Ok, but can they run Crysis?
These are actual rigs, and from a theoretical point of view, they're awful. The 3DMark leaderboards are far better for what this seeks to present. Generally speaking, evaluating this question from any of these leaderboards is pointless because you're looking at ungodly overclocks on insane, airplane-loud, custom liquid nitrogen/hydrogen cooling setups that nobody in the real world would use. They also don't specifically cater to gamers.According to PassMark.com
You want to own a top PC rig? Here is what you need.
If you looking to build it yourself it should close around $4k. Funny how some websites are charging $20k on same configurations
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To see how an SSD cache can effect gaming performance, we’ll load up a few games and measure level load times. Tests were run three times (to allow the data to be cached), with a reboot between each run (otherwise RAM comes into play)...
Once a game is cached, the level loads just as it would off a dedicated SSD. If you are wondering how long it takes or how many loads it takes for a game to get cached, the answer, in my experience, is once. You might have to put up with a 15-20 second level load if you haven’t played the game for a while, but once you do, the data gets cached, and it begins running off the SSD again. All this is done without any interference from the user.
Did they ever get Intels SRT to work with Windows 10? I know at launch they had issues.https://www.wepc.com/tips/ssd-cache/
A recent article on the effectiveness of coupling an HDD with a small SSD (128GB) with the latter using Intel's Smart Response Technology for Intel CPU owners. This is the most economical way to get SSD performance at HDD storage prices. It's a particularly fruitful avenue to consider now that 120GB-128GB SSDs are a bit thin in 2018 to run as an OS drive.
There were issues with Build 1803 (the Fall Creator's Update), but that update was a fucking nightmare for everyone and everything. Otherwise, they had resolved those issues prior.Did they ever get Intels SRT to work with Windows 10? I know at launch they had issues.
1tb budget SSD’s have been hitting the $110 mark and have been predicted to keep going down.
A WD blue 1tb usually sits around the $45 mark. A budget 120gb ssd with dram cache is $30. So you’re at $75.
If the budget drives drop to $100, the ssd caching combo for a 1tb drive becomes a tough sell. There’s a performance jump from 120gb to 250gb and another at 250gb to 500gb.
Budget ssd’s also come with a 3 year warranty vs the WD blue HDD is 2 years.
For 2tb and larger the ssd caching is an option.
There were issues with Build 1803 (the Fall Creator's Update), but that update was a fucking nightmare for everyone and everything. Otherwise, they had resolved those issues prior.
I was disappointed he didn't discuss stability issues with his gaming tests, or if he had any, but this article obviously isn't intended for our gaming niche. The larger SSDs are definitely becoming more attractive at their price points, especially if you want the most stable and bulletproof SSD experience possible. I was reminded of this creative use of smaller SSDs when I was eyeballing that free HP S600 120GB SSD in the Newegg Combo from the other thread. Unfortunately, that combo had a Ryzen processor.
It's still a pretty beautiful concept for Intel owners, economically. The strategy doesn't favor going for smaller HDDs. Cheapest HDDs on the market are still the 3TB, but there isn't really an premium up to 6TB. PCPP is showing $150 for the Toshiba X300 6TB internal drive. Meanwhile, I see sales pop up all the time on BPC or Slickdeals for 120GB/128GB 2.5" SSDs in the $20-$25 range. Very common component sale. I see a Patriot Burst for $23 atm. Alternatively, a bunch of gamers have >128GB SSDs from older builds they could recycle. As that reviewer notes the upside is that any game in existence can be loaded in its entirety into a 120GB SSD as cache. This is superior to the measly 8GB of cache the Firecuda hybrid drives employ, and why his load times are identical to the pure SSD when it isn't cache.
I totally get if someone doesn't want it as their main game drive, especially if they play load-monsters like GTA V, but $150 + $23 = $173, and now you effectively have a 6TB hybrid drive with pure SSD load performance (not falling in between HDD and SSD like the Firecuda drives). It's enough to store a very large game library on a single drive. Six 1TB SSDs is going to run you about 5x that much.
https://www.wepc.com/tips/ssd-cache/
A recent article on the effectiveness of coupling an HDD with a small SSD (128GB) with the latter using Intel's Smart Response Technology for Intel CPU owners. This is the most economical way to get SSD performance at HDD storage prices. It's a particularly fruitful avenue to consider now that 120GB-128GB SSDs are a bit thin in 2018 to run as an OS drive.
I don't understand the source of this hostility. It was an article that happened to pop up in my Google News feed which I doubt was a coincidence considering I was Googling about that HP SSD. I spent the first half of the post acknowledging some of your points, and the second half elaborating with more concrete figures on the fruitfulness of the strategy for larger sizes (or for recycling older SSDs in a useful way). Even at the lower 1TB size it is far cheaper if you don't go out of your way with hypothetical future prices to dismiss the truth, and this is a silly approach to this strategy when 2TB and 3TB drives offer so much more bang-for-your-buck. I don't understand why you waste time analyzing a purchase that doesn't make sense. Let price be the symmetry instead of storage size itself. Cheapest prices available to me right now:So what I said except you made a long drawn out post. Got it
In b4 you try to play semantics.
I mentioned it as a hypothetical placeholder, but how so? A quick Google showed a relatively strong customer review on Amazon with hundreds of votes, so I assumed it doesn't suffer from an extraordinarily high failure rate. The tech reviews actually showed inordinately good read speeds (particularly 4K random read) for a budget SSD-- especially a 128GB size. It's built on the same technology as the Inland drives and most other budget SSDs with the TLC Nand, but I assume most aren't worried about lifespan cycles. Looking at the Amazon and Newegg comments it looks like there is a bit of a lottery with whether or not the drives work, but overall satisfaction is okay. It's just a rebranded Patriot Blaze (same memory controller and Nand flash).Btw that patriot drive you posted is complete garbage. Do your research on it. It should only be recommended to people you hate.
Thought the dog would appreciate the heads up.The online, community-driven marketplace, Massdrop, has added a few extra ‘communities’ to its roster. There are now baking, board games, flashlights, trading card games, and… oh yeah, PC gaming.
The PC Gaming community will include monitors, gaming mice, desks, chairs, mouse mats, microphones, gaming glasses, and graphics cards. Mechanical keyboards are also available on the site, although these clacky slabs of metal and plastic already have a dedicated, thriving community on the e-commerce site all to themselves – and rightfully so.
There are already a few big name component drops listed on the PC Gaming community right now, including: the Samsung 960 Evo NVMe SSD, Adata XPG DDR4 memory kits, gaming chairs from various big name brands, and even the MSI Optix 34-inch curved gaming monitor. There are also multiple requests open if you need something a bit more specific for your build – including a whole heap of graphics cards...
While prices are not always cheaper than some of the more aggressive markets or retailers online, occasionally you can grab a great deal through the community, which, after this last year of price hikes, is a breath of fresh air.
Never heard of them, thanks. It looks like you have to sign in with FB or Google just to browse though.Massdrop is making it easier and cheaper to find new gaming PC hardware
Thought the dog would appreciate the heads up.
it is basically a group buy website. if they hit X number of orders the price is lower than if you were to just buy something on your own.Never heard of them, thanks. It looks like you have to sign in with FB or Google just to browse though.
I hope everyone knows about r/HardwareSwap.
I learned about them either from @jefferz or from @nhbbear in the headphone thread, IIRC, since headphones was one of the first products they platformed for the headfi community.Never heard of them, thanks. It looks like you have to sign in with FB or Google just to browse though.
I hope everyone knows about r/HardwareSwap.
I learned about them either from @jefferz or from @nhbbear in the headphone thread, IIRC, since headphones was one of the first products they platformed for the headfi community.
Very cool concept. Their prices on Sennheiser headphones have often beaten the pants off any retailer elsewhere including Amazon, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart.
I learned completely to my surprise that there was a promotion to obtain a free Siberia Steelseries 200 headset with the purchase of an MSI Stealth Pro GS63 laptop by merely posting a review and providing proof of purchase. I was delighted. 4-8 weeks to ship. Thing is that I already have a Sennheiser HD 650 and a HyperX Cloud. So I want to sell it, but that means I'll probably halve my resale value just by cracking the box. People are like that with "used" headphones, and I totally get it. Dilemmas.I am so sad. Both my hifi 400 and my phillips fidelios broke. My kids knocked the hifi under my recliner and the left headphone snapped off and I stood up and stepped on the fidelios after they fell off my lap.
But i am close to pulling the trigger on sennheiser 650s.