The R9 290X is an amazing GPU if that's the one you're thinking of getting (You can get one for about $300). Especially for the price, I run 2 270Xs which is almost equivalent to a 290X, and just with 1 270X I manage at least 60fps on every game I play. So if you get the 290X you'll be good for plenty of years to come.
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Ah, ok. Thanks for the info. So now on to my next quandry: which version of that GPU should I get? There are scores of 'em.
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r9 290 and r9 290X are two different graphic cards.
"I'm thinking about some version of the Radeon R9 290"
What he mean by that? 290 vs 290x or some variation of 290 like MSI, Power Color...?
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I meant the latter. I'm thinking of the 290, not the 290x, and I'm curious which of the many version of the 290 currently for sale would be best.
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Not everywhere r9 290x is so cheap. In Poland the cheapest version of this card is 1600 pln = 422$
And r9 290 1300 pln = 343$...... I hate my country for that :|
Both 290 and 290x ave very good cards.
I heard that xfx have very good cards but I can't confirm that because I never had it.
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Dont buy the 2x4 gb ram because you only have 4 solts and you need the solts later for stock up.
so buy 1x8gb or 2x8gb ram :)
and is better for you to change the box cooler in this
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2
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I'm not sure I'm following. Why should I not fill all my RAM slots? Is it because eventually I'll need more than 16 GB? (If so, I'm out of luck for the moment. I already bought the first set, but was hoping somebody got me the second as a gift.)
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Ah. That makes sense. But I'm afraid that particular corner has already been cut. Oh well, I can always correct the mistake down the line.
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youre mainboard is able to use each slot 8 gb so max 32 gb.
so is better if you take 8 gb so you dosnt have wast if you want to upgrade in 2 years to 32gb & it will be cheaper.
but anyways you allready have the 4 gb ram so wait and buy it later if you think you pc is to slow.
and use a ssd not a hdd than you have a nice and fast gaming pc .
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this is not realy true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJtrQ5CcCN0
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So they run some benchmarks and show that more RAM has just a very low impact on the score (that has nothing do to with game performance). They don't test it with any game, just say that Watch Dogs uses max 6gb RAM.
Oh and they said that more RAM has of course an impact on professional movie edditing and tested that with After Effects.
So what exactly was not true?
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I'm pretty sure you tested that in the same way you watched that video you posted...
How can something that isn't used at all can have an effect on the load time?
Yeah of course games will need 32 GB RAM in 2 years of course....
When sometime games will need 32 GB RAM the rest of his hardware will be so old that he has to upgrade it anyway.
Also for me this discussion is over.
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Are you freaking kidding me?
I said something to every "argument" (it's a insult to call them arguments)...
Oh or was is cause I didn't said something to this silly future stuff? But ok with DDR4 on the way, DDR3 is of course the future...
Wow now I know what drewmb10 meant when he said some people here just deserve to get blacklisted -_-
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Some thoughts:
Dont go for seagate HD Drive, i had a lot of problems over the years and most of my seagate died after 3-4years. Try to get a Western Digital blue 1TB if you can. Also I was an (Ati card fan always - AMD nowdays) but after buying my Nvidia GTX 760 I have fallen in love with Nvidia. Although I have to say that AMD offers more value for money things than Nvidia but since you dont have a low budget, I would suggest you to get GTX 960-970 if possible. It's just that nvidia's software and driver support is so much better than amd's and that makes a whole lot difference for me.
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So GTX 970 is another thing I'm considering. (It's actually the name I meant to put in the initial post. I accidentally copy and pasted my second pick instead of my first.) So I may well end up with an Nvidia product.
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Along with more RAM, an SSD is something I plan to get over the course of the next year as money comes available. It's just that I had to pinch my pennies just to get this rig, so I cut costs in a few areas. I'd like to have a machine to run things on, even if I'm going to improve it further.
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OS doesn't need it. Just optimize HDD partitions. Lol, my OS loads in 15-30 secs on a mobile 7200rpm
Some games may benefit from it though, on loading times...
I'd say best solution is a good 'n big 10k rpm partition optimized, and a 256 >400MB/s SSD for the few games and programs that benefit enough from it.
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There is no way you can optimize a HDD to get anywhere near the speed of an SSD. Even 10k rpm drives pale in comparison (and are quite a bit more costly than 7200's) unless you RAID two of them. An SSD affects the speed of anything loading from it far beyond the speed of any HDD. And I did say "for at least the operating system", meaning he can put whatever else he wants on it depending on the size he purchases. I have my OS, all my programs, and the games I play most on it. Even coming from RAID 0, it's a huge improvement.
EDIT: By the way, boot time is the worst comparison of speed -- since most of that time is your mobo initializing hardware. ;)
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my 750GB 7200rpm outer layer = 180 MB/s
middle layer = 100-120 ? MB/s
inner layer = 80 MB/s
cheap SSD = 200 MB/s
Good 'n expensive SSD = >400 MB/s
Max SSD capacity usage for max writting speed = 75% (can take a hit around that value)
Best SSDs available = ~600 MB/s
Price difference per GB ? Very big.
OS loading time -> from max 30 secs to max 15 secs.
Ideal: System, Data, non-demanging programs and games, all on a properly partitioned fast HDD. Demanding games and software, main focus being on loading times, on a small and good SSD.
Sure, if you have the $$$$ flying around, just go ahead and buy as many 1TB 600MB/s 2000$ SSDs. Sure it'll be better. On a budget? nuff said
EDIT: OS is not read/write intensive, so there's no other significant benefit from it.
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LOL, those HDD speeds are the spike speeds of the HDD, not the average MB/s. That translates to the drive able to move very small files very quickly. It's an entirely different matter with larger files (such as game files loading). No HDD on the market can sustain 180MB/s, and most less than half that. Even in RAID 0 those numbers are hard to reach (though definitely possible). On the other hand, SSD speeds are consistent throughput speeds across the drive. No 'optimization' needed.
Yes, of course the price is greater - you're getting incredibly improved speeds over platter drives. SSD prices are more than reasonable now - I think I paid $179 for a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro on sale. You get what you pay for. If anything, that's really the only downside of an SSD, if you can call it that. Why would I spend a ton of money on new hardware only to have the platter drives holding me back. ;)
Again, boot time is not an accurate comparison of speed - not at all - since regardless of which type of drive you use, the mobo initialization still takes up most of the boot time. From mobo boot to usable desktop is 2-3 seconds for me (possibly less, I haven't actually timed it with a stopwatch), and from power off it's more like 10-12 (I have actually timed that -- and it's not "sometimes" - it's always that speed. However, boot speed is an utterly pointless comparison when the SSD is held back by mobo boot times. It's also a point of contention with review sites - power users know better and will chastise a reviewer for using boot time as a benchmark.
Most PC power users would completely disagree with you - nearly all of them put the OS on the SSD, along with other often used apps/programs. Also keeping the pagefile on an SSD improves game and app loading times across the board. You go on a PC enthusiast forum suggesting NOT putting the OS on an SSD and you'll get laughed off the board - but hey, to each his own. :P
If he was ONLY using his PC for gaming, I'd say skip the SSD altogether, but it's a very rare case that someone only uses a PC for gaming these days. Oh yeah ... an SSD requires very little optimization and zero maintenance, too, and isn't as subject to hardware/heat failure as a platter drive. Hell, I have several SSDs that have outlasted many times more HDDs over the past several years.
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my HDD 7200rpm loads Skyrim at 60 to 120 MB/s
My OS partition has 140 to 180 max speed.
I've made transfers to a 7200 EDD at >160 MB/s
An 1 or 2 TB 10k rpm should be quite faster.
"On the other hand, SSD speeds are consistent throughput speeds across the drive"
Not true, those speed values for SSDs are max values just as for an HDD. The read/write for differently sized files does vary... a lot. Try benching an SSD.
I need minimum 750GB to be comfortable on a pc. a good 750 7200rpm seems to cost 100$ default price, while the SSD you mention costs 700$ default price for 500GB.
With 16GB RAM I'd expect pagefile to not be very significant?
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60-120MB/s is nowhere near 400MB+/s.
File position on an SSD has no effect on speed whatsoever - that's what I meant by saying "throughput speed across the drive". Yes, file size does matter, but SSDs still read/write many times faster using the same file sizes. In fact, I can have my OS and large games on the same SSD and still load much faster than a platter drive. Not just a little faster - MUCH FASTER.
Your preferences for size and cost are irrelevant here -- you said the OS doesn't need to be put on the SSD - and you're wrong; the OS benefits a great deal from being on the SSD - along with any frequently used proggies/games. I've already agreed that platter drives are cheaper - they're slower and more prone to hardware failure, but SSDs are getting cheaper every day. That's how PC hardware works - you get what you pay for.
At any rate, it's indisputable that SSDs are a lot faster than platter drives, regardless of what you're loading off it. Feel free to stick with your platter drives, however. You're missing out. ;)
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ffs
400MB/s is max just as 180 is. Make a benchmark, an SSD is only 400MBs fast about as often as my HDD is 180MBs fast.
Current SSDs work in such a way that if you want to rewrite a certain sector you have to write it all again. It seems that it happens that sectors are not necessarily filled up, so when you later place a new file it may use the unused parts of sectors. Thus in this situation write speed will drop on such sectors.
Ofcourse a game loads faster on an SSD. That's why I said it's great to have an SSD for those games that benefit from it. Most modern large games benefit a huge deal, since they actually go at 400MBs due to the file packs (I believe that's why).
HDD size matters as larger HDDs are faster than smaller HDDs.
Basically your whole last comment is just pointless as it's just a restatement of what we've already written. Excuse my rudeness.
Edit: You didn't provide info on the pagefile claim.
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That would be nice to have. But from what I'm seeing those run about $450 and up.
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The gt650m is far better than the 840m. If this is true for nvidia gpus in general, even if just a little bit, then it might be worth an 880 over 960-70 ?
Check benchmarks and stats...
make sure you get more than 2GB VRAM, imo. gt650m has 2 and they get all eaten up on heavily modded Fallout NV and Skyrim ^_^
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Right now AMD cards are doing a better job with DirectX 12 than Nvidia. I'm usually a Nvidia camp person, but right now, AMD seems to be the way to go. Even older AMD cards are doing better with DirectX 12 than their Nvidia counterparts. The Asynchronous Shading of the AMD cards is what is causing that. Nvidia doesn't currently support that really, they use a much slower method to do the same thing causing them to be more sluggish than their AMD counterparts. Right now there are not that many DirectX 12 games and by the time DirectX 12 is mainstream, I'm sure Nvidia will be back on top, but until then AMD may be the way to go. The 390x is currently outperforming the more expensive GTX980 in DX12 games such as Ashes of Singularity.
With all that said, AMD drivers are hit and miss (or they used to be). They fix something for one card, break things for a bunch of other cards. I went to Nvidia simply because at the time their drivers were more reliable and PhysX (which really isn't that big of deal, without it you don't know what you are missing anyway so it really isn't that big of deal).
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So GTX 970 is another thing I'm considering. (It's actually the name I meant to put in the initial post. I accidentally copy and pasted my second pick instead of my first.) So I may well end up with an Nvidia product.
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That's quite fine. They tend to be good cards. Favour EVGA even if it costs a couple dollars more. The warranty from them is one of the best currently. Breaks near the end of the warranty (even if a little over). They will replace it often with a better card.
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In the site you posted there are 4 options
I don't know how good the powercolor is but since the other ones have a difference of about 30$ I'd go with a 390 :3
Edit: I didn't notice the rebate, this cuts out the sapphire 390 since all of them have a 20$ rebate and the 390 by sapphire does not :D
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If you pick a Z97 motherboard, you should pick an unlocked processor for OC to make the motherboard worth the price :P
About the graphic cards, depends mainly of the country. Where I live the gtx970 is cheaper than a R9 290X. And those are the main options for money/performance.
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I'm in the process of building a gaming box. I have all the hardware except the graphics card and, honestly, I don't know enough about graphics cards to make a good decision. From recommendations and PassMark rankings I'm thinking about some version of the Radeon R9 290, but which one? Or is that even the right choice for my machine? Advice will be appreciated. (I'm on a budget such that I don't want to spend too much over $300 for the GPU.)
The rest of the system will be as follows:
Processor: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
RAM: A-Data XPG V1.0 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (probably I'll be adding a second set for a total of 16 GB)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case
PSU: Raidmax 635W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
I've already got peripherals, and there's a run-of-the-mill optical drive in there for good measure.
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