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When using this resource, please read the opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly. |
I'm thinking of putting a SSD in my Thinkpad T420. Are there any issues I should be aware of? I did some research and everyone seems to have agreed any old SSD can fit in the HDD slot under the case. I'm not looking to use two hard drives at once, but I'm probably going to be partitioning my drive in two so I have some Debian flavour (eOS atm) on one and Windows 8.1 on the other (I'll have to follow guides again).
I haven't kept up with computer builds in a while so what brands of SSDs should I be looking at outside of Intel? I'm leaning towards 240GB but I may settle for the cheaper 120GB, though space would be tight in a dual boot.
Going to go with NCIX most likely by this weekend. I will be using this as my main development laptop when I'm in the states and I need my laptop to run Visual Studio 2013 faster. It's very sluggish at the moment.
Looking atm at this: http://www.ncix.com/detail/samsung-840-pro-series-256gb-51-77219-1070.htm
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Still the same old Samsung and Crucial.
There's nearly a $100 difference between the 840 EVO and the Pro. The Pro just isn't worth it for regular consumer usage unless you really value warranty that much.
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If you want to feel more assured about it working, just open it up once and take the HDD out and into your hand. There should be a flap for that drive bay somewhere, using one screw to keep it in place. You'll see that it will work.
The only strange thing that might happen is that the SSD is slightly thinner than the HDD. On both SSDs I bought, I also got a crappy plastic frame that looked totally unassuming, like it would have been part of the packaging. That plastic part is intended to make the whole thing have the same thickness as an HDD.
You probably don't need to buy the "Pro" version of the Samsung drive. The normal version is a good bit cheaper. The Pro version is intended for people that will overwrite a good amount of the drive's space every day, possibly multiple times a day. In a situation like that, where you write dozens of GB onto it and delete it and write again and delete again, etc., that's when its life will be longer than on the normal SSD.
I didn't keep up with the other brands, but Samsung is a safe choice and their drives are never excessively expensive compared to the competition.
+ Show Spoiler [I typed a lot about Linux+Windows today] +If you haven't kept up with modern stuff, there's a bunch of differences to the past that you might have never heard about. The modern BIOS is named "UEFI". The new UEFI stuff uses "GPT" partitioning instead of the old "MBR". There's a FAT32 formatted 100MB sized partition on the drive with the boot loaders. To switch a drive between GPT and MBR, there may not be any partitions on the drive, they first have to be deleted. For Linux and Windows 8, to get dual boot to work, search for documents describing "UEFI" and "grub" and "windows dual boot" or things like that. You should install Windows 8 first as it creates a whole bunch of strange partitions. Its installer will create that EFI partition. You don't have to worry much about partitioning while installing. There are tools like "MiniTool Partition Wizard" that will be able to resize and move partitions without problem. Another new thing to know is "Secure Boot". That's protection against a virus infection of the boot loader. You'll have to look through the UEFI (new name for modern BIOS) of the computer and find the "Secure Boot" settings and possibly disable that. That Secure Boot stuff causes the PC to check signatures for the boot loaders in the EFI partition and only Microsoft is able to put a signature on a boot loader that will pass that test. I couldn't fix problems with boot by myself manually doing things to that EFI partition. This here fixed it: http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/Some Ubuntu guide that describes its features: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-RepairDon't forget to look up information about SSD use and "TRIM" on Linux. You will likely need to set up a cron job that schedules a weekly run of "fstrim" though I don't know for sure about the newest kernels and distros.
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M550 or the older M500 are both fine.
Haven't kept up with Intel's offerings since they switched to Sandforce. I think their newest consumer series is the 530? It's similar to the 840 Pro in pricing due to Intel's extensive validation and five year warranty so again, not really worth it over the 840 EVO unless you care about warranty or need the write endurance. In terms of performance, it trades blows with the 840 EVO.
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Hello, i come with a build request.
+ Show Spoiler +
What is your budget?
$250, maybe 300 if i stretch.
What is your monitor's native resolution?
720p, unless a 1080p monitor can be fit into the budget.
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
This computer is for my brother; he'd like to be able to play skyrim and other old-ish games, regardless of the settings. Starcraft 2 on medium, if possible.
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Video Streaming, and that's about it.
Do you intend to overclock?
I've overclocked in the past, but i fear i wouldn't be able to with the budget i've got.
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Not in this budget.
Do you need an operating system?
I do.
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
As stated in question 2, if i can fit the monitor in that would be awesome, otherwise no. Include a budget keyboard (less than 20$) if possible. We will also need a case, given my budget maybe we can fit a micro-ATX one.
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
I'd rather go with intel CPU unless current AMD outperforms it.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Mexico City. Retailers here are very hit or miss, you have to spend a long time looking for the right prices.
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Not really. I saw a Best Buy here in the city, but i haven't been there and i suspect prices will be higher than other retailers. I'll still check there.
Inside the spoiler you will find the information requested.
A couple years ago you guys helped me with a build that is still running to date, the specs were about the following:
i3 2100
H61 MoBo
Radeon HD 6770
1TB 7200 SATAII HDD
I was very satisfied with this build and you guys earned my trust as the go-to thread. It's sad that the original build resource thread is now gone, but i understand how that got very clogged up.
Edit: Mexican Retailers tend to be very short on PSU supplies. If you can suggest multiple PSUs that would work, i'd appreciate it.
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There's nothing you can buy on that budget that can run those games.
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Not even 720p? That's a bummer. I guess i'll save up a bit more. Thanks for the help!
Edit: Out of curiosity, what's the minimum budget i want to look at? Would i have to save up for the basic gamer build that's rated at $385? Also, does that 385 include case and monitor?
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On April 26 2014 00:49 Energycore wrote:
Not even 720p? That's a bummer. I guess i'll save up a bit more. Thanks for the help!
Edit: Out of curiosity, what's the minimum budget i want to look at? Would i have to save up for the basic gamer build that's rated at $385? Also, does that 385 include case and monitor?
Your current PC beats the "basic gamer" build!
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If you're going for an extreme budget build such as that one then you might want to look at Rosewill's budget cases that have PSUs supplied with them. As long as you're not overclocking or asking the PSU to do some heavy work, you should probably be fine; I mean there are a shit ton of OEMs you buy at stores that have "bad" PSUs yet as long as you don't stress they aren't stressed you won't run into any problems.
this is what i might suggest for now: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3ygIa
but I want to come back later and see if there isn't something on AMD's side that might be nice for the CPU.
E: ok I just built parts that made somewhat sense given budget constraints but i didn't check benchmarks. i guess even this won't do? oops lul
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On April 26 2014 00:54 Ropid wrote:
Your current PC beats the "basic gamer" build!
Yeah, i ended up upgrading to 650ti and my current build is very satisfying. However this computer is for my brother who just got into gaming.
On April 26 2014 00:54 Incognoto wrote:If you're going for an extreme budget build such as that one then you might want to look at Rosewill's budget cases that have PSUs supplied with them. As long as you're not overclocking or asking the PSU to do some heavy work, you should probably be fine; I mean there are a shit ton of OEMs you buy at stores that have "bad" PSUs yet as long as you don't stress they aren't stressed you won't run into any problems. this is what i might suggest for now: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3ygIabut I want to come back later and see if there isn't something on AMD's side that might be nice for the CPU. E: ok I just built parts that made somewhat sense given budget constraints but i didn't check benchmarks. i guess even this won't do? oops lul
Thanks for the build. Do you all think this could run SC2 in low settings? Medium won't be a requirement after all; if i'm on this kind of budget. Is hearthstone a taxing game? We'd be playing that too. If it's necessary, we'll buy only games that this computer can support. There are tons of great games out there that aren't graphically taxing.
Edit: now that i think of it, i have a 450W rated cooler master power supply in stock that i could use. It was originally on my build until i replaced it with an 80plus solution and it worked OK.
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That build should be fine, the CPU is probably not that different to what your current PC's CPU can do. The graphics card is a bit weak and yours is a lot better. You might want to try to get a better graphics card into the build. You don't have to worry about Hearthstone. It should even work with the GPU that's built into the CPU.
Here's a table comparing graphics card performance:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
Things that are on the same line are about the same performance. You will see that the R7 240 is somewhere pretty low, the HD 6770 you originally had is not that low, and your current GTX 650 Ti is approaching the powerful cards. Do you maybe still have that old graphics card? You could use it in that second PC.
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Unfortunately i don't have the 6770 anymore; i do have a 6670 that i'm not using. According to the tomshardware table it performs better than the R7 240; it's the GDDR5 version. So i can save the budget and place it elsewhere. If this is powerful enough, i can place it in and dedicate the rest of the budget elsewhere.
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United Kingdom20294 Posts
At least get 2x2gb of RAM if you're getting 4gb - as much as people like to say that memory bandwidth does not matter, running at half bandwidth because of single channel (nobody would use ddr3@800mhz for example) when you're already using standard-grade RAM can seriously cut into performance for some things - somebody with a fast dual channel kit could have 3 to 4 times that much bandwidth
Looking back at my sc2 benches, i tested several times the game running almost 1.5x faster on average FPS with 2000c11 instead of 1066c11 - i can't say if it's due to bandwidth, latency or both, so it could either run mostly fine or be significantly impaired
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The problem I see is that very cheap motherboards only have two memory slots, so if you fill those two slots with 2x 2GB, you will never be able to upgrade to 8 GB should you ever notice you need more than 4 GB.
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United Kingdom20294 Posts
On April 26 2014 01:36 Ropid wrote:
The problem I see is that very cheap motherboards only have two memory slots, so if you fill those two slots with 2x 2GB, you will never be able to upgrade to 8 GB should you ever notice you need more than 4 GB.
If i had sc2 installed, i'd probably just go set to 1600c9 and test with and without 2 sticks. I can't really do that without dedicating an hour to it though
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If the motherboard only has 2 slots, i'm ok running 2x2GB and later on either buying a new motherboard or switching to 2x4GB. I don't think i'd need 8GB for now, maybe in a couple years. What do you think?
I'd also appreciate if you point me to a guide on latencies in case the RAM i buy has a sub-optimal setup. Remember retailers here are very sloppy.
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United Kingdom20294 Posts
On April 26 2014 01:41 Energycore wrote:
If the motherboard only has 2 slots, i'm ok running 2x2GB and later on either buying a new motherboard or switching to 2x4GB. I don't think i'd need 8GB for now, maybe in a couple years. What do you think?
I'd also appreciate if you point me to a guide on latencies in case the RAM i buy has a sub-optimal setup. Remember retailers here are very sloppy.
For a quick check you can just do frequency/cas
1333/9 = 148
1600/9 = 178
1866/10 = 186
1866/9 = 207
2133/11 = 193
2133/10 = 213
etc
You can only run up to ~1600 anyway, and c9 is standard there
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I see. So the lower the CAS the better, but apparently you can't run RAM at too low CAS? What does CAS stand for?
I think i may already have a 2GB stick, but it's rated at 1333; i assume if i buy a 1600 stick it will throttle down to 1333.
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United Kingdom20294 Posts
On April 26 2014 01:50 Energycore wrote:
I see. So the lower the CAS the better, but apparently you can't run RAM at too low CAS? What does CAS stand for?
I think i may already have a 2GB stick, but it's rated at 1333; i assume if i buy a 1600 stick it will throttle down to 1333.
Yes, mix/matching RAM is not ideal but it works, the performance of the lower stick is used
Not sure what cas stands for, but it's a latency. It's measured in clock cycles, so if you clock RAM 1.5x higher, you have to proportionally raise your timings to keep them essentially the same, as 12 clocks at 2400mhz take the same among of time as 8 clocks at 1600mhz.
That's why etc 2200c9 is very very fast, it's somewhat comparable to 1600mhz at cas~6.5.
RAM performance is not a big deal unless you're an enthusiast and like said you can only use up to 1600mhz unless you have z87 (overclocking) chipset, but it can be important to get the basics right at least (~1333-1600mhz c9, dual channel) because you can get performance cliffs in some places if you have exceptionally bad RAM performance compared to expected, so i would recommend 2x2gb or 2x4gb unless someone wanted to check sc2 at least in single channel vs dual with 1600c9
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EPT
