The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

My over all PC experience has changed since the SSD install. EVERYTHING just seems smoother. Flash based stuff is still a pain in my backside though...

 

Estuansis,

What attracted me to the Intel was this:

"The new Intel SSD 520 Series offers the best security features of any Intel SSD to date and comes preconfigured with Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel AES-NI) 256-bit encryption capabilities. In the event of theft or loss of your computer, you have the peace of mind that your personal data is secured by an advanced encryption technology. Additionally, the Intel SSD 520 Series contains “End-to-End Data Protection” ensuring integrity of stored data from the computer to the SSD and back."

The 5 year warranty for an OEM, even though they level the playing field a little for the OEMs, is still outstanding. 240GB in a $235 package of that caliber, is an outstanding buy!

Oman7,

Smoothness has been a given for me for so long now I don't even think about it anymore. I just accept that the AMD is an incredibly smooth running machine, almost bordering on "Slick"! The SSD enhanced that even further!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Would easily jump on that deal but my holdback is money for the time being. I already have plans for a new PSU and eventually a 1090T. A lot of it will have to wait until I start bringing home real paychecks again at the end of November.

Also have an ongoing project for my side panel with an inward blowing fan. Plexi panel has been removed and the new side panel is in the fab process right now. Really the only reason it's not done is that I haven't bothered to go get the machine screws and bolts to attach it yet. Until then it sits unpainted

In the mean time I have been gifted one of these with some stripper clips in exchange for helping a family friend move.

http://amendment2guns.com/images/DSC05562.JPG

Very simple gun firing the same rounds as an AK but somewhat more refined and using different internals. Mine is a Chinese Type 56 identical to that pic and is actually very good quality. Got it in un-circulated condition as it was bought in a crate with 11 other rifles. Had to clean the cosmoline off it before I could even use it. Factory new rifles FTW

Very nice rifle and accurate enough to justify a mid power scope.

 

Too expensive and I don't need the added encryption. I can get a good SSD in that size cheaper so I would go cheaper.

 

Having seen a fair few people suffer at the hands of sudden SSD failure, I primarily pick Intel for the reliability. That said, I bought a 60GB Corsair Force3 for the machine I'm taking to the office on the back of how cheap it was, so time will tell how that pans out.

 

I have several non-Intel SSD's now and have had no issues with any of them. If you treat them with the respect they need regardless of Intel or not you shouldn't have a problem with exception to the normal failure rates that all devices suffer from. I do think Intel makes a higher quality SSD product but not enough to pay a lot more for.

People that have problems are numb nuts that run burn-in tests on them and do other things they are not suppose to do with SSD's, from what I've read in negative comments.

 

I know of at least three people who used SSDs properly (and I trust their judgement enough to believe them) have them abruptly fail, so I don't think it's that uncommon, and the failure rates bear that through.

 

Funny because mine have been working well for a loooong time and I know others in the same boat. I'm not seeing it on my end and like I said most everyone that I've read that had problems where attributable to their own screw ups. Your always going to have bad product here or there and I know plenty of people that have got bad HDD's or they went out within a year but again that is part of the normal failure rates typically.

It also helps to optimize your SSD's periodically which I do to keep from having issues. So again with care you should be fine.

 

Hope my Vertex 4 lasts several years :S My luck with hard drives is upwards of 90% This however is my first SSD

 

93% success rate here so far across all disks, not including environment failures (i.e. where the drive was destroyed rather than failing of its own accord).

 

Steve you got me all excited, and I went to Steam to see if they downloaded episode 5 yet - but it still isn't out. That is the only one left which wraps up the season - 5 episodes for the $24.99.

The problems it caused your friend were probably nightmares causing him to fall out of bed - it is VERY riveting. I couldn't get my brother interested even though he loves the TV show because he said he didn't want anything too intense - he was wanting to relax more, lol. So I told him that Kevin had a catalog of relaxing games starting with Angry Birds.

The SSDs sound good I must say, although my hard drives are pretty fast, and I don't do the encoding you guys do - I load a game and then I play it. We used to think the SSDs would dramatically reduce level load time until the tests showed it didn't, and then we realized that most of that level load time was the calculating necessary to decompress the textures, rather than the actual data transfer time. Yes W7 would boot up in 5 seconds not 20, but what's an extra 15 seconds, lol.

This is scary:

That tells me that I would need to clone an SSD to a small hard drive from time to time to keep from being screwed, just to save that 15 seconds of W7 boot time. Again - if I were encoding video like you guys, etc., I'd be singing a different tune.

Man I love Demolition in CS:GO - thanks for the tip Sam. Another 4 hours today. Some very intense matches!! At times I am a veritable Annie Oakley, other times I swear I must have hit that guy 5 times with the shotgun - and why is he still standing??!! There's some strange lagging that goes on - maybe people are hosting games on weak equipment - and it is independent of a player's ping. Occasionally you start shooting him, and the next instant he is 10 feet away like superman. Anyway, mostly it's smooth, so like one player told another yesterday "Stop complaining." LOL

Jeff, that rifle looks nice.



What kind of a clip does it take? I assume it's semi-auto - are you going to turn it into another white tail gun?

Rich

 

Near 100% success rate with hard disks so far(knock on wood). Only had one die out of 20+ to have passed through my possession.

It is called an SKS and was developed alongside the AK-47 as a cheaper alternative for conscript forces. It looks sort of like an AK and uses the same mid-power ammo but is a completely different gun internally. Mine is a Chinese rifle stamped as Type 56 in Chinese characters. Mine in particular was bought in a factory sealed crate then given directly to me. ie I am the only one to have touched it since it left the manufacturing plant in the mid 70s. This fact made me excited, but it also meant hours of cleaning off packing oil(cosmoline) which tends to dry up a bit over time.

The Chinese rifles are also the most reliable and well built of the models commonly available but have soft wood for the stocks so are very easy to mar up. Another fact I like is that it is internally unmolested and uses 100% Chinese parts. It was never intended to fire full-auto and thus needed no modifying at the time it was imported(pre-1986). It also uses very thick machined steel vs the cheap stamped steel of other common models.

It takes 10 round stripper clips, a strip of metal with a rail that holds the shells. You load the gun by hooking the clip into a feed ramp on top and pushing the rounds into the magazine, sliding them off the clip. The clips themselves are cheap stamped steel and meant to be left on the ground where they were dropped, but I keep mine for reusing

It loads this way because the magazine is not removable. In this way it's closer to some bolt actions. But no mistake this is a combat rifle and not meant for sporting. The rifle is semi-automatic. It has no sight rails, so it needs modification to mount optics, and it has a rather nasty spike bayonet like the one in the pic.

It uses the right bullets and has enough accuracy to be a decent short-mid range deer gun, but lack other features that would make it more practical for that use. For the foreseeable future, it will remain a "fun gun" for the range and my main self defense rifle for the commie/zombie apocalypse.

It is built like a tank, more reliable than an AK, and because of its loading method, magazine size, and handling capabilities, is great for conserving ammo. I had more fun with 90 rounds on my SKS than with 200+ on the AK. I believe I have posted photos around here with the AK and drum magazine. Great combination, but tends to get hot and easy handling means wasted shots just having fun instead of aiming.

Its only weakness is limited range due to the mid power AK rounds but is a wonderful rifle of historical significance and a blast to use. An SKS has fought in nearly every conflict since they were first built in the early 50s.

On my Xmas list is a tin of 1400 rounds from Fleet Farm for $200 so I may have more fun with it

/Monthly thread hijack over

 

Encoding doesn't make use of my C:\, lest it uses for temp cache, and I'm unaware :S I have 6 other hard drives connected at any given time. There's really no need for my OS drive to aid with encoding. At worst, only 3 drives need be used for an encode process.

 

Sam,

I find 93% to be very accurate, and that's spread over 22 years, and thousands of drives replaced. I suspect that for laptops, the numbers would be about the same.

The hot thing right now is replacing laptop HDDs with an SSD. Some laptops will even let you install a second drive, which makes things a bit easier. I would still strongly recommend removing the second drive until the SSD is fully set up, formatted, and the OS and AV are installed!

BTW, thank you for all the info you have given us on the Intel SSD's. It helped make my choice much easier. Do I think the Intel 330 is a better drive, and worth the extra $23? Yes I do! While a certain "cheap-arse" we know is optomizing his SSD's, it's all done automatically on my Intel and Patriot SSDs! I'll be doing a bit more looking between now and Thanksgiving, but you can bet that there will be a lot of first time SSD purchasers this holiday season, and at the best prices of the year to boot!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Most of my purchases will be right after Christmas to catch the big sales

 

Estuansis,

I broke down and ordered a second GigaByte GTX-550ti video card this morning, the same exact model as I already have in mine, so I don't have to compromise one card's performance over the other, as they are identical.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125409&name=Desktop-Graphics-Cards

It cost me a few dollars more than the last time, but I'd already passed on one twice.

The Corsair R-400 case, I have mixed feelings about! It's no where near a $100 case in overall quality! I'm very disappointed in the poor quality of the support hardware, like it's tool-less drive mounts are garbage, made of plastic, far too lightweight and brittle, to last very long! Ah well, once I get the video card, I'll find out how well it cools, because the idea of a "0" pressure case, is fascinating to me. I have the H-60's radiator and this Scythe fan mounted in the front top fan position, pulling air through the radiator. I can easily add the original fan as a push fan, with it's high static airflow.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185170&name=Case-Fans.

I'm still having fun! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Out of interest, what would you consider to be of the quality standard befitting a $100 case? What sort of criteria would you have?

 

My HAF 932 cost roughly 140USD. I'd say it was worth every penny. I wouldn't expect quite as much from a $100 dollar case. But cheap plastic parts do make me cringe. If things feel brittle, I'd likely be complaining too. I'd say a comparable mid tower case, better be nearly perfect for $100.

And Russ, that's "Corsair 400R"

Reviews certainly look good.

 

There's plenty of cheap plastic in the HAF932 still, especially the PCI slot latches. That particular design is poor on all coolermaster cases IMO, although the HAFs aren't quite as brittle as some of the Centurions were (e.g. the 532).

The plastic mounts for the HDDs are also very cheap, but they do work reasonably well, so I won't dock marks for that.
The fact that the side panels bend pretty easily due to the relatively low material quality, and the unforgivable failure rate of the front USB ports is why I consider the HAF 932 a relatively 'cheaply made' case. It's a fabulous case, and I'm still immensely satisfied with it (far moreso than its successor, the HAF X), but a model of precision engineering sadly, it ain't.

 

Well.... I didn't mean that I'm IN Love with it LOL! I do see its faults. But much like yourself, I'm quite pleased with it. The front ports aren't something I use very often, since once upon a time, it was getting stuck in reset. I leave the mouse dongle there. That's it!