Need second opinion

[rpgdemon]

Watch out though, your SSD might die.

I had a friend who had his laptop running an SSD for his OS, and a normal disk drive for the rest of it, and he had to send it in multiple times, over the course of a year, in order to get the SSD replaced, since it kept borking on him. He may have been unlucky, but it makes me hesitant to use one.

[Eltargrim]

I've been running two SSDs in my eeePC 900 for over two years now, and they're fine. Intel makes high-quality SSDs.

[Bob The Mercenary]

I have $200, what graphics card should I grab?

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Watch out though, your SSD might die.

It's been awhile since I've looked into computer stuff, and I'm too lazy to check names and shit, but basically there are two kinds of SSD. One uses a type of memory that can't be over written more than like 1000 (100? I dunno, too lazy to check) times or some such. The other uses one that doesn't have that issue and is much more expensive.

Normally it wouldn't be a problem with the over writing unless you fill your hard drive completely up and have it for like ten years, but if he was using a large amount of virtual memory or something he could have run into problems sooner than normal with a cheap SSD. Or if he just got exceedingly unlucky/there was some kind of file management issue/whatever.

The more expensive SSDs, however, are just as (if not more) reliable as a more traditional hard drive.

[Bob The Mercenary]

Alright, I'm going with this.

[Krylo]

Good choice. I haven't researched in awhile, like I've said, but the GTX series is pretty great. My computer's a few years old now, and I'm running the GTX 295 and have had no problems running everything and anything I want on any settings I want.

Some Nvidia manufacturers can skimp a bit on the thermal paste but EVGA is pretty good as far as manufacturing goes so you shouldn't have to worry (though I've had to pull mine out and clean out dust and what not a few times to drop the heat enough to make it run, and it still runs hotter than it should... I really should take it apart completely and replace the paste but a screw is stripped and oh look at all that shit you don't care about, anyway I'm reasonably sure it wasn't an EVGA make). It's a relatively simple fix if it does become a problem, anyway.

[Bob The Mercenary]

I'm glad you're finding no problems with it, because I was hearing "meh" reviews about my 550ti which is why I returned it today to find a better model. Though with that recommendation I could just as easily go with a 550ti superclocked, or 550ti 2GB. Either one would be cheaper than the stock model I bought with my employee discount.

Two questions remain. Go with the 550ti OC/550ti 2GB/or 560ti OC? And should I return my x4 975 for a six core? I'm not studied at all on how to tell what clock speed/core ratio is faster than another clock speed/core.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Krylo

It's been awhile since I've looked into computer stuff, and I'm too lazy to check names and shit, but basically there are two kinds of SSD. One uses a type of memory that can't be over written more than like 1000 (100? I dunno, too lazy to check) times or some such. The other uses one that doesn't have that issue and is much more expensive.

Normally it wouldn't be a problem with the over writing unless you fill your hard drive completely up and have it for like ten years, but if he was using a large amount of virtual memory or something he could have run into problems sooner than normal with a cheap SSD. Or if he just got exceedingly unlucky/there was some kind of file management issue/whatever.

The more expensive SSDs, however, are just as (if not more) reliable as a more traditional hard drive.

I have two of the "unreliable" models, and they did die after two years. But, they come with a five year warranty I think, so bit of an inconvenience, but they sent me an upgraded model too. Dying all the time out of the box speaks to something else, I think.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Bob the Mercenary

Two questions remain. Go with the 550ti OC/550ti 2GB/or 560ti OC? And should I return my x4 975 for a six core? I'm not studied at all on how to tell what clock speed/core ratio is faster than another clock speed/core.

Twitch reaction is: "If any of those options are within your budget than go bigger, as bigger is better." More reasonable reaction is: "Take a little time to read up on your alternatives to see if their performance increase, if there is one, is worth the increase in price to you and the time to re-configure your machine. It may not be at all! Also consider possible upgrades down the line -- you can always put in a newer PCI-express video card later, and as long as AMD continues to use the socket your motherboard has for at least some of their processors you could even swap processors later."

Honestly, I would just read reviews on the specific models. It's best if you find ones that put the hardware in the same or as-same configurations as possible so that the thing being reviewed -- e.g. if its for a video card that's the thing that varies but the other parts are basically consistent -- is the focus. For video cards, it's easier as you can just look through the pretty graphs at FPS numbers, temperatures, and resolutions/graphics settings.

Motherboards/processors may be more varied. You definitely get similar graphs/charts in reviews of processors with things like having it run games, encode video, transfer data, compress files, hit up benchmarks, etc. and compare it to similar setups with other CPUs. I find the longer ones also will describe in the beginning a bit about the architecture of the chip; not always necessary but a nice addition to read. There's no way -- that I know of -- to just look at the cores and clock speed and know if it will be better or not without seeing the data like this. I mean, sure, we all know that an i3 isn't as good as an i7, but that's on purpose thanks to Intel's marketing and what we've all come to know about their processors in general. I know that a Sandy Bridge i5 is faster than a six-core AMD* thanks to reviews and benchmarks (* or, at least, the ones available at the time of the former's release).

In either case, reviews usually drop in a conclusion of some kind to discuss their opinions beyond the numbers. These are worth reading, in my opinion, as sometimes there are details that make them like a card more or less that might not come through in the benchmarking. And I also like to stroll through Newegg reviews to see if there are any glaring concerns about a product, but with so many people using the site these days it doesn't feel as though the reviews there are as reliable or useful as they used to be. Maybe that's just my perception of them. In any case even if something reads well in a review it may be a bad sign if a lot of the verified owners leaving comments on Newegg are complaining.



Shoot, I forget the site. There's a site -- may be 3DMark's? -- that folks submit their specs to when they run benchmarks. What's neat about it is you can see the OC speeds folks are getting with their hardware if you're curious about what you may be able to pull with yours.

[Azisien]

Tom's Hardware is great for lots of articles on hardware. I use it a lot for graphics cards especially, because they do specialized benchmarking articles for most/all models, and they also do monthly hierarchy charts.