Back into the PC Master Race. It was never a total absence but still.
As others have said, you should have an SSD. Usability is so crap and slow without.
That's a bit of an exaggeration
granted ssd's help a lot
hehe, I shouldn't suffer much. My graphics card manual says the minimum amount is 4GB and the recommended amount is 8GB. So I am good to go til I update to a Vega card with a nice ratio between specs and power consumption --I am not in a hurry. :smile2:
Usability is a word that I am learning to love :smile2: after using a few laptops and most specifically my last one, which is a 1.6GHz Celeron N3050, a fanless 6W CPU. Nice because is silent, but productivity went downhill --you wouldn't believe to which extent. Sometimes something as simple as using the secondary mouse button to copy a whole url address took like 5 seconds or more for the menu to appear. It does not happen always though, but I upgraded the RAM to 8GB for 40€, time ago, and it runs better than it did with the stock 4GB, but things like that still manage to surprise me.
So using this PC it might seem like it flies since it has a 3,5" HD (7200rpm). The only issue is that compared to the rest of the system, the HD is relatively noisy. The CPU is running cool so it is the GPU.
In the end, I think I am going to get a SSD before upgrading the RAM. I am still writing this from my laptop, but I cant wait to write in Beyond3D on my 32" display and getting over of this double vision disorder
I got from using this small display 11" screen over long periods of time.
The PC got delivered today's afternoon. It is a Micro ATX motherboard and the box is also Micro ATX. I like it that way, and I also like how they make things more compact and more power efficient at the same time while still gaining kick. I am a big fan of solutions that can run cool yet fast without turning into your house's heating (I remember that the Xbox 360 was actually quite good at that, it did spread out a lot of heat that warmed your room a lot).
The box doesn't weight that much, it is easy to carry. This is the initial setup in my room -a few hours ago.
Not sure if I should place the box at the top of the desk or in the gap below the drawer and right of the keyboard. Any suggestion?
The innards.
I am still installing the OS and the drivers.
The box doesn't weight that much, it is easy to carry. This is the initial setup in my room -a few hours ago.
Not sure if I should place the box at the top of the desk or in the gap below the drawer and right of the keyboard. Any suggestion?
The innards.
I am still installing the OS and the drivers.
You would be done with that by now if you had a SSD.
Down on the floor, you won't hear it as much.
Yup, down on the floor.
Also, a somewhat dissenting voice regarding SSDs. I exchanged my 2TB HD for a 500GB SSD. And while I enjoy the fast loads, the hassle of having to uninstall games all the time before I can install something new is really annoying. I needed at least a TB to have any kind of breathing room, preferably more, but then we are talking rather large amounts of money, where it feels as if too much is spent to shave seconds off startup times (since it doesn't affect actual usage). So - if you go big, it's nice, but at the end of the day it is convenience only. Expensive if large, inconvenient if not. YMMV
Also, I think being constrained by a budget is nice rather than frustrating. Compromises, situational things to take into consideration - simply more interesting. Where are the price/performance knees? What are the recent or upcoming shifts in technology? What can be replaced or extended easily (such as RAM) vs. what is more costly or has domino effects?
From where I stand, you made a good job within your constraints. And since there are constraints an upgrade somewhere would have to be paired with a downgrade somewhere else.
Unless you go VR, or a new generation of consoles defines a new baseline for game development, there will be little need to do much of anything with that build.
Also, a somewhat dissenting voice regarding SSDs. I exchanged my 2TB HD for a 500GB SSD. And while I enjoy the fast loads, the hassle of having to uninstall games all the time before I can install something new is really annoying. I needed at least a TB to have any kind of breathing room, preferably more, but then we are talking rather large amounts of money, where it feels as if too much is spent to shave seconds off startup times (since it doesn't affect actual usage). So - if you go big, it's nice, but at the end of the day it is convenience only. Expensive if large, inconvenient if not. YMMV
Also, I think being constrained by a budget is nice rather than frustrating. Compromises, situational things to take into consideration - simply more interesting. Where are the price/performance knees? What are the recent or upcoming shifts in technology? What can be replaced or extended easily (such as RAM) vs. what is more costly or has domino effects?
From where I stand, you made a good job within your constraints. And since there are constraints an upgrade somewhere would have to be paired with a downgrade somewhere else.
Unless you go VR, or a new generation of consoles defines a new baseline for game development, there will be little need to do much of anything with that build.
You have an SSD for OS and an HDD for games and content. If you want optimal performance, lets say editing a video, you can work from the SSD for the project's duration and then 'archive' everything onto the HDD.
Sure, but then it doesn't even help much at application launch. For my glorified console kind of PC (I do all my "serious" home stuff on a Mac), it would be a very expensive boot-up accelerator.
I simply misjudged my disk space usage, 80+GB monstrosities like DOOM just don't fit even if I enjoy the mayhem immensely. Games aren't getting smaller, DLC is a thing, Blizzard games are disk hogs with lipstick and so on.
This is obviously personal, I simply don't like administrating my PC (Intel RST, I'm looking at you), and like having a selection of games to choose from when I have time to sit down in front of the PC. YMMV. But I'd like to raise a voice of caution - if you don't like partial solutions, SSDs may not be cost effective just yet.
green.pixel
Veteran
There is a little program that can help you with that. It allows you to install games on larger hard drives and move their installation folder to the SSD when you need it for playing. Works for any other folder as well.
Steam Mover
You don't need a 2Tb SSD. You don't use SSD's for storage and you don't need to have a billion games installed at once, irrespective of what Davros may think. Granted games are getting larger so a target 1Tb SSD is good but I am fine with my 256Gb primary and 512Gb secondary SSDs with a large 19Tb NAS in the basement for general storage.
Any money at all spent on mechanical hard drives for a gaming desktop is a complete waste of money. Wait another week or two if you are budget constrained for your next pay to put in that extra $50 and get an SSD. @Shifty Geezer mentioned, usability is severely compromised without it. Even SSD is old tech when you consider NVMe now on modern motherboards.
Any money at all spent on mechanical hard drives for a gaming desktop is a complete waste of money. Wait another week or two if you are budget constrained for your next pay to put in that extra $50 and get an SSD. @Shifty Geezer mentioned, usability is severely compromised without it. Even SSD is old tech when you consider NVMe now on modern motherboards.
Personally, i will be in pain to come back to a primary HDD, when i need to fix the pc of my brother, games or insttall new things and testing, im going crazy quickly. He still have an old HDD.. slow boots, slow moving files, noisy ( if not well defragmented ), Now i need aggree that 512GB is a bit short, 1TB will be my good average for a primary storage. but well i should have easely 4TB of additional HDD storage, games that i dont play much are just moved on the HDDs... I have a not so bad connection anyway, so in general, if i have not touch a game on 6 months, i remove it.
When i have buy my first SSD, 128GB had an higher price than actual best 512GB, so im somewhat looking at the cost a bit differently. ( and well my good old WD Raptors 10K rpm was cost an arm too back in time ).
I will need anyway additional storages ( its crazy how much can take places, PBR textures ( substance painter ), and other stuffs linked to 3D files over time ).
When i have buy my first SSD, 128GB had an higher price than actual best 512GB, so im somewhat looking at the cost a bit differently. ( and well my good old WD Raptors 10K rpm was cost an arm too back in time ).
I will need anyway additional storages ( its crazy how much can take places, PBR textures ( substance painter ), and other stuffs linked to 3D files over time ).
Thanks! I will look into that utility. (I have a 250+Mbit connection to the internet, so while redownloading is slower than an external disk or my NAS, it is not the teethgrinding exercise it was back in the days of ADSL. On the other hand I have disks around doing nothing useful. This might be their justification.)There is a little program that can help you with that. It allows you to install games on larger hard drives and move their installation folder to the SSD when you need it for playing. Works for any other folder as well.
Steam Mover
That's almost twice my number, I've got 200 titles. Only 13 of those actually fit on the SSD at the moment though.Your preaching to the choir (old screenshots)
Don't listen to such blasphemy....
It's an old set of screenshots
A current picture
There's another program as well
SaveGame Manager
http://www.gamesave-manager.com
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SSDs are good, no argument...but they're cost a lot. Personally I like having my little 240GB SSD. It's enough for my windows install and a 140GB partition for games I want/need extry zippy with. Then I have like 6 mechanical HDDs of various assortments.
/me needs to pick up a decent 2TB just to consolidate all his older HDDs
/me needs to pick up a decent 2TB just to consolidate all his older HDDs
If you look at the economy of each part and its impact, £50 more CPU or RAM or GPU won't net you much difference above the bottom of the barrel, but £50 of SSD can reduce operating lag to a fraction. All that time saved over the life of operation is well worth it. I get by okay on an older 120 GB SSD. So if a choice between £200 of CPU and GPU or £150 of CPU and GPU and SSD, I'd pick the latter every time.
That said, if your primary interest is gaming rather than that as a nice extra, focussing on core parts instead of storage makes sense.
That said, if your primary interest is gaming rather than that as a nice extra, focussing on core parts instead of storage makes sense.
