Thread: Dakotahnok's computer project.

@khh haha sorry. I was confused on your post until you re posted it. I think I just read it wrong. I will try that, thank you.

Originally Posted by Supernova

Well, if passmark's tests are relatively accurate, it is slightly better - certainly not $150 better.

Yeah, but the newest technology is always marked up extra, regardless of how much better it is than the previous versions.
That's why it's rarely a good idea to buy the newest things, just buy the previous version and you save 50% and still get better and better technology every time you upgrade.
Also don't have to worry about bugs because they're mostly fixed by the time you get it.

That is, unless one wants to support an upcoming industry like solar panels for example.

Originally Posted by tommo

Yeah, but the newest technology is always marked up extra, regardless of how much better it is than the previous versions.
That's why it's rarely a good idea to buy the newest things, just buy the previous version and you save 50% and still get better and better technology every time you upgrade.
Also don't have to worry about bugs because they're mostly fixed by the time you get it.

That is, unless one wants to support an upcoming industry like solar panels for example.

Here's the only $150 intel i found on newegg, a core i3:

PassMark - Intel Core i3-2130 @ 3.40GHz - Price performance comparison

The way I assemble my Computers is by just looking online for some real good computers that cost around 1500, take down a list of all the components, then buy them all my self for about 500 less. Easy and no need to start looking up compatability problems etc just assemble it like a puzzle.

Edit: I get all my components from germany because for some reason they cost 20% less than the rest of europe?

I built my first recently, after about a year of deciding I wanted to do it. It was good that I didn't rush into it though, I got more research done. Keep researching until you're sure you know what you're doing is right. I'm no expert now but I knew enough to make a solid build for cheap.

Originally Posted by Aeolus

I built my first recently, after about a year of deciding I wanted to do it. It was good that I didn't rush into it though, I got more research done. Keep researching until you're sure you know what you're doing is right. I'm no expert now but I knew enough to make a solid build for cheap.

This. Don't skimp on research. With a lot of time and research, you'll have a build that's both cheaper and more appropriate for your needs.

Re: SSDs and HDDs, it doesn't have to be an either/or question, especially if you have a large data collection. You want the SSD for your system drive, where you will keep your operating system(s) and your most used programs. The reason SSDs make such a big difference in the perceived speed of a machine is that programs stored on them (including a booting OS) launch almost instantly. You get relatively little advantage from storing your actual data files on SSD. If you're not a gamer, you would probably be fine with a 128GB or even 64GB SSD. Add the installed size of your chosen OS to the size of your current Program Files folder and multiply the result by 1.2 (or 1.5 or 2 if you want room to grow) to get an idea of what you'd actually need. For your data, get a 1 or 2TB HDD.

I've found SSD's are a lot cheaper than I thought. I'll probably get one soon too.

Also, TB HDD's, Personally I wouldn't bother with. I got a 500GB because by the time I've got that much crap, SSD's will be cheap as chips. Probably anyway. Depends how much crap you have though, just the best option for me.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Re: SSDs and HDDs, it doesn't have to be an either/or question, especially if you have a large data collection. You want the SSD for your system drive, where you will keep your operating system(s) and your most used programs. The reason SSDs make such a big difference in the perceived speed of a machine is that programs stored on them (including a booting OS) launch almost instantly. You get relatively little advantage from storing your actual data files on SSD. If you're not a gamer, you would probably be fine with a 128GB or even 64GB SSD. Add the installed size of your chosen OS to the size of your current Program Files folder and multiply the result by 1.2 (or 1.5 or 2 if you want room to grow) to get an idea of what you'd actually need. For your data, get a 1 or 2TB HDD.

Except in a laptop. There it's either or.

Originally Posted by tommo

I've found SSD's are a lot cheaper than I thought. I'll probably get one soon too.

Also, TB HDD's, Personally I wouldn't bother with. I got a 500GB because by the time I've got that much crap, SSD's will be cheap as chips. Probably anyway. Depends how much crap you have though, just the best option for me.

I've got 5.5 TB of storage on my computer, yet less than 1 TB of free space. You can never have too much space. Or too much crap.

But SSDs are definitively worth it.

Originally Posted by khh

I've got 5.5 TB of storage on my computer, yet less than 1 TB of free space.

....
Seriously? What the fuck do you have on there?

Originally Posted by khh

I've got 5.5 TB of storage on my computer, yet less than 1 TB of free space. You can never have too much space. Or too much crap.

Yerp, I've got about 3TB on three drives with 800GB free. A lot of it is 720p video, and some of it is redundant backup. I use external USB drives for most of my data, and they rarely slow me down.

I built a PC for a friend of mine recently. His old pc, i5 processor and 4 Gb's of DDR2 ram were not up to the job for what he wanted to do. He is a musician and writes a lot of music and video on Nuendo so I ordered some new components. He already had the case with two 120mm fans, one in the front and one in the back. He could have done with a couple of new hard drives but due to a shortage of cash we used the exisitng ones. I donated a spare, decent gfx card I had kicking around for the job as well. We opted for buying an 8 core processor and 8 Gb's of DDR3 ram. It is running really well now, and fast too. When he saves up some more money I will upgrade the heatsink on the CPU and install a solid state drive for the OS and software and place all his data on a normal mechanical hard drive. Oh and I installed a core tuner software so that he can assign certain vsti's in nuendo to certain cores to get the most out of it. I reckon it would run a project with 16 tracks using 16 separate Spectrasonics Omnisphere synths assigned to each track

Originally Posted by mcwillis

I built a PC for a friend of mine recently. His old pc, i5 processor and 4 Gb's of DDR2 ram were not up to the job for what he wanted to do. He is a musician and writes a lot of music and video on Nuendo so I ordered some new components. He already had the case with two 120mm fans, one in the front and one in the back. He could have done with a couple of new hard drives but due to a shortage of cash we used the exisitng ones. I donated a spare, decent gfx card I had kicking around for the job as well. We opted for buying an 8 core processor and 8 Gb's of DDR3 ram. It is running really well now, and fast too. When he saves up some more money I will upgrade the heatsink on the CPU and install a solid state drive for the OS and software and place all his data on a normal mechanical hard drive. Oh and I installed a core tuner software so that he can assign certain vsti's in nuendo to certain cores to get the most out of it. I reckon it would run a project with 16 tracks using 16 separate Spectrasonics Omnisphere synths assigned to each track

Woah you really think 8gb of ram can handle 16 spectrasonics omnisphere synths, I don't think so. Each one on its own is already between 50-600 megabytes, not to mention that windows uses a good 1-2 gb ram and nuendo itself. When I built my cousin a sound production pc I chose 16gb and an ssd (just for the amazing starting up speed). I picked the i7 3770k as processor, I found that with that he would probably never have to upgrade his computer . Which processor did you get?
Also I like the sound of that core tuner software, what is it, how does it function?

As I said I only reckon it will do it, not that it will do it, and even if it does it will be slow as hell. You are probably right though on reflection. My friend only had £200 to play with so we went for the AMD FX-8150.

The software is:

Ashampoo® Core Tuner 2 - Overview

Just so you guys know I am still working on this. I just need a couple hundred more dollars and I will start buying what I need.

I think I am getting a laptop for Christmas. Will a intel core5 with turbo boost be strong enough to power photoshop and games? Personally I would say yes, but I would like your opinions.

I've been thinking about building a low-power machine for my mom, possibly inside the chassis and using the power supply of the 2004 Dell I handed down to her. Does anyone have thoughts on whether there would be any compatibility issues between an older power supply and a newer board? I don't think any of those connection standards have changed, but I was never that familiar with them to begin with. On the one hand I could just add a new PSU to the budget, but the current one has been such a workhorse for 8 frigging years that I'm tempted to let it ride.

I'm looking at a build with one of AMD's combined CPU + GPU processors on a micro ATX board with all modern interface standards and a smaller SSD. As long as it's not starved for RAM, it should be more than enough machine for her Facebook games, browsing, and occasional streaming.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I've been thinking about building a low-power machine for my mom, possibly inside the chassis and using the power supply of the 2004 Dell I handed down to her. Does anyone have thoughts on whether there would be any compatibility issues between an older power supply and a newer board? I don't think any of those connection standards have changed, but I was never that familiar with them to begin with. On the one hand I could just add a new PSU to the budget, but the current one has been such a workhorse for 8 frigging years that I'm tempted to let it ride.

I'm looking at a build with one of AMD's combined CPU + GPU processors on a micro ATX board with all modern interface standards and a smaller SSD. As long as it's not starved for RAM, it should be more than enough machine for her Facebook games, browsing, and occasional streaming.

I would keep in the old one, I've always found psu's the most reliable part of the computer. Good choice on the AMD cpu, don't really see the point in the ssd, you always want at least 40gb for the OS partition and such a large ssd would only be a waste of money if you are using it for facebook games.

Originally Posted by dakotahnok

Just so you guys know I am still working on this. I just need a couple hundred more dollars and I will start buying what I need.

I think I am getting a laptop for Christmas. Will a intel core5 with turbo boost be strong enough to power photoshop and games? Personally I would say yes, but I would like your opinions.

In general yes, my old cpu and radeon saphire 4870 are still playing modded skyrim at 35 fps and photoshop without any lag so no problem there.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

I would keep in the old one, I've always found psu's the most reliable part of the computer. Good choice on the AMD cpu, don't really see the point in the ssd, you always want at least 40gb for the OS partition and such a large ssd would only be a waste of money if you are using it for facebook games.

Well, I'm thinking the build will be SSD-only and wanted to leave some headroom. My mom doesn't really download or install much of anything, but with anything smaller than 64GB it would only take one or two large applications (say my sister or I wanted to install a real PC game while we were visiting) to run up against the ceiling. Still, most of the games I'd put on there are classics like SMAC or HoMM3 which don't take up much space... It just depends what my budget looks like when it comes build time. There's not that huge of a price difference between the really small SSDs and something around 100GB.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Well, I'm thinking the build will be SSD-only and wanted to leave some headroom. My mom doesn't really download or install much of anything, but with anything smaller than 64GB it would only take one or two large applications (say my sister or I wanted to install a real PC game while we were visiting) to run up against the ceiling. Still, most of the games I'd put on there are classics like SMAC or HoMM3 which don't take up much space... It just depends what my budget looks like when it comes build time. There's not that huge of a price difference between the really small SSDs and something around 100GB.

There is little use in having an ssd for general applications other than a quick startup speed, there is however a great hard drive by seagate, part ssd and part hdd Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive
Roughly the same price as a ssd but with 500gb extra space. I personally don't see the point in getting a ssd only build as it really has little advantage over a normal build.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

There is little use in having an ssd for general applications other than a quick startup speed,

Which is a huge advantage in terms of user experience. Depending on the application, you'll see a lot of "loading" time eliminated after startup, too. You absolutely want your browser and most played games on SSD, for instance. There are also noise and power considerations vs. HDD. For someone with modest storage needs, there's no real reason to drop a HDD into the mix, except maybe as a backup drive. The only advantage of HDD is $/GB, which becomes less relevant as fewer $s and GBs are involved.

That hybrid drive is basically just a marked-up HDD with a 4GB thumb drive strapped on. Hopefully the software is a little more sophisticated than Windows Ready Boost, but it's the same basic principle.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Which is a huge advantage in terms of user experience. Depending on the application, you'll see a lot of "loading" time eliminated after startup, too. You absolutely want your browser and most played games on SSD, for instance. There are also noise and power considerations vs. HDD. For someone with modest storage needs, there's no real reason to drop a HDD into the mix, except maybe as a backup drive. The only advantage of HDD is $/GB, which becomes less relevant as fewer $s and GBs are involved.

That hybrid drive is basically just a marked-up HDD with a 4GB thumb drive strapped on. Hopefully the software is a little more sophisticated than Windows Ready Boost, but it's the same basic principle.

Whatever you want man, if you don't need the space then the ssd will do fine, probably better for the environment anyways.

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Whatever you want man, if you don't need the space then the ssd will do fine, probably better for the environment anyways.

If you meet the ceiling with an SSD, it's easy to buy an HDD and tuck in there for more storage.

Originally Posted by khh

If you meet the ceiling with an SSD, it's easy to buy an HDD and tuck in there for more storage.

Yep, or I could hand down one of the HDDs I've outgrown. But again, my mom never installs or downloads anything, so even a 64GB SSD would probably be adequate. I'd just rather spend the $20 to $50 and not have to worry about it. I saw a 120GB SSD for $80 on Newegg yesterday, and almost pulled the trigger on a 256GB one @$150 for myself.

Originally Posted by dakotahnok

Just so you guys know I am still working on this. I just need a couple hundred more dollars and I will start buying what I need.

I think I am getting a laptop for Christmas. Will a intel core5 with turbo boost be strong enough to power photoshop and games? Personally I would say yes, but I would like your opinions.

What the hell is turbo boost? Marketing gimmick?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I've been thinking about building a low-power machine for my mom, possibly inside the chassis and using the power supply of the 2004 Dell I handed down to her. Does anyone have thoughts on whether there would be any compatibility issues between an older power supply and a newer board? I don't think any of those connection standards have changed, but I was never that familiar with them to begin with. On the one hand I could just add a new PSU to the budget, but the current one has been such a workhorse for 8 frigging years that I'm tempted to let it ride.

Only problem I can think of is it might die or break in some way and fry the whole computer. 8 years is a fairly long life for a PSU iirc, it may be ready to kick it. PSU's are pretty cheap really, and the new ones are far more energy efficient, just get a really small Corsair?
Up to you I spose, I'd probably get a new one though.