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which PC should I buy

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Josse_Sterckx, Sep 1, 2016.

  1. Josse_Sterckx

    Josse_Sterckx

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    Hi,
    I want to start using unity but at the moment I have a very S***ty old laptop and it can barely run anything. So I want to buy a new PC, my price range is somewhere around 500 euro.
    Thank you very much.
    Also I know NOTHING about computers
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2016
  2. ChrisSch

    ChrisSch

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    My setup was about that much:
    Processor: AMD athlon x4 860k
    GPU: GeForce GTX750Ti
    Memory: 8gb
    Motherboard: Gigabyte F2A78M-HD2

    I'm pretty satisfied with this setup. Also a 120gb SSD, and a dvd reader fit in that price range. I think I bought a cooler later for about 40 euros because the stock one was extremely noisy. As for screen I got a 24 inch one later for about 170 euros I think. I'm roughly converting from my local currency. :p

    EDIT: It was a while ago, and here components tend to be outdated and a bit more expensive than in say America (750Ti was the best gpu available), so you might be able to get way better parts for that price.
     
  3. orb

    orb

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    If you can, get more than a 120GB SSD. Just assets eat up that much space on my systems :)
     
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  4. ChrisSch

    ChrisSch

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    True that, mine is entirely filled with Unity stuff. xD
     
  5. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    I would suggest getting 1TB HDD rather than 120GB SSD. I wouldn't consider an SSD unless my CPU is not fast.

    You'll constantly find yourself having to empty your disk space.

    Apart from that, SSDs are freaking expensive!
     
  6. orb

    orb

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    The sanity loss of HDDs make SSDs worth it. Get an external drive if you REALLY need tons of space later, and for backups. 250GB SSDs are no longer very expensive either. In fact, if you can get a laptop with a regular (9mm) HDD AND still afford a reasonable SSD + external drive enclosure, that's what I'd go with.
     
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  7. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    With a budget of only 500€ I definitely wouldn't invest in an SSD. A tiny drive won't go very far at all and you'd be reducing the capabilities of your other components which are already going to be weak with that budget. You can always add an SSD to the computer down the road but upgrading the processor, motherboard, and so on requires outright replacing them.

    That being said SSDs are absolutely worth every penny they cost. The difference in performance between even a very high performance HDD and a budget SSD is just immense. Easily dozens of times the performance for small files and many of your daily activities will involve those.

    Just as an example Visual Studio Community went from taking a minute or more to taking a few seconds to load.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
    gian-reto-alig likes this.
  8. ChrisSch

    ChrisSch

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    Yeah SSD isn't that necessary, only if you're left with some cash after you buy everything else. I use the SSD for work stuff, but I have others for plain storage and gaming.
     
  9. eye776

    eye776

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    If you value your sanity get at least 8 (or better 16) GB of RAM, at least DDR3 1666Mhz.
    Even a minimal install of VS2015 community / express (compared to VS2013 express) lags like hell on 4GB.
    Android Studio is also a huge memory hog on Windows (it runs okay-ish under OS X on a mini with 4GB of ram).
    SSD is pricey, so try to get a 7200rpm HDD instead (if possible).
     
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  10. orb

    orb

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  11. KnightsHouseGames

    KnightsHouseGames

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    I think your best bet is to just save your money. Put money aside until you can build the computer you actually want rather than settling.
     
  12. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    You can get DDR4-3200 16GB (either one 16GB stick or two 8GB sticks) for $90. Unless you're planning on buying older hardware (like the current AMD processors) you're better off picking up a motherboard and memory that are designed for DDR4.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
  13. QFSW

    QFSW

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    If you're going with a CPU that supports it
     
  14. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Practically everything from Intel is now capable of DDR4. Current generation AMD processors are limited to DDR3 but they're so far behind Intel at this point that they aren't even worth considering.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2016
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  15. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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  16. N1warhead

    N1warhead

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    @Ryiah Is DDR4 worth switching out everything I have just to use it? I have AMD stuff. So is re-making an entirely new PC worth the performance to the price of making a new PC?

    Right now using
    8 core FX8350
    32 gigs of DDR3
    Radeon R9-290
     
  17. QFSW

    QFSW

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    4th Gen CPUs are still very decent and are cheaper than 6th gen, so they are still considerable
     
  18. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    For both short and long term DDR3 is basically dead. Every processor from Intel's current generation is capable of DDR4 and AMD is preparing to support it as well with a new socket (Socket AM4). Last I heard motherboards with support for this new socket are supposed to become available in October.

    Unless you're building with older processors like @QFSW is suggesting you're better off with DDR4 for future purchases.

    According to AMD their next generation processor (currently codenamed Zen) has twice the performance of the AMD FX-8350. At one point they released benchmark information comparing one of their engineering samples with the Intel i7-5960X (a Broadwell extreme edition processor) and they were almost identical in performance.

    AMD's Zen series is supposed to be out sometime Q1 2017. It's an eight-core processor with hyperthreading.

    http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-cpu-performance-double-fx-8350/
     
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  19. QFSW

    QFSW

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    Is it a true 8 core or similar to AMDs other high core counts where it's 2 cores per module?
     
  20. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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  21. QFSW

    QFSW

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    They share an FPU and cache right? how much of an adverse effect does that actually have?
     
  22. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    We'll have to wait and see how it affects them. I don't know if AMD has released relevant info for that.
     
  23. DonaldTheDeveloper

    DonaldTheDeveloper

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    GT80 Titan SLI

    A laptop where you can add/subtract RAM and/or graphics capabilities as you please!
     
  24. DonaldTheDeveloper

    DonaldTheDeveloper

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    How did you know! [Joyful Cry]
     
  25. KnightsHouseGames

    KnightsHouseGames

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    And really, if you're buying older hardware, that kinda defeats the purpose of upgrading anyway, you're just starting from behind

    If you really need to consider building with obsolete hardware, you don't have enough money for a development computer. At that point, you're just wasting money, because you'll just end up having a slow, obsolete computer much sooner than someone who just saved up the money and did the job right the first time.
     
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  26. QFSW

    QFSW

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    Compare the speed of a 4790k and a 6700k. In my opinion it's really not enough for that argument to be valid
    GPUs on the other hand are massively improved with each generation, so using an outdated one would be silly
     
  27. KnightsHouseGames

    KnightsHouseGames

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    Yeah, marginally faster clock speed, but half the amount of ram supported, slower ram, slower bus speeds, and less compatibility with new features because you have to use older motherboards with an outdated socket to use it, if you can still find them, if they are even still being made. And those problems will only grow as time passes.

    Also, the new processor and the old processor are the same price, so whats the point of buying the old one, 0.2 ghz? You aren't saving any money with going with the old one.
     
  28. QFSW

    QFSW

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    Last I checked 6th gen was still more expensive, and a lot of people won't benefit from the extra ram support or the extra speed of the ram, but times change and things may be different now
     
  29. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    I have a 100GB SSD drive that acts as a C Drive (not my doing, bought it like that). I do admit that Visual Studio loads faster, but it takes too much space. And Visual Studio has a good habit of installing some files on a C drive even if you chose your install directory on a different drive.

    And Visual Studio is not the only program out there that does that. Some put their Temp/Data files inside of C drive, whether you like it or not. A bright example is Unity, Asset Store Cache files are stored in C drive.
     
  30. Josse_Sterckx

    Josse_Sterckx

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    Is it better for me to build my own PC or just buy one pre made?
     
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  31. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    When you're coming from "a very S***ty old laptop [that] can barely run anything" then upgrading to something that's not the latest and greatest is fine, if it can run your tools properly.

    Plus, my main dev machine is now ~5 years old and has plenty of legs left (the GPU has been updated, though), and my other work machine is ~3 years old. Don't wait forever to get "the best" stuff because you'll always be waiting. Get the best you can with your budget when you need it.
     
  32. orb

    orb

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    Build your own. Around here it's at least $100-150 more for a pre-built which you could easily cobble together yourself. Depending on which pre-built system you buy there might be extra warranties and service though. Just don't expect on-site repairs anymore :)

    My main gaming beast is a 4790K system with 8GB. After adding an SSD (250GB) for the system and a watercooled GPU upgrade in more recent times it's still excellent.

    If you don't get an SSD, then upgrade to one, you will want a time machine to go back and tell yourself what a bloody idiot you were.
     
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  33. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    I agree. My GTX 670 died a few weeks ago and I upgraded to a GTX 1060 now for ~330,- €. My reasoning to pick this over the much more expensive 1070 or 1080 is that currently a 1060 is all I need and my screen can't show more than 60 fps anyway. Until the demands of games force the framerate back down so far that it is time to upgrade again, I think I'm likely to get a better card for another ~300,- € at that point in time, than the 600 to 700 € price range would offer me right this moment.
     
  34. Arowx

    Arowx

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    STOP

    Don't buy a new PC until AMD release their Zen CPU, it's due out around the end of this year or early next!

    I'm not saying you should buy a Zen CPU, simply that Intel has been ruling the roost with the most powerful CPU's out there and they have been able to charge what they like. Then AMD Zen should be a lot cheaper and almost as powerful, this should shake up the market and bring down the price of Intel CPU's.

    It should also have more cores than most Intel CPU's so expect intel to start boosting core count and not just slapping on a GPU.

    SUMMARY: HOLD OFF BUYING NEW PC UNTIL Q1 2017 LAUNCH OF ZEN = CHEAPER CPUS.
     
  35. orb

    orb

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    Any current PC you build will last many years. If you want to hold out for AMD and see if they have better CPUs, go ahead. But Intel currently lead the way in per-core performance, and at a high price, number of cores. AMD is still the budget processor, and may be good enough, but do the research.

    Always plan for a build that will cost you the least to switch between AMD and Intel, if you're prepared to go to extremes to have the "best" system.

    But any i7 you buy now will serve you well for a long time. Even an i5 may be sufficient. With an SSD. Don't build without it.

    •This ad was not paid for in any way, and neither Intel nor Samsung are returning my cslls.
     
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  36. Arowx

    Arowx

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    LOL I gave the same advice a few months ago regarding GPU's as AMD were rolling out their new card and you have to admit the RX 480 at $200 has shaken up the mid to high end games GPU market.

    Apologies to anyone that bought a high priced GPU prior to this.

    So I'm giving the same advice to new system or CPU buyers now. I could be wrong and AMD could really overprice their Zen CPU but I'm betting that they cannot afford to charge what Intel does for silicon.
     
  37. Arowx

    Arowx

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    OK from this link there are price predictions for Zen CPU's take it with a big pinch of salt but AMD Zen will need to undercut Intel to make enough sales.
    • FX-Zen Quad Core: £80 incl VAT
    • FX-Zen Six Core: £120 incl VAT
    • FX-Zen Eight Core: £180 incl VAT
    • APU-Zen Quad Core: £100 incl VAT
    Something to think about when you are looking at a cheap PC or upgrade*.

    Also it tends to be a bit cheaper and better if you can build your own especially if you have some left over bits from your last rig eg. Keyboard, Mouse, Screen, HD.

    It's simple to do and once you know the insides of your PC it's easier to upgrade bits at a time and there are lots of Youtube guides.

    * Sometimes when you upgrade the CPU you need to upgrade the motherboard, especially if you change from Intel to AMD as they use different sockets and motherboard systems but all the things that plug into the motherboard 'usually' work on both.
     
  38. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    What good is that to anyone who wants to get stuff done now? You can't do work with a machine you haven't got.

    If you're buying a PC to develop on then imagine the development you could get done between now and the end of the year. If you want to play games then imagine the games you could play between now and then.

    Is it worth not doing those things to get a slightly better CPU?

    Performance isn't everything. Nor is the cost-to-performance ratio. A computer you have now is better than a hypothetical computer you might have later.
     
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  39. Arowx

    Arowx

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    It is estimated and has been demonstrated (in a limited fashion) that an 8 core Zen cpu can compete with an Intel i7 6900K (link)

    That's a £180 Zen cpu going toe to toe with a £800 i7 cpu. What will it feel like in a couple of months if you bought a cheaper i5 that cost about the same as a Zen but is a lot slower. Or the same i5 has halved in price.

    Boosting your RAM, getting an SD drive or a faster GPU could give you enough of a speed up in the short term to allow you to save up for a better faster system later.

    @Josse_Sterckx What are the specs for your current laptop Operating System, CPU/GPU/HD/RAM?
     
  40. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    I can't remember having only upgraded a CPU more than once in my life. For me it basically always was a new mainboard as well for one reason or another. I think I've even changed mainboards more often while keeping the CPU than the other way around, because of Hardware failure on the mainboard.

    That statement doesn't make much sense to me. If your specific usecase is CPU limited it's CPU limited, throwing more RAM at the problem won't do anything if you already have enough RAM and that isn't the bottleneck you are struggling with, imho.

    Also I remember when the "cell" processors were hyped up to be this crazy high-end paradigm-shifting new tech that would shake up the market, and I delayed a planned hardware upgrade some months waiting for them to come out. I basically did back then what you tell people to do now. Where did this magical processor from the land of dreams end up? In the Playstation 3... I'm not saying this will be the case with that new AMD cpu as well, but my personal experience has taught me that it just never is "the best" time to upgrade and it always is a gamble because you can't see in the future. A friend of mine bought a Titan shortly before the GTX 980 was released, which offered a much better price performance than the Titan. You can't always anticipate such things, S*** happens.

    I'm not motivated to read the whole article, but even from skimming for 10 seconds I can tell you they cherry-picked their data as hard as they can:

    As much as I love blender, doing a rendertime comparison on 2 CPUs is one of the most skewed benchmark scenarios I could think of. A) if you don't need to use CPU-only features of cycles, rendering on any recent gaming GPU will most likely be faster. B) There aren't that many real world usecases for normal consumers (or even game developers) that utilize all available cores of a CPU at close to 100% like rendering can. Not even the simulation baking in Blender can do that afaik.
     
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  41. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    It'll feel like I've been using a perfectly capable CPU to get stuff done for 6 months. ;)
    Read what the OP has at the moment. This isn't about micromanaging an optimum time for an upgrade, it's about having access to a system that will get stuff done. You're essentially advocating a system that can't be used for 6 months over a machine that can be used practically straight away.

    You're right, if you've already got a system that's capable then holding off on an upgrade to get better value stuff with a longer potential lifetime can be a good idea. If you don't already have a system, though, then the idea of postponing getting one isn't especially practical.
     
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  42. Santi2D3D

    Santi2D3D

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    Hi (sorry, I didn't see any place for the Hello I'm new thing, but anyway, I never saw much sense in that kind of posts :))
    My take on this has become more and more practical with the years. When I played FPS games like crazy, I often upgraded the card or other components. So, a chipset that could be uplgraded was key. Late years, main usage is work And is not that this doesn't require upgrades, but funnily they're less compulsive, and usually very specific.

    I can tell you that, as an artist and doing quite hardware demanding tasks, with my super old i7 860 it still allows me to work pretty fast. True that I'm not typically creating art for AAA grade games, rather for Indy/casual games and other type of art non game related. Still, I have my slow downs specially in rendering (clients often ask for high end rendering for marketing material), and had to look very recently into these matters in depth. After seeing a bunch of benchmarks, video caps of gpu and cpu rendering (Blender Cycles, mostly, as is my work horse in that area) I realized that "just" a GTX 970 is quite compatible with my arcane machine, and would do the trick of speeding up renders like crazy. But then I discovered with GPU rendering -in that renderer at least- will force to depend on installed GPU memory, and this means large scenes wont fit and give a memory error (super complex geometry, many objects, huge textures). Cards of 6Gb and above start to get really pricey....and as seems that both in 3D rendering, video editing (2D rendering, mostly), or compressing operations, have always benefited crazily from every extra core.

    After seeing benchmarks, am quite more convinced by the Intel route (for my area and needs, not saying an AMD is not good for other uses). Sadly, Skylake is not including an hexacore, like the older generation did, and would have to wait 2 years for get one in the new platform (I mean, Skylake is not gonna have it, the next one, mayube). Now, I don't update the machines, I optimize my work procedures and techniques a lot, and only upgrade at an extreme need. The time that passes tends to be the time when the whole machine is too old to even worth an update. So, I do care mostly on it being a good all rounder, a nice machine in the middle-high segment, or even just the middle one. And as I can fit any scene with CPU rendering, I just have planned to buy the i7 5820K . Six cores, it renders greatly (not as fast as GPU with the very best card, but a very good compromise), it's said to be performing great in Photoshop and similar applications, thanks to the 2 extra cores, and so I can work on rendering very complex scenes in a decent time, which is often the need. Plus, it seems Blender calculates physics and many other things mostly with CPU, yet (but they are constantly updating cycles, so...). At some point will as well get a gtx 970, or 1060 or whatever, though, for those less complex scenes where the lightning fast speed of GPU render cuts times so amazingly (and even with my poor cpu, the preview render is super useful, can't start to imagine with a much faster preview). About games, well, I only play lately PlanetSide 2, as though being a FPS has a lot of tactic elements and is quite fun, and some other FPS that is as well a bit different, but very occasionally. I come from Quake Live, so, playing all in low is nothing I worry much about (and I don't have the time anymore, anyway...).

    If I were not needing a turbo boost in rendering (I can work as I do, no probs, but hey, time is money) I'd definitely go to a quad core of the latest technology. I doubt I'd ever update it other than with ram (I've never replaced a CPU), but even in that, my 8gb of low latency have done a great job during many years. Today I believe any of us (artists) should try to afford 16 GBs.

    And about disk, I'm not convinced about SSDs. I mean, of course convinced about their blasting speed. A system with it is just another world, I know. But in my area, with today's softwares the main bottlenecks is cpu and gpu. I will always prefer to install more ram(priority as is cheap), better cpu (as in my work is the most noticeable), better gpu. An HDD at 7200 rpm does the deal for me, and I need lots of local storage. Also, not sure how is the status now, but last time I checked still the SSDs had a quite shorter life. The first ones had a really low number of reads/writes till the disk would die, reason why at least in the first times I heard a lot of people recommending to use it as system disk, and not so much for storage, to minimize the number of read/writes (and of course as the Gb is super expensive).

    I'm heading for a new board and a 5820k...Gonna be pricey, as those boards are not cheap. But from all benchmarks I've checked for my activity, it quite worth it. Is old now, from the end of 2014, but I only care about performance in my tasks...And seeing how a 2009 computer, with exactly ZERO upgrades has served to produce tons of very complex graphics works, well, I know that all I need is a solid computer that is fast at his time. It should last a lot. I don't wait for technologies to come, as that's always going to be evolving, and usually when I need faster times, I need them at the moment. I'm definitely against of buying the very best , the higher gamma. With rare exceptions, they're insanely overpriced.

    My 2c. (don't know how much of it can be applied to developing games, though, lol. )
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2016
  43. Wolfgabe

    Wolfgabe

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    reminds me a lot of this
     
  44. Wolfgabe

    Wolfgabe

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    Also I would recommend getting aboth and HDD and SSD if possible. An SSD for your boot drive and an HDD for general storage
     
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  45. orb

    orb

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    There's always a next. Sometimes not knowing about it might be better for you. What's good NOW for the budget specified is far more important, especially when the current system is about to explode/implode/catch fire/feel a bit icky while compiling.

    If the CPU manufacturer just replaced their CPU sockets, it's a safe time to upgrade if building a desktop. If getting a laptop, anything i5/i7 sold now is also safe. CPUs aren't getting much faster soon enough.

    My only rule now for gaming systems:"Does the latest Dawn of War/Company of Heroes iteration run at 60fps or so? If no, upgrade GPU."

    My i5 laptop is a little faster than that old thing at most tasks, so that should tell you how little recent CPU advances actually matter for recent systems :)

    You're using it wrong (or not at all) ;)

    Installing/uninstalling goes from minutes to seconds (I test a ton of software, so this takes hours out of my day with a HDD). This is a latency-related task, not raw throughput, because of the thousands of little files to read and write. Compilation is faster, as most of the time spent while compiling large projects (particularly C++) is the CPU waiting for the drive.

    HDDs manage around 75-100 I/O operations per second. Samsung's SATA SSDs manage 90000-100000. PCIe-based ones go even higher, in addition to the ridiculous bandwidth (now past 2GB/s).

    That's the danger of clinging to old, outdated information - we're a few generations of SSDs past that now, with quite acceptable durability. I think there have been more recent tests, with even better results. Only a year before people were worried it was more at the other end of the scale, which I guess is what prompted the testing.

    (All the professional companies still recommend HDDs for shelf-storage of backups if you can't afford fancy backup tape. Earlier SSDs didn't keep their information without monthly power-ups.)
     
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  46. Santi2D3D

    Santi2D3D

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    I am indeed not using them. But I will take a sec here to quote myself... :
    I know they are faster. I do... I would have never put it in doubt since I read the specs the day the technology was first announced. Me not being convinced is for a mix of reasons, usually. (like when I don't purchase a better hardware if it has less software/drivers support. Even while it eventually might get better support.)

    I have a collection of friends that, like me, work professionally with the pc at home, or just inside companies... Several of these reported me (with some rude language) that their SSD drive had died, and the periods go around two years (I think it's 3 cases, by now). Even if it only were few cases, my data is waaay too important to me and my clients... And still am finding that relevant brands are more expensive than the equivalent in HDD, specially looking at the price per Gb. I have even two external HDDs permanently full, I still seem to be able to go on by deleting non useful stuff for a while till I go for larger storage. I work a lot with print files. These are HUGE... :D . Kind of layered CMYK files, some with 100+ layers, at print resolution, and big dimensions. Files of 1gb, 2gbs, more..Video editing... even more(although occasional activity)... besides the need and convenience of large cheap storage, at a reasonable speed, as is stuff I constantly access, the data must be really safe. (without getting into paranoia, that is :) )

    But as you see in my quote, no doubt about its speed. Anyway, I don't see too many important waits in my everyday use... I don't compile, I render (and that's a 10% of my work, as much), and with my tools, that's CPU/GPU... I rarely see any wait other than in some occasions in very large print files, but even with tons of layers, I rarely wait even seconds with a ctrl +s. Is in 2D filters where I could see more waits (and I believe the CPU might have much more to do with this) , but I don't use filters, or is very rare as I don't like the look and feel of the premade filter stuff (all time speaking about 2D/3D graphics creation)... I do it other ways, and use only non heavy filters (is not a limitation). My video editing is more a rare activity, otherwise there the disk would be much more critical. (but then again, capacity would be much more important, as a lot of video editors can make a great use of the GPU and CPU to cut render times a lot. And video file sizes, specially when doing lossless editing is...crazy. )

    I don't discard using SSDs some day. Once I can be fully sure they've become just as fail-safe as an HDD(which aren't indeed, they fail a lot, too, but still quite less, according to even recent reports from friends..I trust those quite, maybe I shouldn't, but... )

    Anyway, I know pretty well this poor old machine as to detect where bottlenecks are, and they're (in my workflow) GPU and CPU. ...I'm doing everything with a GTX 275, hehehehe. Blender can't even use it for GPU rendering/preview...

    PD: LOL! I realize we seem to be in the exact opposite extremes in terms of type of activity... that might be the thing... You are all day installing and testing stuff, and compiling involving lots of small files constantly processed... My work very rarely needs any new installation, which I avoid as well to keep the system fast and clean... And I work always with very large files, that are mostly opened at start and loaded into RAM...I believe most of my work/actions, with the file opened, happens in RAM + CPU,(very rarely hear/notice the HD running) mostly. If I were doing your type of activity surely I'd be having already not one, but several SSDs....
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2016
  47. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    If your data is that important to you then you will have some form of redundancy. With redundancy you won't have to worry about your solid state failing because you'll simply pull a copy from one of your backup solutions if your local drive fails.

    If you're suggesting that you cannot use an SSD because your data is important then that suggests to me that you're relying on a single location with no redundancy. That's very foolish.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2016
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  48. Santi2D3D

    Santi2D3D

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    Yep, I know... That's what I meant not getting too paranoid. Anyway, I work by uploading to an ftp or the cloud (where the other person grabs the files), having exact copies as well there. Once project is ended, I save a copy on each of the two external drives, keep one in my work disk, too(for some time!). Also, usually my work is per piece. Each file (I mean, illustration, or icons pack, etc) is delivered and paid as I go (instead of charging per hour, or all the beginning or the end ), Is piece done/piece paid. Never a contract/arrangement forces me to keep data once the whole project has ended, is mostly for portfolio from this point. I keep it anyway for everyone's convenience, and extra safety. Total security would never exist, anyway...I try to deal with it in a reasonable way. But trusting it to a SSD did seem to me less safe.
     
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  49. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    With a proper solution in place you wouldn't be trusting it to the SSD. You'd be trusting it to your backup solution(s).

    Yet were you aware that those cloud-based storage solutions are almost always using SSDs now? Naturally they have their own backup solutions in place for them failing but the actual drives in a cloud are almost never magnetic storage.
     
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  50. Santi2D3D

    Santi2D3D

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    Probably. The real case here is that I have never (and have done tons of projects, in a lot of years) had a case of loosing a single file (indeed, usually am the safe spot, providing copies of client files (ie, documents they created, etc) when they have hardware failure issues or the like). The way I see it, a lot has to do with each one's workflow, how things are done, and maintained. Keeping about three copies has proved to be quite safe in my experience. Consider also these are quite big files, and are of fast consume, often in 3 days are done, delivered and sold, and end of the story. I never delete a file, but we're speaking of data availability while it needs to exist. I have also certain big worry of any hardware failing in the middle of a project but for the actual time lost at that moment, and the money cost of the piece, rather than for loosing a file. This makes me prefer an HDD (at least with the info I had till now (not saying am convinced). Neither have a real need of a faster HD, so I have not gone into collecting data/stats/enough reviews about new SSDs generations.

    With hardware failure fears I also count on the wacom getting broken (and it's 400 -500$) , professional monitor wrecked (800-1200 $), the tower, etc ...which can also hit hard my economy. Data is relatively safe with the so mentioned 3 copies (I recon at some moments is only 2, but still, very safe, for how I deal with it), specially with the cloud or ftp (during the project) one. Ideally I should have backing hardware of all that. But not swimming in money, lately ;) (wish I would...)