). Maybe I've got some power saving stuff turned on by accident but definitely seems odd given that the Windows experience rating is 4.7 over the Acers 3.2, with the i5 scoring 6.3 over the SU4100's 4.3 or so...
                          That Windows Experience rating seems to be a bit jippy. I tested my PC a little while back and it said 7.8 for my 4.5Ghz i7, 7.8 for my 6870, 7.9 for ram and 7.9 for my SSD.

                          Now it says 7.8, 7.9 (580), 7.9 and 7.4. I'd love to know how it's magically dropped half a point!

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by koopatroopa90 View Post
                            I have to say, just purchased a new lappy (Samsung NP900X1B) and the boot up time with the SSD is immense, I can be using firefox within 30 seconds. Takes about a second to wake from sleep too
                            Gets a 7.4 on Windows experience so the 7.9 drives must be crazy fast.
                            One weird thing is the machine doesn't seem to handle video any better than my last (Acer 1810tz). Maybe I've got some power saving stuff turned on by accident but definitely seems odd given that the Windows experience rating is 4.7 over the Acers 3.2, with the i5 scoring 6.3 over the SU4100's 4.3 or so...
                            You probably want the right config.

                            http://haruhichan.com/wpblog/?p=205 Is what I use.

                            Also don't worry about the Windows score, that benchmark was made around 2006 and is redundant now.
                            Last edited by speedlolita; 28-04-2012, 22:38.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by briareos_kerensky View Post
                              Isn't compiling up to the processor, unless the code is huge and calls for a lot of external references?
                              Well I was thinking of all the #included files plus the writing of object code. Processors are so fast now that the hard drive might be the bottleneck. Google is required.

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