(Part 3) Reddit mentions: The best internal solid state drives

Answering two posts in one (novel...sorry this grew so long but at least you know I really took time to think and share).

About your question re: using Linux and Plex Media Player. No, I don’t actually do it that way. I use the NUC/Linux Mint OS to run my Plex Media Server (not Plex Media Player - I’m sure you know they are two different programs). With Plex being “serving” my content so that it’s available anytime/anywhere, I then use a streaming media box to run the Plex app (or client) which then accesses those files. This is a MUCH easier UI/layout because it was designed from the ground up to be used with a TV and remote (where a computer interface isn’t). With the dropping price of such media boxes (even 4K/HDR capable w/ the latest Dolby decoding) we find it highly preferable and more fluid. The other great thing is that multiple Plex clients (streaming media boxes/smartphones/tablets, etc) can access that content at one time.

So, answering the second post about setting up the system for your parents and how you were thinking of using the NUC:
Hmm. I didn’t know that’s what you were looking for. I thought that the NUC was going to be running your Plex Server. What is currently running your Plex Server? If you‘re wanting a plug-n-play type setup for your parents, I’m not sure that how you described using the NUC is going to be it (whether it’s Windows, Linux, or whatever).

If you really want your Plex server on the same device as your Plex player, maybe looking into something like a Mac Mini (one of the older versions would work fine from eBay, doesn’t have to be the newest). I’ve not run Plex server/Plex Media Player on a Mac myself but I’ve heard it might work well. It’s an alternative to Windows that you could check out. This isn’t actually what I’d do if I were setting it up for my family (or non-techie friends) but there certainly isn’t anything wrong with it. Everyone has different needs.

Given what you’ve said, if it were me, I’d try a few different things before going that direction. (These aren’t in any particular order...).

1. You could try a different type of streaming media box. For parents (well or anyone, really) I’d highly recommend a Roku box. It’s dead easy which belies all the advanced tech underneath which supports all the latest 4K/HDR/7.1 surround sound (as long as you get one of the higher end boxes/sticks) and they are reasonably priced. With the constantly improving Roku channel w/free (ad supported) TV/news/movies, it’s great. It also has YouTube which a lot of people enjoy having the full TV interface (we use it daily). You could buy from someplace with a decent return policy and if it doesn’t improve things, you could move on to other options whether you keep it and try other things or return it). I’d look at either the Streaming Stick+ or the Ultra. Both have sales from time to time.
   Streaming Stick+: https://www.roku.com/products/streaming-stick-plus
   Ultra: https://www.roku.com/products/roku-ultra
   
   
2. Upgrade your Plex Server box. I don’t know what you have that’s running your Plex server but this is another option. If you currently have a computer running it, you might be able to use a couple of things from that with a NUC kit. Here’s what I mean. We had a probably 8 year old laptop running our Plex server till last year. We paid $498 for a top notch NUC w/ the latest Core i7 (as of Sept last year - 8i7BEH kit) including Iris graphics. I took the SSD out of the laptop and put it in the NUC when it arrived. I also had to buy an 8gb memory stick (they are half now what they were then, so you’re looking at $37 give or take). Took maybe 10-15 minutes and I was able to reuse the 2.5 ‘ SSD. Our NUC has been running all evening for the last 6+ hours playing HD video (either HEVC/x265 10bit or H.264) and I was wondering with your statement about heat, how ours was doing. I went over and felt it and it was cool - not just not warm, but actually cool to the touch. I would suggest, if you’re happy w/ the i5 (which should be fine, especially since the newer chips all support HEVC decoding natively), consider the 8i7BEH barebones kit from SimplyNUC. I’m not affiliated w/ them in any way but I heard great things about them before I purchased last year and they were great. I highly recommend and I’ve actually bought from them. Currently, they have that kit for $418. If you have any DDR4 memory in your current machine, you could reuse it (but if it’s from 2013, it’s likely DDR3) and if you have an SSD in it (either standard 2.5” or an M.2 form factor) you could move it over. If not, you could pickup a Crucial 500gb M.2 SSD for $64 (you can save $15 if you want to go w/ 250gb but I think the 500gb is a worth the $15 extra) and an 8GB stick of Patriot Viper Steel Memory (some of the highest rated that I’ve found) or the Patriot Viper Performance. The NUC comes w/ everything else built in (WiFI AC, Bluetooth 5, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.0a w/4K/60hz, 5 USB 3.1 ports (4 USB-A, one USB-C Thunderbolt 3), 7.1 surround sound, consumer IR receiver, VESA mounting kit, power cord, and more. Literally, the only two things you need to get this going are the SSD and memory. I only mention this because I’d never purchased a barebones system before and wasn’t sure if the power cord and all were included - and the are. Even the VESA mount is included (for wall/TV mounting). A USB flash drive (8gb or so) will help to be able to install the OS whether Win or Linux. Definitely get the tall/high kit (this model number) as it will support standard 2.5” SSD or HDD. This means you could have the M.2 SSD above and later on, add another couple of terabytes of storage via a 2.5” HDD, which is a lot of versatility in tiny footprint. I have the 2.5” running my OS but may get an M.2 at some point (if I didn’t already have the SSD from the laptop, I would for sure have done the M.2, esp w/the price decreases of late). This would give you a brand new Intel NUC box for around $522 (give or take) with a great warranty (most AmEx, Citi/Costco, and other similar cards will add 2 more years to the Intel 3 year for a total of 5 years, w/o any extra charge). This sets you up with a lot of possibilities.
   
   NUC Kit: https://simplynuc.com/8i5beh-shop/
   NUC 8i5BEH Detailed Product Brochure: https://simplynuc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/SimplyNUCProductBrief-NUC8i5BEH.pdf
   SSD: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-250GB-2280SS-Internal/dp/B077SQ8J1V/
   Memory: https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-2400MHz-SODIMM-Memory-Module/dp/B07QLPPHG7/
   https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Performance-PC4-19200-2400MHZ-PV48G240C5S/dp/B01KBKHK56/
   
   
3. You could use Linux Mint/Plex Server to give a rock solid server. You could try the Apple TV and see if this solves the issue.
   
   
4. You could try the Roku with the NUC and still be a lot cheaper than many of the Newegg options you mentioned looking at (for $800+).
   
   
5. If none of these solve the issues, you could install Windows and have them use it w/Plex Media Player. The specs say that it supports IR remotes.
   
   I honestly think that some mix of the NUC w/a streaming box will be the easiest for your parents. I’ve done a LOT of tech support and setups for my in-laws all the way into their 80s and lots of other non-techie people. Believe me, you want simple (to avoid those phone call right as you’ve started your own movie because they can’t get something figured out!). Nothing will be as simple as a streaming media box w/ a rock solid Plex server. If you don’t like Roku for some reason, you could consider Amazon’s FireTV, or Nvidia Shield. Nvidia Shield is the best of the Android TV boxes and many love it for a Plex client. I think the UI is little more complex and less friendly than Roku and for your needs, I don’t see much benefit given than Roku supports HDR/4K UHD/7.1 surround, etc. FireTV is generally a good value because they continue to push their Amazon content /ads first. If you have Prime, it can be a good option but Roku is much more content agnostic and they have every streaming app there is (Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, PBS, CBSNews, ABCNews, Bloomberg, AcornTV, BritBox, the free Roku channel, and literally hundreds/thousands more). I think they offer more free TV than any (because CBS and ABC news channels are totally free news streaming all the time, same with many others from cooking, tech, news, YouTube, etc). If they have cable too (we don’t any more) you can also use the cable login channels. We have all the boxes I mentioned above (except for the Apple TV, which I’d still like to try sometime) and Roku is our favorite.
   
   I know this is a lot but I hope it helps. Depending on how soon you want to purchase, there may be a similar 9th Gen barebones kit released relatively soon. I don’t know what pricing that might have but if it’s worth it to you, you could do a little research. I think the 8th gen listed above came out between mid-Sept and Nov last year. But it’s a good deal, even if you just want to go with it. I hope in all this you can figure out something that will work. I’ve you have more questions about any of this, let me know and I’ll try to help. :)

Happy to help!

​

So specs aren't as important as form and function in this case, but I figured I'd get them out of the way first just in case you are curious:

• CPU: Intel i5-7500
  
• MOBO: MSI H270I GAMING PRO AC
  
• SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
  
• GPU: EVGA GTX 970
  
• CASE: CoolerMaster Elite 130
  
  Really the only elements that matter here as far as building a couch setup are motherboard and case, as they pertain to the form factor. I chose Mini-ITX to keep the size down, which helps the PC fit nicely under my TV alongside my consoles. The Elite 130 is big for an ITX case, but still got the job done for what I need. Specifically, I chose it for its ATX PSU and full size GPU support, in addition to its affordable price. For reference, ATX PSUs are generally the standard size power supplies for a PC. Smaller PSUs tend to command a significant premium compared to ATX PSUs of the same quality. Speaking premiums, you can end up paying a hefty premium for smaller and better designed ITX cases. just look at /r/sffpc if you want an example of how beautiful (and expensive) these things can get. There's some really awesome stuff in there, but honestly what you need will depend on your use case. If you're going to be doing any gaming, then a case that supports a GPU is a must, and you'll pay for cramming more power into a smaller space. However, since your current couch build is a Vista laptop, this may not be an issue for you at all!
  
  In any case, deciding where you're going to put the PC is important. If size is a concern, there are still great options out there if you don't need too much performance. There are other Mini ITX builds that could accomplish this quite nicely, but if you don't need any PCIe slots at all, ASRock makes a beautiful Mini-STX machine called the DeskMini that is only 6"x6"x3"! I'm not 100% sure that the remote start I first mentioned would fit into this case, but I have a non-ASRock MiniSTX machine at home, so I can take a look and speculate if you'd like. And even if not, you could get that same function through Wake-On-LAN if you have an ethernet connection. Anyway, you can get a barebones model for $170 that supports the latest 8th and 9th gen Intel CPUs, but you'll need to add the CPU and SSD on your own. There are fully built models available, including AMD Ryzen models starting at $500, but again, depending on your needs, that may be more money than you need to spend. For instance, adding an Intel i3-8100 CPU for $135 and a Crucial SATA M.2 SSD for $63 brings you up to $368, and leaves plenty of upgradability down the line. Additionally, you could scale that price down further by lowering the SSD capacity, getting a Pentium CPU, buying used, etc. Let me know what you currently (and want to) do with your couch computer, and I'll be happy to help with a performance recommendation!
  
  Moving on to peripherals, a wireless mouse/keyboard combo would certainly work well! There are plenty of bluetooth and USB dongle-based options on the market for you to consider. I personally use a Roccat Sova lapboard, which is wired, but I decided that was more important for me as it comes with USB ports for my headset and mouse. Plenty of options are available that are both cheaper and better suited for a wireless mouse and keyboard anyway, so don't feel like you need to go this route! Another product to consider is couch table. I used this model for my mouse before I learned about that Roccat lapboard, but I still love that table for couch use in general!
  
  As for the display, I use my TV. It's a 4K TCL 55p607, which got great reviews for its price when I bought it. Full disclosure, TVs generally aren't as good as PC monitors when it comes to use with a PC. Refresh rates and input lag tend to be the biggest differentiating factors, but this video will do a far better job of explaining it than I can. Overall though, TVs as displays only get more viable every year! Just don't expect the budget set from Walmart to be as easy on the eyes as a high quality model. If you're going to be staring at it for hours at a time, it will likely be worth the investment to research and buy a better model! One other thing you will likely have to play with regardless of TV quality is visual scaling. Since default settings assume you are sitting a foot or two from the monitor, text and graphics will be very small at first. Customization options are getting better though; Windows has settings for text scaling now, and even has an automated tool to fix programs that aren't cooperating in this regard, but you will still likely have to tinker with settings in some programs to get things comfortably readable from the couch.
  
  Something else to consider is audio, HDMI inputs, and overall technology compatibility. I have a surround sound setup via a Yamaha receiver. All my consoles (and my PC) plug into it, and it feeds HDMI to the TV. However, I ran into a snag on this front. My receiver is a few years old, and thus cannot support 4K at a refresh rate above 30Hz. Here's another TechQuickie video on refresh rates, and yet another about TVs faking better refresh rates (which should absolutely be disabled if you got this route). So since the receiver sits between the TV and the PC, that means that me getting both surround sound and 4K for my PC got very complicated. In the end, I decided to forego the 4K resolution and instead opt for the simplicity of sticking with 1080p at 60 Hz for my gaming PC. It ended up making sense to me since my hardware specs were better suited for 1080p gaming anyway, but again, higher resolution tends to be easier on the eyes when it comes to everyday PC use, so your mileage may vary.
  
  ​
  
  Sorry this got long winded, but I hope this answers a lot of your questions. Feel free to reach out with any additional questions, I'd be happy to help in any way I can!

Ok, your friend is in some ways wrong, and others right. The parametric filter at PCpartpicker is bad, but some of his opinions are either elitism and brand loyalty, or he is suggesting name brands parts because they are safer and because researching other brands is time consuming.

Here are some different builds that much better fits your use case.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor | $165.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Asus - ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard | $124.01 @ B&H
Memory | Team - Dark Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $189.99 @ Newegg
Storage | ADATA - Ultimate SU800 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $89.89 @ OutletPC
Storage | Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $43.90 @ OutletPC
Video Card | Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Dual Series Video Card | Purchased For $250.00
Case | Fractal Design - Focus G (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case | $54.99 @ Walmart
Power Supply | SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | $74.99 @ Newegg
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $993.76
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-10 16:04 EDT-0400 |

The nromal Ryzen 2600 is a great CPU. The 2600 is basically the best price performance CPU on the market right now. It is 60 cheaper then the 2600X. The big difference here is that 2600x essential comes factory overclocked. I don't know if your friend recommended this, but the jump between the 2 to go from 3.4 ghz to 3.6 ghz is not worth the 60 additional dollars. First of all, overclocking has become very simple. The stock fan of the 2600 is good enough for a light overclock to match the speeds of the 2600x. If you absolutely don't want to overclock at all, then .2 ghz difference for $60 more is just not worth it.

Motherboard. I changed the mobo to the high end b-450. The parametric filter gave you a perfectly acceptable MOBO, in micro atx with room for 64 gb ram, from a name brand company. I wonder if your friend mostly builds Intel, because intel has way more shit tier fly by night cheap garbo MOBOs made by sketchy Chinese companies that the parametric filter would probably dump on unsuspecting users. The reason I don't go with the parametric filter MOBO isn't because it's going to break, but because it's a micro ATX mobo, and those are harder for new users building a PC since everything is crammed together and you may need to put parts in, in a specific order. That's it.

RAM. Your friend is wrong here in the specific, but right in the general. The Team Vulcan Ram from the parametric filter is very well regarded budget ram, especially for Ryzen systems, it's good and in a lot of builds. It's in my 2700X build I'm typing on right now. However, your buddy is right about something. Ram is incredibly important for Ryzen, and it is safest to go name brand. However, that doesn't mean shit if the name brand ram still has bad or normal timings. A g.skill or corsair ram with 16 18 18 38 is probably going to be not any better then the Team Vulcan.

So what I did was go with Team Dark. This is Samsung B-die ram, which is by far the best for Ryzen systems, and we can fit it in your budget. This Samsung B-die ram is 40 bucks cheaper then any comparable Samsung B-die Ram from G.Skill or Corsair. I also did this to mess with your friend a bit about ram and point out that name brands aren't everything. Keep in mind ram is one of the main components of streaming well.

Storage
So, your friend is both right, and wrong, and with this one I can't tell if your friend told you something and you misinterpreted it, or if he has a few things wrong.

First, M2 is a form factor, it doesn't really affect speed. There is a type of M2 called NVME that is ultra fast and designed mostly for workstation builds and people who work with large files like video editing. That western digital SSD is perfectly fine, and it only costs 3 bucks more for the M2 version over the same SATA version, so it doesn't really matter which version you go with. I think your friend my be confusing M2 with M2 NVME. M2 NVME is unnecessary for gaming, booting windows or streaming.

As for only buying the EVO series SSDs. Lol, western digital makes comparable drives at for the high end, and high midrange market, also crucial is good at the high midrange, and companies like adata and silicon power make drives that are perfectly good midrange options. I think your friend is trying to avoid you buying garbage low end cheapos.

Hard drives. Why do you need a 2 TB HDD? Hell many builders now are going all SSD. The advantage of a hard drive is the data is recoverable, whereas an SSD failure means you shit out of luck. I went with a 1 TB. The parametric filter here gave you Hard drive with noise issues so I gave you a better one. Unless you have specific use case, 1 tb should be fine.

Case. What you are looking for in a case is 1) cooling ability, 2) ease of putting things inside of it. After that it is personal preference. Some things to think about, do you need a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray Drive? The case you have can't have one, the one I chose can. What about space for a Fan? How many front USB ports do you need? For example, I need 4, one for my thumb drive, one for mp3 players cable, one for a game controller and one extra in case I need it. Do you want front audio ports for like head phones and mics? Do you need USB C or 3.1? What about aesthetics, how far are you willing sacrifice ease of use or cooling for pretty or RGB? You have to make these decisions not me.

Your other friend is sort of right about the power supply. PSUs are most efficient around 50% of the load. A 650 watt PSU like the one I included will be better. However the sweet spot is actually 50%-75% and your build sucks 349 watts. That 550 is good enough. A 650 will bring you closer to the 50% efficiency. It isn't necessarily necessary, but the buffer is nice to have.

Here is an alternate build: NOTE that the ssd doesn't show up at PCpartpicker because pcpartpickers algorithm can be stupid sometimes. I manually edited it in.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor | $165.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Asus - PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard | $104.64 @ Amazon
Memory | G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory | $142.99 @ Newegg
Storage | Silicon Power - A55 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $75.00 @ amazon.
Storage | Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $43.90 @ OutletPC
Video Card | Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Dual Series Video Card | Purchased For $250.00
Case | Fractal Design - Focus G (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case | $54.99 @ Walmart
Power Supply | SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | $74.99 @ Newegg
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $912.50
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-10 18:04 EDT-0400 |

Same CPU. If you want the 2600X you can fit it in this build.

Slightly cheaper mobo the my other build, still in the ATX style for ease of building.

Ram. This G.skill ram has better timings then the Team Vulcan, for only 7 bucks more. The sale on this ends on thursday, so keep that in mind.

Silicon Power SSD. This is a well reviewed midrange SSD. It is equal or better then low end samsung evos, but worse then the high end.

This build leaves about 90 bucks for options. Want that 189.99 Team dark ram from above, go for it. Want a 2 TB Hard Drive? go for it. Want a 2600X go for it. Want to overclock the normal 2600 to better then the 2600X, toss a $50 fan on here. Want a better case? go for it.

EDIT PCpartpicker fucked up second build and said it was 1055 for some reason.

I'm working on a build for you, but first I'll address some of your questions and concerns for you.

> From what I googled overclocking means to run at speeds higher than what their official speed grade. I don't think I will because I just want to experience gaming the way it was meant or designed to be played and to enjoy the graphics that developers designed. But I would also like to play smoothly or normally?

With PC gaming, "the way it was meant or designed to be played" isn't a thing. You can play it with as good of graphics as you want, as long as your PC can run the game like that. As such I'd recommend overclocking- it's not too tough to do if you look up a tutorial on YouTube, and it doesn't noticeably degrade parts or anything. However, the build I'll put together for you will work fine without it- you just might not get the same "smoothness" (meaning a high framerate) in-game.

> But if that means setting the settings a little down then I am ok with that as long as we can still enjoy the graphics. ex: Kind of like when I tried playing blade and soul on my laptop but it didn't run well so when I turned the graphics down it helped a bit but I could no longer enjoy the look of the game because it looked completely different then intended.

> I have a question about motherboard and video cards. There's so many different brands like gigabyte, asrock, msi, etc. Is there any difference and does it matter what brand we decide with?

Honestly it doesn't matter too much, as long as you buy graphics cards with 2+ fans on them and you get the right chipset on your motherboard. However, I have heard that for Ryzen AsRock and MSI are bad motherboard choices to go with so keep that in mind.

> Here is something my friend helped me with but he doesn't visit often so I was only able to talk to him briefly and didn't get a chance to learn or ask a lot about the parts. He mentioned something about having 2 fans for your case and 1 fan for your cpu. I wasn't sure what he meant and I don't know if I am supposed to purchase a set of fans for the case or is each fan sold individually?

Case fans help a bit with keeping your parts cooled. You can buy them separately or together. Honestly, with a good case you probably don't need additional case fans (and you can always choose if you want them or not later).

The Build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz 8-Core Processor | $324.98 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | Gigabyte - X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard | $140.98 @ Newegg
Memory | G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $190.98 @ Newegg
Storage | Samsung - 960 EVO 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $116.89 @ OutletPC
Storage | Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $43.90 @ OutletPC
Video Card | MSI - Radeon RX 580 8GB ARMOR OC Video Card | $329.98 @ Newegg
Case | NZXT - S340 Elite (White) ATX Mid Tower Case | $69.99 @ SuperBiiz
Power Supply | Corsair - CX (2017) 650W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $59.89 @ OutletPC
Monitor | ViewSonic - VA2719-2K-SMHD 27.0" 2560x1440 60Hz Monitor | $239.99 @ Amazon
Keyboard | Corsair - K66 Wired Gaming Keyboard | $54.99 @ Amazon
Mouse | Corsair - Harpoon RGB Wired Optical Mouse | $28.89 @ OutletPC
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $1621.46
| Mail-in rebates | -$20.00
| Total | $1601.46
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-05-14 10:31 EDT-0400 |

This build doesn't include an operating system, but it makes the absolute best it can out of your budget.

The CPU is a Ryzen 7 2700X. It might be a bit pricey and you'll need to compromise a little on the GPU for this, but it can perform very well without overclocking so it's my first pick for you here. It has 8 cores and 16 threads total, so you can game and edit photos at the same time if you alt+tab between programs (keep in mind you'll want to play games in windowed fullscreen for this to work best) while games are loading. Not that it'll take long for most games to load- your build has a 960 Evo inside, which is a really fast SSD. You'll be booting things in no time with that thing. With streaming also in the question, you'll be able to allocate a couple of cores to hardware video encoding without a big drop in framerate in your games- so TL:DR, this is a good CPU for your needs even if it costs a lot in the end.

The build has 16gb of RAM as well, so you'll be able to run games and programs with no problem. It's 3200MHz CL16, so your CPU will benefit from its speed.

I included a RX 580 8gb for your GPU. While it's definitely weaker than what some other people are suggesting, at 1440p 60Hz you won't struggle to run games at your native resolution and at 60Hz, and it's about all you could really want for hardware acceleration in Photoshop or Paint Tool SAI (if that supports it).

As for the PSU and case, they're both solid choices. The PSU has more than enough power for your needs, and for the case I decided to pick out an S340 Elite (Which compared to the S340 has a glass panel, so it won't scratch up easily) and can showcase all your parts with style.

For your monitor I picked out a nice 1440p IPS monitor with slim bezels. If you choose to you can upgrade to a much better dual monitor configuration later down the road (which I'd recommend because it helps a lot for multitasking with gaming and media creation- I do that a lot), but this one alone is good for both gaming and photo editing.

And then of course, the mouse and keyboard. Both peripherals are Corsair ones, and neither is really flashy (after you disable the Harpoon's RGB inside Corsair's software engine anyways, which is pretty easy from my experience). The keyboard is mechanical as well, which you liked- you can buy this with red, brown, or blue switches AFAIK, which lets you pick the ones you like the best.

Be sure to ask any more questions, if you have them!

Edit: There's a sale going on right now, the 500gb version of the SSD I linked is just $20 more. I'd get that, it's a good deal. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078218TWQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QwA-AbVX5T0H8

/u/JetJaguar124 /u/Integralds

So first thing's first, Windows: ~$130 for Home Edition.

Okay, so things to keep in mind:

1. If you go Intel, overclocking isn't too great on 9th gen intel, especially if you don't have a beefy aftermarket cpu cooler. So if you don't plan on doing that at some point then you don't need a K series CPU and an overclocking motherboard. So your motherboard should primarily focus on giving you decent I/O options.
   
   
2. You also probably want to aim for 1080p or 1440p tops, given your price range.
   
   
3. Related to #1: If you don't plan on overclocking then a basic-ish mobo will do fine, and you mainly want to focus on I/O and other features. If you are getting Intel doubly so, as, as I mentioned before, intel 9th gen doesn't overclock well due to relatively low headroom to begin with. For intel overclocking boards are "Z" while non-overclocking boards are "B". For AMD they are "X" and "B" respectively.
   
   The GPU you should be seeking to use is the 1660 Ti, which is basically a slightly gimped RTX 2060 but without the raytracing stuff. If you are willing to spend a bit more then you could get an RX 5700 instead, which is nearly ~30% faster on average.
   
   That'll put you at $270 - $360 depending on the model you pick. Yes, it's a third of your budget, but the GPU is the single most important part of your build.
   
   Secondly you'll want a decent CPU to go with that.
   
   The Ryzen 5 3600 looks like a pretty good CPU, its a bit under $200, its fairly beefy and extendable so it's somewhat "future-proof" - in that it shouldn't cause much bottlenecking and you could upgrade your GPU past a 2080 Ti before needing to change the processor.
   
   This MSI Tomohawk Mobo looks good for the 3600.
   
   So we're at ~$320 for that, or about $640 total. Plus windows that is ~$730.
   
   The RAM Inty recommended before should be fine. You only really need 16 GB. This will set you back ~$80. If you find yourself wanting more RAM later down the line you can always add another pair of sticks later and double up your RAM.
   
   That puts us at around ~$800.
   
   $80 for a 750W Fully Modular Corsair PSU is basically a steal. It's refurbished though, although that shouldn't be a problem - especially with a PSU.
   
   We're at ~$880.
   
   Some good thermal paste for your CPU.
   
   We're now at ~$890.
   
   Storage depends on what you want to do. Do you install a lot of stuff and files at once? In which case you might want to get a nice sized SSD plus a big HDD.
   
   For your system drive. Plenty of space, good price, AND its an nvme SSD.
   
   That makes for ~$990.
   
   If you need lots of extra space
   
   If you need extreme extra space
   
   Keyboard and case are up to you, decide as you please. For the case just make sure that it can support an ATX mobo, as the mobo listed here is full ATX. Mechanical keyboards are crack, but they tend to be more expensive so they're probably out of range. This will be another $100 to $150 depending on what you pick.
   
   Something to keep in mind though: Your case and your monitors are basically "future proof". In other words, they won't really get "worse" with time or cause future performance issues. So monitors and case are things where you want to consider what you'll eventually want and buy ahead, even if you have to stretch a bit.
   
   This just leaves your monitor. I would NOT recommend a 1080p monitor above 24 in. Honestly, if you can go for a 1440p monitor then do it. I'm a bit of a resolution whore tho, so if 1080p works for you then that's fine. I would also avoid TN panels - they tend to look more washed out, tinny, and have worse viewing angles . . . although they also tend to be a fair bit cheaper than the good panels (namely IPS panels).
   
   I used to own one of these . . . it was vvy vvy gud. This is a relatively artsy monitor, so if color gamut correctness or whatever is important for you for photo or video editing or whatever, then this is a good pick. It's a bit expensive, yeah, but also super gorgeous. It also goes up to 75 Hz. Conversely, get a freesync monitor, and this one is probably good - haven't done much research on it, but Dells are generally pretty good in my experience (my current 4K monitor is a Dell too). Freesync will allow you to basically eliminate screen tearing and will provide a smoother feeling experience because it will even out frame rates better.
   
   One last thing to keep in mind: Shopping around on ebay and other sites can save you a fair bit. My rule of thumb is to never, ever buy sensitive parts like hard-drives, cpus, or motherboards second hand or refurbished. But everything else is fair game. So refurbished GPUs, Monitors, PSUs, Cases, etc. should be fine. Pre-owned? Ehhh . . . that I'm much, much more sketchy on - personally I wouldn't, but that's just me.
   
   So in total it'd be somewhere in the range of $1500 including monitor, OS, case, and keyboard. The system itself is around $1000. But you can perhaps knock off a hundred bucks or two by shopping around and looking for where you can buy these parts cheaper than Amazon.
   
   But again: investing in a good monitor and case can be worth it. It means you won't have to replace it if/when you do upgrade. And worst case scenario you can offload your monitor as a side/secondary monitor when you upgrade your monitor to a new one.

I don't know what your use case is, and a lot of these things are budget/availability dependent, especially since I don't know what country you are purchasing in, so take some of my recommendations with a grain of salt on those bases:

>Core i7 8086k or 9700k (leaning towards the 8086k though)

Depending on if you can get your hands on it, and if price is similar, the 9700k is superior in every non-synthetic performance metric. I'd really recommend you go with the 8 core chip if you can.

> ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-F H or E (May opt for the WiFi variant)

The Z390-H has worse VRM than the F and E, and no AI VID autoclock features, which can help you determine stable frequencies if you are interested in that. Even for the first point alone though, since the price points are so similar between the Strix boards, I'd disregard it as an option. The F and E both use the same Vishay VRM and are much better for stability and efficiency of your overclock. The WiFi is up to you.

>Kraken X62 (instead of the x72 or coolermaster as it seems to perform better and looks better)

The Kraken series are great, and I love the X62. It's expensive, and you can get the same performance from Corsair and EVGA, but looks are firmly in the NZXT camp here. No problems with that.

>G-Skill 8gb x 2 3200Mhz

Good value and high quality RAM, excellent choice.

>Samsung 970 Pro 512GB m.2

This is somewhat up to you, but NVMe drives have very minor performance benefits for most people. While the speed on paper looks like a massive step up, it is only in sequential read/write speeds, which is only really good for video editors working with extremely high quality footage (4K RAW and above, basically). If this rig is for gaming primarily, or general workstation use not involving massive files, you can save a significant amount of money and go with something like a Crucial MX500 SATA M.2 Drive. For everyday performance and gaming, you will notice zero difference between the two.

>Fractal meshify C or possibly the nzxt h500

Both are great cases. The Meshify is objectively better for temps, but IMO the H500 looks better. As someone who owns the NZXT H500i, I can tell you that temps have never been an issue for my 1080Ti or 9900k, but again, the choice is yours, both are great.

>Corsair TXM SERIES 650 w

This is fine, but the Corsair RX series (the fully modular variants) are made by a better OEM (RX from Seasonic, TX from FSP) and have more port flexibility. Sometimes it is worth looking at the 750W and 850W variants, as even though you don't need the additional power, they often go on sale for cheaper. Other options include Seasonic FOCUS and FOCUS Plus series, or the EVGA SuperNOVA G2 (or G3, but go with a 750W minimum on these as the fan can be loud under high load) series. Power supplies are one thing I recommend spending extra on, as they are the lifeblood of your power delivery, and the only component in your computer in which a failure can cause every other device in your PC to fail as well. Just some food for thought. You can go with the least expensive of any of the ones I listed above.

> Evga 2080 xc ultra

Depending on your resolution/refresh rate, this is a great card, although obviously expensive. 1080Ti's are definitely becoming harder to find now, but if you can get one for cheaper and don't plan on using the RTX features, its effectively the same card. This may no longer be possible, though.

If you can give me some additional information, like what country you are purchasing from, your overall budget, the workload you are using it for (if games, give me specific games you play or intend to play in the future), and the display resolution and refresh rate you are using now/what you want in the future (IE 1080p/144, 1080p/240, 1440p/144, 4k/60, etc), I can give more accurate overall recommendations on all of these parts.

If you're at all handy, it's really easy to do the upgrades yourself. Here's a YouTube video showing how. The video is for last year's 9570 model, but the upgrade process is identical. Skip the WiFi chip upgrade unless you have specific problems (rare) that can't be resolved with the process I linked above (exceedingly rare).

You have a ton of options for RAM and SSD - so many that it can be quite overwhelming. You have to be careful to get compatible memory, whereas basically any SSD that fits will work. Performance will be roughly the same across RAM kits, but the SSD has more of a performance range. I'll link some examples. Since your link is for Dell Canada, I'll just use Amazon Canada for examples because I know it works.

​

Before you pick upgrades

If you can get the screen, processor, battery, and discrete graphics card you want simultaneously, start with 8 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD and upgrade both aftermarket (go straight for 1 TB on the SSD upgrade). If you can't drop lower than a 512 GB SSD to get right screen/processor/battery/dGPU combination, instead go with the 512 GB SSD and keep that initially unless you know you need 1 TB. You can upgrade later, although it is a little tricky logistically - if you'd prefer to save yourself the potential hassle, upgrading to aftermarket 1 TB immediately is defensible.

Consider starting with 8 or 16 GB of RAM and, if the option is available for the rest of the config you want, a 512 GB SSD. If you get a model with 8 GB RAM, you can pull out the 2x4 GB sticks and put in a single 16 GB stick instead. If you decide you need 32 GB later, you can pop in a second identical 16 GB stick. (Two modules is technically faster than one, but the performance difference is negligible. Don't worry about it.) If the screen/processor/battery/GPU you want only come on a model with 16 GB RAM, just start with that and buy an upgrade later if you need more elbow room. Very few people need 32 GB - an example of that use case is if you're running multiple virtual machines simultaneously and have to have them locally rather than spinning up just what you need in The Cloud.

Similarly, though not to as great an extent, 1 TB is a lot of disk space. Do you need that much? If you don't have hundreds of gigabytes of media you want to store locally or keep >2 AAA games installed simultaneously, you're probably fine with 512 GB. Again, you can always upgrade later, although the logistics are trickier if you want to save all your old data.

​

Memory

Crucial is a solid choice. Crucial's website has a nice compatibility picker for the XPS 15 7590, but since they don't handle Canadian customs for you, here's an Amazon CA link (32 GB selected, but you can pick 1x16 instead of 2x16).

​

SSD

You need an m.2 2280 NVMe SSD. Nearly any SSD fitting those parameters will work. If you're going to aftermarket-upgrade the SSD, go straight for 1 TB (or more if you really need more). I have heard very good things about the Silicon Power P34A80 (review, purchase) and the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro (review, purchase). Note that the SX8200 Pro is double-sided, but it has been reported to fit and work just fine in an XPS 9570 and so should work in a 7590 as well.

​

Display

You didn't ask about this, but since you're going to save a bunch of money on the RAM and SSD, consider whether your use case merits treating yourself to a 4K display for a fair chunk of the cost you just saved :-P

If you need >10 hours of battery runtime, skip 4K. Otherwise it's really nice. Text is amazingly crisp, which I have found lets me run at 175% display scaling and still read comfortably. (Windows 10 default is 125% for 1080p and 250% for 4K). There are a small number of applications that don't do well with UI scaling, which makes 4K a less-than-great choice for those, but you can always drop back to 1080p just while using those applications if you really have to. It'll look pretty good because 4K is an exact multiplier of 1080p.

​

Base Models

I'm not listing prices because they change too frequently. Just check the links.

• 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1080p display. At the time of this writing, there's a sale on the next model up that makes it cheaper to buy 16 GB/256 GB, so just do that. If it changes, you have this as a starting point.
  
• 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1080p display.
  
• 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 4K OLED display. I went with 4K touch (IPS rather than OLED) because I'm paranoid about OLED burn-in. It's probably fine, but if you're worried about it, the IPS panel is theoretically safer and still gorgeous. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the IPS panel is available in Canada without paying out the nose for stock 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD.

In the words of so many here, "Jesus Fucking Christ" is the first thing I have to say! It's so awesome to see everyone pumped up over the build. If I had known there would be so many comments, I'd have posted the pictures with some context, but I'll try and answer your questions now.

Are you posting more pictures?

Definitely! As soon as I get stuck into the meat of the build (this weekend maybe?) I'll take a few snaps during the build and the final result.

What are you going to do with this thing?

Play Minecraft on the lowest resolution possible with the particle effects and clouds turned off of course!

But seriously, there are several use cases intended for this rig, some personal, some work related:

• Multi-platform virtualized workstation (KVM, Windows & Linux guest OSes, PCI Passthrough, SLI configurations adjusted as needed)
  
• Game development (that's what I do for a living, not saying who I work for though!)
  
• Virtual reality game development / HMD gaming (all the cool PCMR kids will be doing it soon enough)
  
• Static lightmap rendering (3DS Max)
  
• Monitor Gaming (Minecraft in glorious 320x240, smooth lighting disabled)
  
• Keeping me company during the long winter nights
  
  Why four Titan X cards? Give 980 Ti some love!
  
  Originally I considered two Titan X cards and two 980 Ti cards for this build, but that idea was discarded for a few reasons and considerations, some more logical than others:
  
  
• In the event of the KVM workstation setup going horribly wrong, being able to fallback to a 4-way Titan X system running a single host OS would at least give me some use of all the cards.
  
• Is 6GB VRAM going to be sufficient 2 or 3 years down the line? I'm not so sure. 12GB of VRAM puts my mind at ease for a build that I intend to still be using 4 or 5 years from now with minimal upgrades.
  
• Purchasing four Titan X cards is equivalent to purchasing 5 980 Ti cards, which in the grand scheme of things, is not an insane premium to pay to build out a system with current generation top of the line hardware.
  
• I would have been buying watercooling equipment designed for the Titan X regardless of what I chose.
  
  
  For those asking about PALIT branded cards, they offer a reference design card for Titan X, which is fine, because most other vendors do the same. I will of course be dismantling the cards to add waterblocks to them, and possibly doing other crazy, potentially warranty-voiding overclocky things to them.
  
  That Sandisk Ultra II..it's so peasantly compared to the 950 Pro.
  
  I should have mentioned that I also have a 1TB 840 Evo that I'll be bringing over from my current workstation, which has a fairly negligible performance benefit over an 850 Evo and Pro in a practical setting.
  
  The Ultra II was a Cyber Monday deal, much cheaper than an 850 Evo or Pro for reasonable performance and storage capacity, and more than enough for infrequent secondary storage.
  
  De-ionized water, why not distilled?
  
  I didn't list it in the pictures because it hasn't arrived yet, but I am expecting a delivery of distilled water tomorrow for filling the loop. The de-ionized water will be used to flush water blocks and radiators as it is a cheaper source of purified water to obtain here in the UK (unlike distilled water, which stores don't stock like in the US).
  
  Biocide, coolant, anti-corrosives?
  
  I have decided to start with distilled water and a couple of drops of Mayham's Biocide (a copper sulphate concentrate), and keep a close eye on the loop for the first few months to see how it works out, and introduce corrosion inhibitors if needed. I am fortunate that my loop mostly consists of copper, with brass and nickel plated/brass fittings, so at this point, my main concern would only be the tin/lead solder inside the radiators as being a potential corrosion hazard.
  
  If anyone has information on corrosion inhibitor bases that can be added to water that don't contain a glycol mixture and dyes, and that are designed to protect copper/nickel/brass/tin/lead, I'd love to hear from you!
  
  You better have awes-mazing monitors for that rig!
  
  Baby steps...it has been five years since I built my last workstation, and everything will eventually have to be replaced, which includes five 21.5" 1080p 60Hz monitors. Replacing those is a financially crippling research project in itself, but for now, the tower is the first replacement to be dealt with.
  
  Are you going to trick this thing out with LEDs, chrome rims and a sexy lady lounging over the case?
  
  No, the tower isn't really all that visible in practice as it would be sitting behind a monitor (and not repositionable as the whole desk is covered in monitors!), so I did not intend on going crazy with lights, colored tubing and platinum case trim, instead directing the budget towards more practical components.
  
  How much did the rig cost to build?
  
  I'd better leave the number crunching to my rich daddy and his solid gold, diamond encrusted calculator.
  
  Parts list, I demand it!
  
  Component | Product Name | Quantity | Product Info URL
  ---|---|----|----
  Motherboard | Asus X99-E WS | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/X99-E-WS-Workstation-Motherboard-Capacitors/dp/B00NJGJJE0
  Processor | Intel Core i7 5960X | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Extreme-Processor-Socket-2011-V3/dp/B00N1O4RRY
  Graphics Card | Palit NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X | 4 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Palit-Graphics-DisplayPort-Dual-link-PCI-Express/dp/B00UXOGCP0
  Case | Phanteks Enthoo Primo | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Phanteks-PH-ES813P_BL-Enthoo-Primo-Tower/dp/B00EB0A6FE
  Power Supply | EVGA SuperNOVA 1600W G2 | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-Supernova-Modular-Power-Supply/dp/B00MGPJHPQ
  Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (8x 8 GB) DDR4 2400 MHz | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMK64GX4M8A2400C14-Vengeance-Performance-Desktop/dp/B00PLERJ7M
  SSD | SanDisk Ultra II 960GB | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-Sata-2-5-inch-Internal/dp/B00M8ABHVQ
  SSD | Samsung 840 EVO 1TB (From Previous Build) | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-2-5-inch-Basic-Solid-State/dp/B00E3W16OU
  CPU Waterblock | EK-Supremacy EVO – Acetal | 1 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-supremacy-evo-acetal
  GPU Waterblock | Titan X/GTX 980Ti Copper Acetal Water Cooling Block EKWB | 4 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-fc-titan-x-acetal
  GPU Backplate | Black Aluminum TITAN X/980Ti Water Block Retention Backplate | 4 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-fc-titan-x-backplate-black
  GPU Bridge | EK-FC Terminal QUAD Semi-Parallel - Titan READY | 1 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-fc-terminal-quad-semi-parallel
  Tubing | TUBE PrimoChill PrimoFlex™ Advanced LRT™ 15,9 / 9,5mm (1 meter) | 3 | https://shop.ekwb.com/tube-primochill-primoflextm-advanced-lrttm-9-5-15-9-mm-crystal-clear
  Compression Fitting | EK-ACF Fitting 10/16mm | 20 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-acf-fitting-10-16mm-black
  90 Degree Fitting | EK-AF Angled 90° G1/4 | 6 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-af-angled-90-g1-4-black
  Ball Valve Fitting | EK-AF Ball Valve (10mm) G1/4 | 1 | https://shop.ekwb.com/ek-af-ball-valve-10mm-g1-4-black
  Pump Top | Alphacool HF D5 TOP - Black Acetal | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alphacool-HF-D5-TOP-mounting/dp/B00L5J1YIC
  Reservoir | Alphacool Repack Dual 5.25" Drive Bay Reservoir | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alphacool-Repack-cooling-pressure-monitor/dp/B007ENAVCI
  Pump | Alphacool VPP655 D5 Pump | 2 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alphacool-VPP655-PWM-Single-cooling/dp/B00LLR40OI
  Radiator | Alphacool 35281 NexXxoS UT60 Radiator 480 | 2 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alphacool-NexXxoS-Copper-480mm/dp/B007P05Y18
  Radiator | Alphacool 35279 NexXxoS UT60 Radiator 240 | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alphacool-NexXxoS-UT60-Copper-240mm/dp/B007P05XUU
  Radiator Fans | Corsair SP120 PWM Quiet Edition (Dual Pack) | 5 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CO-9050006-WW-SP120-Quiet-Pressure/dp/B007RESFR2
  Fan Controller | Phobya PWM 8 x 4Pin Fan Splitter | 2 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Phobya-PWM-8x-4Pin-Splitter/dp/B00OD7MO6E
  Biocide | Mayhems Biocide 10ml | 1 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mayhems-Solutions-Ltd-Biocide-10ml/dp/B007WDOKAE
  
  If you made it this far through the rambling, thanks for reading, keep an eye out for more pictures, and keep on being glorious!

Hello,

As ArthurRemington noted, the system as originally sold was configured to use the 16GB M.2 SATA SSD as a cache to offset the slow 1TB 5400RPM HDD using either Lenovo's [ExpressCache] (http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds104444)† software or Intel's Smart Response Technology software. If you did not install one of those after setting up the system then that the reason the computer is slow. It is loading everything off the hard disk drive and not taking advantage of the cache drive at all.

From looking at the ThinkPad Yoga 460 FRU-BOM, the ThinkPad Yoga 460 is only offered with a M.2 2242 SSD, which means SATA and not NVMe as LocalHostRulez noted. Since M.2 2242 SSDs use single- or dual-chip NAND flash memory solutions, they are going to be slower than SSDs which use physically larger boards, like M.2 2280, because those contain morec hips across which the reads and writes can be spread. For this reason, I'd recommend against going with a 128GB M.2 2242 SSD, which are probably going to operate in the lower-300-400 MB/s speed range and instead go with a 256GB part, which should get you into the 400-500 MB/s speed range. Here some compatible replacements:

Manufacturer|Model|Capacity|Amazon.Com Link

---|:---|:---|:---|
MyDigitalSSD|MDM242-SB2-0256|256GB|https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXMQQ7Z/
Transcend|TS256GMTS400|256GB|https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KLTPUG4/
ZTC|ZTC-SM201-256G|256GB|https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YDHKIMG/

Transcend also has a 512GB model, but you are paying a premium. ZTC had a 512GB model as well, but I didn't see a listing for it on Amazon. If you can find one at a decent price, though, you might want to consider that.

Any good quality 2.5" SATA SSD (Samsung, Intel, etc.) would be even faster, though. However, that would mean giving up the 2.5" 1TB HDD.

When you're ready to perform the upgrade, download the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 460 Hardware Maintenance Manual, which explains how to disassemble and reassemble the unit. I also found a YouTube video here of someone doing the same thing.

In the meantime, probably the best thing you can do to increase performance is to wipe both the SSD and HDD drives inside the ThinkPad Yoga 460 and reload the Windows 10 operating system using the Lenovo factory recovery media, which you should be able to download from the Lenovo Digital Download Recovery Service. Check to verify eligibility before you erase the drives, though. You will need a 16GB USB flash drive to create the recovery media.

With the recovery media, you will be able to get the system back to the way it was running when it first arrived. Ever since the SuperFish incident, Lenovo pretty much gave up on installing any third-party software on their systems (aka bloatware). You can read the announcement from their company here about that. By the way, it was never installed on any ThinkPads, just their consumer offerings. Lenovo still does load some non-Microsoft software, but it's for things which aren't natively-supported by the operating system (For example, if you bought a Lenovo computer with an Intel RealSense 3-D camera, it would have the Intel RealSense 3-D software on it, since Microsoft doesn't provide that software as part of Windows 10.), maybe a trial version of anti-malware software. You'll also see a couple of pre-loaded programs like Lenovo Settings (for managing the computer's hardware) and Lenovo Companion (for customer support), but those are Windows Apps from Lenovo, and can be easily removed. Oh, and maybe some Lenovo wallpaper. Traditionally, ThinkPads have not had much in the way of bloatware, anyways, since they are sold to enterprises for corporate use.

In the words of the Immortal Bard‡, you kind of played yourself by loading a vanilla version of the operating system instead of sticking with the factory pre-load, which was relatively bloat-free (maybe just uninstalling any third-party security program if you wanted to use Windows Defender).

Even if you do not plan on reinstalling the Lenovo pre-load of Windows 10 to the existing 16GB SSD + 1TB HDD, I would strongly suggest making the recovery media. That way when your replacement M.2 2242 SSD arrives, you can use that to perform a clean install of the factory pre-load, and get any Lenovo drivers or software needed for the machine to operate at full potential.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky


^†I ^believe ^Lenovo ^actually ^licenses ^it ^from ^Condusiv
^Technologies^.
^‡DJ ^Khaled.

The PSU is (mostly) fine, the extra 4 pins on that motherboard are for LN2 cooling so no worries.

Longevity should be a non issue.

Though i would not get that 1TB NVME ssd, its overpriced and 1TB will be eaten alive by any games so you may want.

SSD's only make game loading faster, they do not give you more FPS

​

Here: I made some modifications to your build

​

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KfP3FG

​

This shifts the budget to a better power supply while shifting to a smaller capacity SATA SSD yes but NVME really isnt worth the price premium IMHO and i will be honest I think 1TB SSD's are still a bit too pricey.

NVME is only better for fast data transfer and or if you are going to make this into a media content creation PC but otherwise I would skip it.

Its still better to pair a traditional SSD with a HDD for mass storage, SSD's are great boot drives yes and having them is a great boon indeed.

But as having games on them..... eh its nice to have but not needed.

I mean if you still want a NVME 1TB ssd well there are cheaper options such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-1TB-NAND-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=asc_df_B07J2Q4SWZ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309818716690&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=973939605986231758&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-561975664289&th=1

​

Far cheaper and will work fairly well

​

There is also this:

​

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LGF54XR/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?pd_rd_i=B07LGF54XR&pd_rd_w=USMgC&pf_rd_p=45a72588-80f7-4414-9851-786f6c16d42b&pd_rd_wg=vMwi3&pf_rd_r=DWSWZ79J2EJQKBNYFEEM&pd_rd_r=9e0fcf13-b324-4fa1-b2e2-6159eaf90cfa&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFTU1JLTTdaVFNVTkUmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTJTWjdYWlY4MEZPQzMmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMTAwNDE4M0ZLMEZJMFZSOTdIMyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

​

I hear good things about the sabrant rocket, a fairly affordable NVME SSD.

Sabrent isnt like samsung (they are a bit of a off brand) but its not a bad deal there :D

A 120GB SSD is very adequate for the OS and a number of games. However, the SSD that you chose uses SATA 3, which is outdated (it's even discontinued on Newegg). You want SATA 6. The Samsung 840 Pro is going to be the best you can get ($135). If you want to save some money you can get this one ($120), or the Samsung 840 (non-pro version) for around $100 if I remember correctly. I think you should get the Kingston drive or the 840 Pro, but anyone else here please feel free to critique me.

I've never heard of that power supply manufacturer before, and thus I don't know how reliable it is. I see this Corsair PSU recommended a lot, and looks like with the rebate you'll end up spending less than $30 on it. Great price for a solid PSU I think. There is also a more modular version of that for $10 more, with a $10 rebate. Looks like it has great reviews. I have a semi-modular PSU, and it's great not having unused cables everywhere.

Other than that, I think everything looks great! I have the exact same case and haven't had any problems with it thus far.

There's a couple different directions you could go with this. I would consider both the Dell Inspiron 15 i7559 or the Asus ROG GL502VT.

The Dell is cheaper, but has an i5-6300HQ vs the i7-6700HQ in the Asus. The i5 lacks hyperthreading, so you don't get the full 8 logical cores like you do in the i7, which could come in handy for your video work.

The Dell comes with a 256GB SSD, though, and the Asus lacks that, but you could add an m.2 SSD easily enough when cash allows, and that would be the best way to get a good SSD anyways. You'd pay a huge premium trying to get one stock. They come with cloning software so you don't have to reinstall Windows as well.

The Asus also has a much more powerful Nvidia GTX 970M, which is an easy 30% gain over the 960M, giving you a lot more freedom of performance, as well as the additional RAM which is also important for video editing purposes.

Are you gonna liquid cool? I ask because that case is generally for liquid cooling. The airflow of that case it not that great. Here's another option, a lot better suited for air cooling: HAF X.

For CPU cooler, here's a pretty good one, the Hyper 212 Plus. It's not much more than the one you listed and it's regularly considered one of the best air coolers, especially for the price. If you can, try to pick up a 2nd 120 mm fan and do push/pull with it.

Also if you are doing serious heavy duty video editing, I'm always a proponent of getting as much RAM as you can. May want to think about getting the 16 gb kit.

Besides that it looks pretty good. Some might say it'd be better (and cheaper) to get 2 Samsung F3 1 tb drives and run it in RAID. Also there's people out there who might have some issue with the 590 card (either say it's overkill, or better to get two 580s) but I don't have a particularly strong stance on either position so I'll leave that to them.

Just a sidenote though, if you can afford to add it to your system, I'd highly recommend getting a SSD as a boot drive/program drive. It was the most noticeable change I ever got from a single component upgrade. I'd recommend at least a 128 gb if you're gonna put all your programs + windows on it. You could probably get away with 64 gb but you'd always have to be super frugal about space. My personal recommendation is the Crucial M4. Just make sure you update the firmware to revision 9 before you start installing anything on it (google it, it's super easy to do).

EDIT: Also was looking at your motherboard. From everything I could see, this Gigabyte board seems to be pretty much the same features wise and cheaper to boot.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-500GB-Ultra-NAND-SATA/dp/B072R78B6Q/ref=sxin_4_ac_d_pm?keywords=sandisk+ssd&pd_rd_i=B072R78B6Q&pd_rd_r=6e48913a-82f5-47ee-a878-bba6330f0011&pd_rd_w=ouwib&pd_rd_wg=eDL6g&pf_rd_p=64aaff2e-3b89-4fee-a107-2469ecbc5733&pf_rd_r=9ZFFWMG7WH4XJZZRQ87D&qid=1563622854&s=gateway my ssd. Marginally (almost certainly not noticeably) faster speeds, but it's a trusted brand.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=870+evo&qid=1563623512&s=gateway&sr=8-1 Arguably the best SATA SSD you can buy, and is very reasonably priced. Well trusted, better technology than off-brand gives better random seek times etc. Definitely worth having. Maybe 10% faster in general than yours or mine

https://www.amazon.com/XPG-SX8200-Gen3x4-3000MB-ASX8200PNP-1TT-C/dp/B07K1J3C23/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=adata+nvme&qid=1563623699&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The best bang for your buck if you're taking the next step up into the NVME world MAKE SURE YOUR BOARD HAS THE SLOT FOR IT. roughly 7 times the speeds of the first two ssd mentioned. Significantly higher price per gig

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S1T0B/dp/B07MFZY2F2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=970+evo+pro+plus&qid=1563624021&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The flagship. Everybody seems to need one. Marginally better than the previous mention in reality. YOU WILL NOT NOTICE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO UNLESS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY TESTING THEM.

I didn't even realise that Amazon was in Spain & that PCPartPicker (the website we use to look for parts) had Spain as well.

But.. I couldn't find everything and I am certain that certain parts are cheaper at other shops. Especially the GTX1080 currently is on high prices because the demand is higher than the supply from Nvidia. Meaning that stores can ask high prices since people are paying it anyway.
Regardless, this list of hardware shops helped me find the fans. You can have a look at certain shops as well.

Anyway, I managed to put together an absolute beast (I'm jealous!) of a PC together for you where I did not compromise anywhere on the parts. I went for high quality & performance pretty much for everything. If you want to hear my rationale or know more about certain choices that I made, let me know and I will explain it to you.


I as well found some great fans to keep this PC almost dead silent. These fans are actually hard to find, since I don't think that they're still produced.
But you want to use the NoiseBlocker fans on the radiator instead of the stock fans that come with it. These fans will reduce the noise & increase the performance by a good margin. Reducing the temperature of the CPU by a good amount.
You want to use the Scythe as 1 in the rear as exhaust and then.. the other one you have a couple of options, you can place it on some rails on the right or left side to push some more air inside or at the bottom. The use of this fan is to provide a bit more air for the GPU.

---

• I will provide you with my standard list of videos to help you understand why I suggest these parts.
  
• I also give a couple of great guides to help you build the PC.
  

• Lastly, a list of software that I personally use to overclock a CPU & GPU.
  

  
  

  Posted in a reply to this post, since I went over the 10.000 character limitation reddit provides per post!
  

  
  

  ---
  

  
  

  PCPartPicker part list
  

  
  

  Type|Item|Price
  

  ----|:----|:----
  CPU | Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor | €335.00 @ Amazon Espana
  CPU Cooler | Enermax Liqmax II 240 96.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | €69.50 @ Amazon Espana
  Motherboard | Asus MAXIMUS VIII GENE Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | €216.14 @ Amazon Espana
  Memory | Kingston Savage 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 Memory | €178.40 @ Amazon Espana
  Storage | Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | €136.00 @ Amazon Espana
  Storage | Western Digital Blue 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive | €135.89 @ Amazon Espana
  Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card | €755.00 @ Amazon Espana
  Case | Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case | €73.15 @ Amazon Espana
  Power Supply | Super Flower Leadex Gold 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | €164.83 @ Amazon Espana
  Radiator Fan | NoiseBlocker NB-ELoop B12-2 51.1 CFM 120mm Fan | €18.00 @ CoolMod
  Radiator Fan | NoiseBlocker NB-ELoop B12-2 51.1 CFM 120mm Fan | €18.00 @ CoolMod
  Case Fan | Scythe SY1225DB12M 68.5 CFM 120mm Fan | €12.00 @ CoolMod
  Case Fan | Scythe SY1225DB12M 68.5 CFM 120mm Fan | €12.00 @ CoolMod
  | Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
  | Total | €2132.39
  | Generated by Kiwiandapple |
  
  
  

> ONCE AGAIN, at the same clocks skylake uses less power.

Clocks don't matter. Performance does. AMD had a 8 core 5Ghz chips years ago, didn't mean shit.

>You are clearly the one who has no idea what SAS is, it's an interface and you can certainly use it in raid. It's the only way to get even close to the bandwidth of NVME raid on X299.

And you can have Sata only raid cards?

You do know that SAS isn't the same thing NVME is, right? A NVME drive can be for Sata, Sas, or M.2, And the M.2 connector can be used for both PCI-e x4, as well as Sata. Because NVME isn't an interface, it's like IDE, or AHCI.

For example, here's a Sata M.2 Drive.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-275GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B01IAGSDJ0

Same components as a 2.5" drive, same speed, but it goes in the M.2 socket. Which you seem to think is a NVME socket.

And here's a 2.5" NVME drive for Sata Express/SF-8639/U.2

http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_xs1715_25_nvme_ssd_review

Honestly, your lack of basic understanding for what you're arguing for is laughable.

Here an image so you don't get confused again.

>I'm saying there are merits to either platform

Only one, edge case, with caveats in it's one bonus. Everything else is rubbish.

>by pointing out NUMEROUS advantages of the X299 platform.

Overstressing POWER cables? A fragmented market so bad most motherboards are useless with the low end chip? Inability to overclock without a Delid?

Nothing important.

>It's a mediocre platform with similar performance to chips from 5 years ago that is decently competitive on price.

Except it wipes the floor in price/performance. Not everyone is spending $1000+ on CPUs. AMD's design means minimal costs, maximum yields, and incredible scalability.

>There actually ARE Ryzen CPU's without SMT and they came up with this stupid XFR feature that basically doesn't even do anything just so they could do market segmentation.

That are $130, and the XFR is a free 200Mhz overclock. Is Intel's Turboboost useless to? Because that's literally it.

>You can run a GPU at 8x if you want, it won't really be measurably slower.

But it will be slower. That's the thing. If I'm spending thousands on a computer build, I don't want a bottlenecked GPU. Keep in mind Threadripper has 64 PCI-e lanes. Compared to the current top tier X299, with 44. That's 5 additional NVME drives.

>You can run a GPU at 8x if you want, it won't really be measurably slower. Certainly better than running all your drive through the chipset (Which X299 can do if you really care that much about bandwidth).

For someone buying a $5000+ machine, you shouldn't have to fucking settle.

>It really comes down to a trade off of weather you want advanced RAID features NOW, or if you want the bandwidth for some theoretical graphics cards that may or may not come out 5 years from now.

There is already a differnace in PCI-e 3.0 x16 and x8. It's only a single digit percentage, but it is there. For someone buying a $5000+ machine, you shouldn't have to fucking settle.

>Also are you now claiming that KL-X competes with thread ripper?

Considering the top of the line KL-X is $2000, whereas you can get a 16 core threadripper for $1000,

That said, Using prices from here we see a 7551p is very close in price ($100). And that is a...

32C/64T, 128 PCI-e chip.

So, if Epyc gets workstation boards, it's possible that will be the competitor. Vs the 18/36 chip. It's not looking good for anyone who needs cores and wants Intel, is it?

>If that's the case x370 must be a big fat joke since it has 20 lanes

x370 is not on the same tier as these chips? It's literally Consumer Vs Enthusiast. x370 goes from 4c/4t to 8c/16t, yet all have the same PCI-e lanes. At least there's that. Every motherboard feature is the same under each CPU.

>but instead of having an additional 24 on the PCH, it only has 8x 2.0 lanes, which pretty much prohibits running any thing bandwidth heavy.

A single 2.0 lane can do 500MB/s, For comparison, a single Sata 3.0 port is ~600MB/s.

And once again, x370 isn't the point of this conversation. It's not a x299 competitor. They're totally different tiers. Would you compare a GTX 1050 and a 1080ti?

I have an SSD and that improved my loading times by a good amount of time, also helps to have better internet, my speeds are good enough but not great at all.

They really aren't that expensive, I'll point you in the right direction if you want. Also helps a ton with games like PUBG, BF, Red Dead, GTA etc.

.

Edit: If anyone is wondering I have one 512GB Silicon Power 3D NAND A55 SLC Cache Performance Boost SATA III 2.5" 7mm (0.28") Internal Solid State Drive from Amazon for $49.99 USD along with another of the same Silicon Power SSD but in 256GB for $28.99 USD.

Then you need the enclosure which costs $8.99: Sabrent 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool-Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III]. Super simple set up, literally open the enclosure by sliding the top off, slide the SSD into the connection slot in the enclosure, put the top on, plug it in to the USB slot and turn the thing on. Really nice price, had never heard of the brand but it has really good reviews, and works well for me. Just about the cheapest SSD I've seen on Amazon with an average review of 4.5+ (and at least 1k reviews).

Things are kind of mixed up and I don't blame anyone who mixes them

NVMe is PCIe protocol that can run on x1 fine, although that would be slower than SATA on PCIe 2.0 and 1.0

Generally PCIe 3.0 x1 or 2.0 x2 (~1000MB/s) is where PCIe has better bandwidth than SATA

For PCIe storage to be detected to OS only a link(adapter or M.2) is required but to boot from PCIe storage using any link the motherboard's bios MUST support that features, if it doesn't then you will have to boot from another hard drive and use the NVMe SSD as additional partitions only while not being able to install an OS inside the SSD

About adaptors: since PCIe is only a link any M.2 adaptor would be passive without any chip, essentially just a port that SSD plugs into

With Sandy bridge PCIe booting wasn't supported in that platform so user won't be able to install OS into any drive that uses PCIe link directly

Chips in adaptors are usually external SATA controllers that allow for additional SATA ports, these can be alone or integrated into PCIe M.2 adaptors at a higher cost

Sandy bridge can boot from M.2 SATA even if board doesn't have any M.2 ports , an adaptor here would either be passive that requires power+sata cable just like an HDD require or an active adapter, there is a lot of configurations for these adaptors

An active adaptor isn't advised for if user will install SSD into these unless motherboard's SATA ports are SATA 2 version, because SATA 3 active adaptor is slower than native SATA 3 ports found on motherboards


TL;DR : get this adaptor and connect it to one of motherboard's SATA ports, buy a SATA M.2 SSD (Good units : Crucial MX500,Samsung 860 evo) and plug it into the adaptor's SATA M.2 port, you will be able to install OS and run just fine from it along side almost certainly finding newer motherboard's M.2 port supporting it without needing the adaptor + the adaptor will work as an expansion just fine in newer boards, you will find slower than advertised speeds if your motherboard has only SATA 2 but still you will benefit from SSD faster loading speeds

Of course 2.5" versions of mentioned drives is also a cheaper option, gives same speed as SATA M.2 since both are SATA just that my recommendation are based that you want M.2 port

u/CovaDax1

>1) SATA vs NVME (I've read that the 9360 is capped at around 1.8Gb/s), would it be worth it to go for the NVME drive?

Quick little correction, it tops out at around 1.8 GB/s (with a big B). This is a big difference (1 byte (B) =8 bits (b))

As for if it's worth it, that's still about a 3x improvement over most SATA SSDs, but from personal experience, I can say that the switch from a SATA SSD to an NVMe one (even one running at full speed, usually ~3000MB/s (3GB/s) range for reads) is minor when it comes to overall system responsiveness, and even for game load times. When working with big files, the difference is much more noticeable however.


>2) I'm currently looking at the 970 Evo, but it has an "M key" slot, while in this teardown, the SSD installed seems to be a "B & M key" slot. Would something like the 970 Evo fit?

There is no such thing as an B & M key slot. B&M is found only on the drive side of things, just so SATA/PCIe 2x drives can fit in bot B and M slots. As for the slot in your device, I'm 99% sure it's an M key slot, so the 970 Evo should fit. (B key slots are generally only used for SATA only slots, and for things like Wi-Fi cards)


>3)From my (very) limited understanding it seems like the 860 Evo would be a good option, as it has the same connectors and has double storage for the money of the NVME drives. I'm also considering the marginally cheaper WD Blue 3D SSD as this is the one used by the poster of the teardown and it may help minimize any unforeseen issues I may have.

If you want to play it safe/save a buck, either of these would indeed be good options. As I said before, any real world difference (not counting working with large files) should be very minor, and to be entirely honest, I personally think it would be a waste of money to shell out the money for an NVMe drive, as you won't able to use it to it's full potential. (you'd loose about a third of the theoretical performance)

First off the i5 6500 is a very good CPU, however it is an unlocked CPU so it cannot be overclocked and therefore buying the Z170 motherboard in your list is a waste of money. Find yourself an H170 motherboard that you like and that has good reviews, $120 or lower.

Second, you won't be needing a CPU cooler at all if you do not plan on overclocking so the Hyper 212 is a waste of money as the stock Intel cooler will work fine. However if you really want a CPU cooler, I'd say take a look at the Cryorig H7, it's an awesome looking and performing CPU cooler, much better than the Hyper 212 in every way along with a simpler install. But since you are trying to keep it under about $1000, then I strongly recommend not getting any CPU cooler and just use the stock one.

Third, if your only aim is to play games then 8gb of RAM will be perfectly fine, especially for CSGO, H1Z1, and The Division. You can always buy 8gb more RAM later on if you REALLY want 16gb of RAM or decide to start video editing, etc. We can save you some more money here by going with 8gb.

Fourth, I'd like to try and convince you to look at this 240gb PNY SSD. It has very similar read and write speeds to the 850 EVO while being at a $65 price point. The reviews for it are very good and you can save yourself some money there while still having the same performance.

Edit: Changed "under $1000" to "about $1000".

Hi Faith!

The Lenovo Y510p i7 version has that i7 + SLI GPU configuration you mentioned. It has a quad core 4700MQ, 8GB ram, 1TB HDD, GT 755M SLI GPU, 1920x1080 15.6" screen and Windows 8.1. It's certainly the best value in gaming laptops around your budget, and should be able to play all your games at high/ultra settings, according to this benchmark.

We highly recommend getting a cooler for this system, since it does tend to run hot. The Cooler Master X3 should work well with it. In terms of SSDs, if you need high capacity on a budget, the Samsung 840 EVO provides an excellent value. If you're looking for the best performance and reliability, the Samsung 840 PRO universally acclaimed as a very stable and fast SSD.

This is the wrong take, OP didn't ask for best bang for the buck PC, he asked for the best PC.

Cooler: Air is usually cooler and quieter than AIOs, in your machine you want the noctua nh-d15 though.

Your memory is not the best it can be for Ryzen (you want 3200c14 or 3600c16). Remember you have 4 DIMM slots, you can go 4x8 if you want, but I don't think they are cheaper than the 2x16 kits.

3600c16

or

3200c14

I personally have the latter one, Samsung b-die for good overclocking potential.

Storage: Don't put mechanical in this build for the love of god. Your "boot drive" is fine w/ the 860 evo, consider the m.2 version for slight (and I mean slight) performance gains and less wires:

also consider it's bigger brother the 970 Evo

For your "data drive", get a 2tb mx500, If you buy a mechanical drive for this build you will be banned :).

The video card situation is a weird one right now. nVidia keeps the good bins of their cards and sells the rest to AIBs. If you want the best 2080ti, you want the founders edition

But nVidia has probably the worst customer service, and 3rd party cards offer better cooling. It's a decision that's up to you. I personally went with a Founders Edition card for my build (2080 Super though).

Get an 80+ platinum power supply

This is a hot take, but consider a wireless mouse. The offerings today have no lag and gaming without cable drag is fantastic. Some suggestions:
Logitech G Pro Wireless


Logitech G703

The AMD build is better. The intel processor is faster, but for the described usage that is unnecessary. The better integrated graphics of the AMD Apu on the other hand might help with video playback or for small games.

There are two flaws in both builds: The V300 SSD is a scam, don't buy it. Same goes for the case, that is only the windows for the case which is wrongly classified on Amazon. That the psu is overkill is not really a big flaw but I want to have said it – it won't run anywhere near its highest efficiency.

It is also not really overkill. If you want to go lower, there would be basically only AM1:

pc-kombo shared list

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Athlon 5350 APU | EUR 39,42 @ Amazon.de
Motherboard | Asus AM1I-A | EUR 35,49 @ Amazon.de
Memory | Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 (1x8GB) (8 GB) | EUR 28,71 @ Amazon.de
SSD | SanDisk SSD PLUS (128 GB) | EUR 41,70 @ Amazon.de
Case | Sharkoon VS4-V | EUR 31,75 @ Amazon.de
Power Supply | Xilence Performance C XP500 (350 W) | EUR 33,90 @ Cyberport
| Total | €213.96
| Generated by pc-kombo 30.05.2016 |

Have a look at https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_athlon_5350_apu_and_am1_platform_review,17.html to judge whether that is an alternative for you. I rather like those small processors, but it is valid to prefer to have a bit more power even for stuff like Excel and webbrowsers (heavy JS sites are heavy for processors and will be noticeable slower on weaker ones). In any case, even if you prefer to go with the 6400K, you might want to adapt the case, psu and the ssd.

Buy a Crucial P1, it's cheaper and has 500GB, 250GB is really not enough it for gaming unless you have Gbit internet and want to uninstall/download as you wish, but even then.... with games like cod that are up to 120GB... yeah...

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-500GB-NAND-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B07J2WBKXF/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=crucial+p1&qid=1572203616&s=electronics&sr=1-2

For 30$ more you can get 1TB: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-1TB-NAND-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=crucial+p1&qid=1572203616&s=electronics&sr=1-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyWTZOMFhTRkdJNFo4JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjcxMDQ1M1UyN1E0MU8xNzZXSyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUExMDM2NDAyMkszTFM3NDRWVDQ2SyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

And with a cheaper PSU/mobo you can get an RX 580/590 or maybe 1660ti. 570 for 185 is way too expensive anyway.

This PC here would honestly be a lot better, mainly due to higher capacity SSD and the noticeably better GPU) and at the same time cheaper:

[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Dxkgwh)

​

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----

**CPU** | [AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jLF48d/amd-ryzen-5-2600-34ghz-6-core-processor-yd2600bbafbox) | $117.68 @ Amazon

**Motherboard** | [ASRock Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Pq97YJ/asrock-fatal1ty-b450-gaming-k4-atx-am4-motherboard-b450-gaming-k4) | $84.99 @ Amazon

**Memory** | [Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QDhKHx/corsair-vengeance-rgb-pro-16gb-2-x-8gb-ddr4-3200-memory-cmw16gx4m2c3200c16) | $84.99 @ Amazon

**Storage** | [Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/pxKcCJ/crucial-p1-1tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-ct1000p1ssd8) | $95.99 @ Amazon

**Video Card** | [PowerColor Radeon RX 590 8 GB RED DRAGON Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/KFzkcf/powercolor-radeon-rx-590-8-gb-red-dragon-video-card-axrx-590-8gbd5-dhd) | $189.99 @ Amazon

**Case** | [NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6Cyqqs/nzxt-h510-atx-mid-tower-case-ca-h510b-w1) | $69.98 @ Amazon

**Power Supply** | [Corsair CXM 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/R2mxFT/corsair-power-supply-cp9020103na) | $69.98 @ Amazon

**Wireless Network Adapter** | [Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tTdqqs/gigabyte-wireless-network-card-gcwb867di) | $35.52 @ Amazon

| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |

| **Total** | **$749.12**

| Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2019-10-27 15:21 EDT-0400 |

I'm looking to expand the storage on my Dell XPS 9360 (i5 7200u, 8GB RAM) with an M.2 SSD. To be honest the M.2 slot is a pain to wrap my head around, and I wanted to check with you guys if I understood correctly. I have a few questions:

1. SATA vs NVME (I've read that the 9360 is capped at around 1.8Gb/s), would it be worth it to go for the NVME drive?
   
   ​
   
   
2. I'm currently looking at the 970 Evo, but it has an "M key" slot, while in this teardown, the SSD installed seems to be a "B & M key" slot. Would something like the 970 Evo fit?
   
   ​
   
   3)From my (very) limited understanding it seems like the 860 Evo would be a good option, as it has the same connectors and has double storage for the money of the NVME drives. I'm also considering the marginally cheaper WD Blue 3D SSD as this is the one used by the poster of the teardown and it may help minimize any unforeseen issues I may have.
   
   ​
   
   I really hope to get some of you guys's input on this as I really want to make sure I'm making the right buy. Thanks!

I'm a fan of the Sandisk SSD Plus. Very budget friendly but also pretty good. Certainly better than the Kingston V300.

The Samsung one is pretty much best in class though.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FireCuda-Gaming-Accelerated-Performance

Good news I have to have an SAT connector and this has that and I know were 2 TB of storage rooms. If it matters my current computer where the hard drive with the stuff that was built by my brother and he says it has this SATA cable in it. Generally pretty strong computer I think it has 8 MB of RAM I’m not sure about anything Except that I have an Alexa that are use occasionally. We’re supposed to have a really high Internet speeds such as up to 1 TB download for second and upload to 30Mb per second I think

I think everything else is pretty good hand I think it has six or 8 MB of RAM a reasonably good graphics card edit used to have a 1 TB hard drive

Thanks for any help or suggestions. My budget is around $100

I really appreciate your guys generosity of knowledge

Seagate 2 TB solid-state hard drive SATA

Awesome, cannot wait. Hopefully this will work as a proper 2nd HD:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077SQ8J1V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's a SATA m.2...am probably going to drop another $60 or whatever to get 16gb of 2666 sodimm memory as well and just call it. I see it as more of a "desktop that happens to have a portable 17" Freesync monitor in it" than a laptop, and it seems like everybody with that use case is happen.

Can't wait, I spent ages mulling over what PC to get and what specs to get, and this one just stood out at the price and I figured I'd never actually do it if I keep researching endlessly.

As long as it's respectably smooth in most games I'll be fine - it's being super alt-tab friendly that is most appealing.

Thanks for the detailed reply, I really appreciate it. Buying a computer can be a nightmare and it's super re-assuring to hear from somebody actually using it.

Last question, hopefully you don't mind - I've read that the RAM speed varies by build; if it has 2400 stock and I add 2666 to it in the extra 2 slots, does that cause any issues?

It definitely would be, but you are paying extra for the form and ability to easily change the internal drive.

Honestly, get the 1TB version, and replace the 1TB drive with your own SSD.
I would go with that and either the 120GB or 256GB version of this.

That way you've got an extra 1TB drive that you can either sell or use having spent an extra $17 for it, or you've saved $81 and lost 120GB of space that you didn't need anyway.


It looks like a very nice and strong enclosure, and the drive being easy to change means buying it and replacing the drive yourself is a very viable option, unlike the smaller drives.

Yeah. For example, You can get Asus M32 pre-built from Amazon for 399$. Its a rig with i5-6400, 8GB of RAM, 1TB 7200 HDD, and Windows 10 bundled. Also has basic keyboard and mouse. The case is kinda meh, but it has 80mm exhaust fan, and Skylake CPUs are very cool running anyway. A perfect fit for it would actually be a reference RX 480 - because of blower cooler design, it will not cause a buildup of heat inside the case, and thus the subpar airflow is not much of an issue.

So, thats 399$ for the rig, 199$ for RX 480 4GB version, and 40$ for a decent 600w power supply. You don't actually need 600w for that rig - but PSU is a good investment, watts don't get obsolete so you can re-use it in the future, and 500-400w units are not that much cheaper anyway. Thats 650$ in total for a rig with i5, 8GB of RAM, RX 480 - a perfect set-up for 1080p gaming.

You can then buy a VX2257-MHD - which is a 1080p-60Hz monitor with FreeSync. Thats another 150$.

So, we have a fully working gaming rig now, for 800$. Which means - there is still 100$ free in the budget. So, 240GB SSD for 65$ is an obvious choice at this point.

Total cost ~865$. For a rig that can max out pretty much any game at 1080p, with FreeSync.

This is more or less how you do it.

First of all if you are looking into quality SSD's for your build I can't recommend the Samsung 840 enough, plus it comes with some great brand agnostic SSD optimization software: SSD magician

If you want to use the SSD as a boot disc for Windows as well as certain programs the best thing to do is (once the rest of the computer is built) install only the SSD first and boot your computer with the Windows installation disc in your DVD drive. With only the SSD installed in the case (by installed I mean connected at all, leave the HDD in it's packaging for the time being.) the Windows installer will give you only an option to install onto your SSD. From here just follow the prompts like any other windows install.

Once Windows is installed install the aforementioned SSD magician and run all the OS optimization functions it provides. This will ensure that windows will utilize your SSD properly and not damage it. Once you do that install any drivers/games/programs/etc that you want and shutdown your computer.

Now, take your HDD out of it's packaging and install it the same way you installed your SSD. (make sure that while installing your HDD you do not disrupt the cables connected to your SSD) Once you are sure everything is connected correctly put your case back together and boot your computer again.

Once you arrive at the desktop (which if your SSD is configured properly should take aprox 45 seconds from a cold boot) check My Computer for your HDD. It will be displayed in the same manner that any external drive will appear in my computer. If it is not there you will have to check Drive Manager to debug it's non-detect ability. However, that is not terribly likely so for the sake of time I will assume that Windows will mount it automatically.

Mine hasn't failed (thankfully) but I've recently learned of another SSD that might work.

Link

I don't actually have this one and just heard about it in this sub so I would do more research to make sure that it does fit though Amazon has a pretty good return policy. Best of luck.

This isn't a big deal, but personally I would upgrade from that SATA SSD to an NVMe SSD. You can get an NVMe SSD for the same size for roughly the same price, but the NVMe SSD has nearly quadruple the speed of the SATA SSD. (do note, not all usecases will make use of these speeds, at extreme speeds a lot of processes become CPU bottlenecked instead of storage-bottlenecked. But storage-intensive processes like photo/video editing will get major benefit from it.)

If you are OK paying $5 extra, the SX8200 Pro is an excellent NVMe SSD.

Pretty much everything else in your build looks good, albeit possibly a little overkill(?) Nothing wrong with overkill, so long as you don't mind spending extra on it. Probably consider getting some higher mhz ram, the sweetspot for Ryzen 3000 is 3600mhz. Also the motherboard, it is fine for a 3700x, but for a 3900x maybe consider something a little nicer.

Hi, I believe you're in the wrong subreddit for this. While not a datahoarder myself (except for that happy NAS I own in RAID 1, hehe), I'll do my best to explain.

​

A normal mechanical hard drive is just that, a spinning platter (or more than one platter). Speeds will be slow compared to an SSD, but they work much better when reading large sets of data. Hard drives come in two common speeds (there are more, but you'll encounter these two likely): 5400rpm and 7200rpm. If getting a normal hard drive, always always get the 7200rpm or faster one. 5400rpm hard drives are extremely slow for today's standards and are better off used for archival rather than daily use.

A hybrid hard drive, on the other hand, is a normal hard drive with an SSD cache space (of normally either 8GB or 16GB). When data is written or read from the disk, a special algorithm on the disk pushes the most commonly read items into the SSD cache, giving you potentially faster read speeds. Note that despite it being around 4x faster than a normal HDD, you'll never hit the speed of any SSD.

So for your use case, I recommend either getting a 7200rpm 2.5" hard drive (which is sort of okay) or a hybrid 2.5" hard drive. Your write speeds will be slow but your subsequent read speeds will be better. I'll link examples below:


Normal mechanical hard drive: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Performance-Mobile-Hard-Drive/dp/B01DOL05OC/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=hard+drive&qid=1557484304&refinements=p_n_feature_keywords_two_browse-bin%3A6799355011%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_three_browse-bin%3A4990425011&rnid=4990422011&s=pc&sr=1-3

​

Hybrid hard drive: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FireCuda-Gaming-Accelerated-Performance/dp/B07H2F3741/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=hard+drive+hybrid&qid=1557484381&s=electronics&sr=1-4

​

Hope this helps, I'm not the most knowledgeable but this is what I know.

What is the largest file size you're loading in Solidworks? You will really only see a benefit of a Gen4 NVME if you're loading very large files, and very often.

Gen4 NVME's and modern high end SSD's perform very similarly in file access times, and there is no difference in file access times on a Gen4 NVME vs. a Gen3 NVME vs. an SSD. Honestly, you could put all the files on my SSD that I have on my NVME, and in 99% of the cases I wouldn't be able to tell you which drive I'm loading from, because it's so uncommon that applications are bottlenecked by storage bandwidth.

Depending on what you're doing in Solidworks, you will likely be better served by budgeting more towards a 32GB kit (2x16GB) of RAM, and getting a Gen3x4 NVME (an Adata XPG 8200 is a great mid-tier NVME that will likely do everything you'd expect from fast storage for Solidworks)

Also, the 5700 XT performs the same on a PCI-E 2.0 slot as it would on a PCI-E 4.0 slot, in fact even a 2080 Ti only loses 2-3 FPS at 4K on PCI-E 2.0. GPU's are just nowhere near needing the extra bandwidth.

I understand wanting to be up-to-date with a new build, but X570 is currently a very niche platform for people who need GOBS of storage bandwidth. Unless you have an endless budget, the way to get the most out of Zen2 is to go as completely overkill on the cooling as you can afford first, and then consider the motherboard second. Even most B450 boards will have the same boost frequency as an X570, simply because the VRM's aren't what's limiting Zen2 in most cases, it's the cooling.

If you have the budget for it, obviously a high end X570 and a high end AIO water cooler or open loop is great. However, if you'd like to save money and reallocate for the best performance, you can use a lower tier X570 in order to move more of your budget to water cooling, and you'll see the same performance as the high end X570.

Just some suggestions for getting the most out of Zen2 for your hard earned cash!

Get a 860 evo Crucial MX500 500GB m.2 ssd instead of the 960 you've chosen. I think you'll get a 500gb for less than the price of a 960 250gb. Either case, if you still decide to get 250gb, you'll save something. Also, as others have said, get a good 50-80$ air cooler instead of the NZXT you have chosen. Id recommend Noctua u12s, though check case clearances. Personally though, I won't recommend getting any other cooler other than the stock Wraith Stealth if you are new to PC building/tuning. The stock can boost it to 3.9 ghz on 1-2 cores, which should be enough.

If you drop the aio and get a 250gb 860 evo, you may as well upgrade to a Vega 56 and get a hdd. Upgrading yopur GPU will give you much more frames than oc'ing your 2600. You should be able to snag a Vega 56 for a good deal if you'll monitor r/Amd or r/buildapcsales . Also, the Vega 56 should last considerably longer than the 580 and you'll still get 3 free games with it. The rest of the build is pretty good.

Also, good on you for getting a quality psu :)

Good choice on the cpu. It is fantastic for gaming but you are paying for the K at the end.

You probably know already, but if you do not, intel's K series have an unlocked core multiplier meaning you can easily over clock them.

But in order to do so safely, you will need an aftermarket cooler. I suggest the CM-212 Plus. If you don't plan on the overclock, the locked core i5-2500 saves you a little bit.

I have that ram, and its great but if i did it again I would go with something like Crucial Ballistix which have better timings.

And finally, I would highly suggest the crucial m4 of Plextor m3 instead of the corsair.

EDIT: Here is my go-to $600USD list which might equate to around the price you are looking for.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i3-2120 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor | $116.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | ASRock Z77 Pro3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard | $102.55 @ Newegg
Memory | Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $41.99 @ Amazon
Hard Drive | Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk | $118.99 @ eCost
Video Card | XFX Radeon HD 6870 2GB Video Card | $179.99 @ Newegg
Case | Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case | $49.99 @ SuperBiiz
Power Supply | Antec 450W ATX12V Power Supply | $34.98 @ Amazon
| | Total
| Prices include shipping and discounts when available. | $645.48

You could go for the Hyper 212 for slightly less and you could save on the SSD or ditch it which if I'm honest is definitely the best option. SSDs are a luxury not a necessity. At least IMHO.
You could stand to wait for Haskell you're not going to lose anything except gaming time.
I have the Fractal R4 and love it. Spending money on a good case is never wasted as you can always use a good case again. I plan to keep mine for many future builds. Read the reviews on it.

Have you installed an OS before? It isn't hard and Microsoft will walk you through it step by step. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 . Do you still have the windows 10 key for your laptop? It's usually on a sticker on the bottom. If not it will still probably be fine. Microsoft should recognize your motherboard and let you activate without the key.

And I don't know what model laptop you have, but here's the gist of what you would need to do to fix it yourself https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/HP+Omen+15-ax280nd+Hard+Drive+Replacement/78582 .

You can probably find a guide like this for your specific laptop. You just need to get a hold of whatever tools you need for disassembly. Probably just a small screwdriver. And buy a new 2.5" hard drive or SSD. Make sure to get a 2.5", 3.5" is bigger and for desktops. And if you want to upgrade your laptop, you could drop a few extra bucks on an SSD like this https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Power-Performance-Internal-SP512GBSS3A55S25/dp/B07997QV4Z/ref=sxin_2_ac_d_pm?ac_md=2-1-QmV0d2VlbiAkNTAgYW5kICQxMDA%3D&keywords=ssd&pd_rd_i=B07997QV4Z&pd_rd_r=8c8ec285-e5ed-4056-b88d-6dd584a83a66&pd_rd_w=oWMGp&pd_rd_wg=Ncqs3&pf_rd_p=64aaff2e-3b89-4fee-a107-2469ecbc5733&pf_rd_r=SMWN86TBJ3JAJH967WW6&qid=1564678407&s=gateway . It makes the computer feel faster. It'll boot up quicker, programs will open faster, and the computer will just feel more snappy when you click stuff. Shouldn't have a big affect on gaming performance besides making load times shorter.

Best of luck, hope you get this sorted.

I'm not sure which country you're coming from but the links suggest france so I'm assuming as much :)

I wouldn't spend quite so much on the ram. There's not really a need to do one single 4GB stick when two 2GB are cheaper, something like two of these can save you a few bucks and work just as well. The M4 is also a little cheaper from Amazon though both are higher than you see in the states. I'm not sure if SSD's over there act like they do here, but if they do we are seeing sales on the M4 weekly so it could be worth waiting.

So you're looking at about 50EU for the ram and another 110 for the M4 for a grand total of 160€.

Fantastic. Multiple options. I prefer to use money I had saved in Paypal.

Amazon makes it feel like a better deal! ;) lol

Amazon Link

• List Price: $849.99
  
• Price: $469.00 & FREE Shipping. Details
  
• You Save: $380.99 (45%)

2200 build list
CPU- http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Boxed-I7-6700K-Processor-BX80662I76700K/dp/B012M8LXQW/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458134248&sr=1-1&keywords=i7+6700k
Price- $410

\Motherboard- http://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUS-VIII-HERO-ALPHA-Motherboards/dp/B017RI8UYA/ref=sr_1_19?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458134314&sr=1-19&keywords=lga+1151+motherboard
Price- $300

PSU- http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperNOVA-Modular-Warranty-120-G1-0750-XR/dp/B00K85X2A2/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458138651&sr=1-4&keywords=Psu&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011
Price- $90

GPU- http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Cooling-Graphics-06G-P4-1996-KR/dp/B00Z0UX8TA/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458138400&sr=1-5&keywords=gtx+980+ti
Price- $700

250 GB SSD- http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E250B-AM/dp/B00OAJ412U/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458138522&sr=1-1&keywords=SSd
Price- $90

500gb M.2 SSd- http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-EVO-3-5-Inch-MZ-N5E500BW/dp/B00TGIW1XG/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458138908&sr=1-5&keywords=m.2+ssd
Price- $160

You can use either option they are both good but the M.2 is my recomendation

RAM- http://www.amazon.com/G-SKILL-TridentZ-PC4-24000-Platform-F4-3000C15D-16GTZ/dp/B017QI1V74/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458138836&sr=1-9&keywords=ddr4+3000
Price- $120

CPU Cooler- http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Hydro-Liquid-Cooler-CW-9060010-WW/dp/B009VV56TY/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458138978&sr=1-8&keywords=cpu+cooler
Price- $110

3 TB HDD- http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000DM003/dp/B005T3GRNW/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1458139072&sr=1-2&keywords=hdd
Price- $90

My favorite gaming keyboard but its up to you. It doesn’t have any fancy side buttons just a great feel and excellent build quality- http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-Mechanical-Gaming-Keyboard/dp/B00CD1FC6G
Price- $150

total $2130 without the case or windows or optical drive

let me know where it is you would like to go fro here? Is there anything you want to add or take out we can revise this build a couple of times

"Revit Server" is an application that sits on a Windows Server 2012 R2 system to help keep large Revit projects in sync with many designers working at the same time. From what I've read, this is a requirement to keep files synced between multiple designers if any designers are offsite. There appears to be some debate on Revit forums if it's a necessity/requirement for even local groups, if there's a large-number of designers on the same project/server.

The alternative is simply a central File Share that can sit on a NAS device. QNAP and Synology are my 2 goto pre-built brands for small work-group NAS. If the local network is fast enough (i.e. all designers on wired gigabit, not high latency or unreliable wifi), it looks like a central file share is enough for most small teams. Looks like this is the approach by most teams on the same site of less that 10 designers.

It's important to realize that just centralizing files in a Revit Server or a NAS are NOT backups. That's live files you are editing. You'll still want a backup solution. In it's simplest form, a large external USB for the offline backup of your NAS. A more elegant and automated solution would be a second small 2-bay (i.e. cheaper) NAS to backup to remotely. Or even automated Cloud backups if that's your thing.

Onto the parts detail help. If you are just looking for simple, centralized storage NAS: There are now pure SSD solutions. QNAP has the TBS-452A you can fill it with 4x 500GB or 4x 1TB SSDs, giving you 1.5TB or 3TB of RAID 5 storage on your network.

Here's the QNAP TBS-453A SSD NAS shopping list:
------------------------------------------------------------

• $450 - QNAP TBS-453A-4G-US - [B&H Photo] (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1249544-REG/qnap_tbs_453a_4g_us_tbs_453a_4_bay_m_2_nasbook.html) / Amazon
  
• $40 - 8GB RAM Kit - Amazon
  
  ... Storage Capacity Options ...
  
  
• $640 - 1TB (RAID10 or RAID6) or 1.5TB (RAID5) - 4x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB - $170 each - Amazon
  
  or
  
  
• $1040 - 2TB (RAID10 or RAID6) or 3TB (RAID5) - - 4x SanDisk X400 1TB - $260 each - Amazon
  
  
  
  2nd NAS for Backup (Onsite or Offsite):
  
  
• $310 - QNAP TS-251+ - Amazon
  
• $480 - 6TB (RAID1) - 2x WD Red 6TB Drive - $240 each - Amazon
  
  
  
  
  -------------------------------------
  
  *Quick RAID Primer:
  
  

• RAID 5 - 1 drive can fail and you keep running fine. Some processor overhead and added latency for the parity calculations. Capacity is Total Space minus 1 Drive's Capacity
  
• RAID 6 - 2 drives can fail and you keep running fine. Some processor overhead and added latency for the parity calculations. Capacity is Total Space minus 2 Drive's Capacity
  
• RAID 1 - Limited to 2 Drives total. 1 drive can fail and you keep running fine. Almost no latency and processor overhead. Capacity is half Total Space.
  
• RAID 10 - 1 drive can fail and you keep running fine. Almost no latency and processor overhead. Capacity is half Total Space.
  
  ___
  
  
  
  If you actually want a "Revit Server" full Windows Server 2012 R2 Application server, then you are looking at something with far more involved software setup and maintenance. You may want the help of a local freelance Windows Server Sysadmin to get it all configured and maintained. If you are looking for a parts-list for something like that, let me know.

Considering what's on the market right now as far as external SSD's I couldn't really recommend getting one at all. However, that doesn't mean you can't have one. Your best bet is to buy an internal SSD and put it in a compatible enclosure and BAM! you have yourself an external SSD that is more reliable than anything on the market right now. Here's what I'd suggest:

Hard Drive: Crucial M4 2.5" 128GB SATA III Internal SSD - $110

Enclosure: BYTECC Aluminum 2.5" Black USB 3.0 External Enclosure - $20

Total price is going to be $130 (both items have free shipping!) and you just follow the instructions (it's a tooless install, so it's really simple) and you have yourself a great external SSD for cheap.

Now, if for some reason you're still shaky on the whole internal SSD and enclosure there's always this for $146, but it only has 2 reviews and they're mixed so it's a total gamble. I still highly recommend the internal with the enclosure though.

One last thing though: If you want to get a different hard drive for the enclosure make sure it's a 2.5" and uses SATA (preferably SATA III for best speeds).


Edit: Found the SSD cheaper on amazon. Link: Hard Drive

The HP's screen is probably much better: IPS on the HP vs TN (check the reviews on the Dell site). You're also right to be concerned about battery life, the HP has a slightly smaller battery, 61 Wh vs 74 Wh. I'd expect about 5 hours on the HP to 6 hours on the Dell, but that's just an educated guess.

Honestly, unless you can afford to upgrade the Dell's screen, I'd go for the HP for the screen and savings. You can even put the money saved towards an SSD and swap out the hard drive; that is a upgrade that can make miles of difference compared to anything else you can reasonably change about these two models. For example: SSD

EDIT: It looks like the laptops actually have two storage slots. You also have the option of adding in an SSD into the second slot like this one and installing Windows onto it, while keeping the 1 TB HDD as storage for videos, games, etc.

If you'd like to read more about the HP here. This has last year's 960M graphics card, but it looks like everything else about it is the same.

Yes its a NVME...from what Ive seen its a pretty decent one. Not as fast as a Samsung 970...but its better than a cheap one. My experience with NVME is the larger the capacity the faster they are. Because they can dedicate more cache space. There are some very interesting vids on how they work and store data. Its not like anything else.

Since there is a 2nd slot you can add more space down the road. There are also USB 3.0 enclosures for the NVME drives, so you can get a super small 1-2 TB external thats very fast.

I have this enclosure - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MLJ7FRD/

and this drive - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J2Q4SWZ

Im super impressed using it as an external.

If you ask a question, and someone answers it correctly, reply with a thank you, but include this checkmark: ✓ ( or if you cannot enter Unicode, use !check instead )

This will score the user whose comment you replied to a 'point'. Currently the points will unlock special flair that will show in all Daily Simple Questions threads.

This should be working, hopefully

In case you missed it, click here for yesterday's Daily Simple Questions thread.
There may be some questions still unanswered! Below are a selection of questions with no replies. See if you can help them out.

If you don't want to see this comment click the little [-] to the left of my username to collapse this comment.

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> Hi, I have the 2017 Gigabyte Aero 14 with the i7-7700 and GTX 1060.
>
> The hard drive is a SATA Crucial MX300 525GB M.2 (2280), which claims reads/writes up to 530 / 510 MB/s.
>
> Gigabytes web site says the following: Blazing-fast M.2 PCIe Gen3 X4 SSD: Reach 2000 MB/s (optional)
>
> I am considering swapping to a Samsung 970 PRO ($240 USD) NVMe Series 512GB M.2 PCI-Express 3.0 x4, which claims it can reach read speeds up to 3500 MB/s and writes up to 2700 MB/s.
>
> Will I see the full potential of this drive in this laptop, or will I be limited to the 2000 MB/s mentioned by Gigabyte? I suspect that number (2000 MB/s) might just be if you buy it with the upgraded drive right from Gigabyte, instead of swapping yourself.
>
> Other options would be the Samsung 970 EVO ($168 USD - Read 3500 MB/s, Write 2500 MB/s), the Samsung 960 PRO ($200 USD - Read 3500 MB/s, Write 2100 MB/s), or the Samsung 960 EVO ($155 USD - Read 3200 MB/s, Write 1900 MB/s)
>
> Will I notice any difference at all with the 970 PRO vs EVO? I do some gaming, video editing, and photo editing with my laptop.
>
> I'm trying to stay around the $200 USD mark... Are there any other considerations I should take into account?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5w07eg/

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> Anyone have any ideas outside of overclocking to get more frames out of your system without reducing settings. And without buying a 2000 series card, or a second 1080ti.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5w5a27/

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> I'm looking to expand the storage on my Dell XPS 9360 (i5 7200u, 8GB RAM) with an M.2 SSD. To be honest the M.2 slot is a pain to wrap my head around, and I wanted to check with you guys if I understood correctly. I have a few questions:
>
>
> 1) SATA vs NVME (I've read that the 9360 is capped at around 1.8Gb/s), would it be worth it to go for the NVME drive?
>
> ​
>
> 2) I'm currently looking at the 970 Evo, but it has an "M key" slot, while in this teardown, the SSD installed seems to be a "B & M key" slot. Would something like the 970 Evo fit?
>
> ​
>
> 3)From my (very) limited understanding it seems like the 860 Evo would be a good option, as it has the same connectors and has double storage for the money of the NVME drives. I'm also considering the marginally cheaper WD Blue 3D SSD as this is the one used by the poster of the teardown and it may help minimize any unforeseen issues I may have.
>
> ​
>
> I really hope to get some of you guys's input on this as I really want to make sure I'm making the right buy. Thanks!

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5w5d47/

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> My laptop just died, which gives me an excuse to finally get a desktop. I was wondering about whether I should build my own mid-sized tower through /r/HarswareSwapUK or to just buy a Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q (Tiny) that, as the name implies, is extremely small. As I'm in uni, portability is a factor, but only whilst travelling back home. I reckon the price difference is around £100/$140. I'm looking at using cloud-based gaming services at the moment (have access to GeForce NOW) so the lack of a discrete GPU won't affect me right now, but that might change in the future. Also, I'll be running some fairly intensive code. Should I build the tower or just buy the Tiny PC? Sorry for being so long-winded about this.
>
> TL;DR - Can't choose between tiny and large PC.
>
> Edit: Typo.

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5wbblr/

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> I need to move apartment and going to sell the PC and make a new one. Thinking of going ultrawide. What is your personal (not hearsay) opinion on ultrawide monitos for non-shooter games (RPG/MMO/RTS)? I never play the usual suspects like Fortnite/CSGO/DOTA, but instead play Tycoons, RTS, FFXIV, ESO, Witcher, etc

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5wcfj0/

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> My brothers pc is constantly crashing, the error message lead us to think it was a problem with a program or windows, so we tried to reinstall Windows from a usb. However, we are unable to format the drive, remove partitions, and install or repair windows. It is possible to boot into the current install of windows. Is this due to a faulty hard drive? What can we do to fix this?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5witn1/

----

> Has anyone here put a Corsair Commander Pro in a hard drive cage? Is there enough room to comfortably connect cables on both ends?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5wkgdk/

----

> I'm looking at the Lian-Li case for my new PC and I'm trying to figure out the airflow set up as I'm use to having:
>
> Front: Intake
>
> Top (aoi radiator): intake
>
> Back: I Outake
>
> I noticed that the lian-li case doesn't have a rear fan set up so I was thinking something like:
>
> Front: intake
>
> Top(Aoi radiator): intake
>
> Bottom(3 120mm fans): outtake.
>
> With the PSU pointing out
>
> Or is that not good as the bottom would sit to low on the ground?

/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9f83mp/daily_simple_questions_thread_sep_12_2018/e5uzn9z/

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There's a few things, first of all Intel K series cpu's don't come with a cooler in the box, so you will need one. A good (but pricey) cpu cooler is the Noctua NH-D15. If you would like something more affordable the Cryorig H7 will work, although the temps will be higher than the former.

Yes, all desktop ram will fit into all desktop motherboards (sodimm or laptop ram will not).

The hard drive you selected doesen't have great reviews, for $8 more you can get a [WD Blue](https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Cache-Desktop-Drive-WD10EZEX/dp/B0088PUEPK

/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1537074431&sr=1-1&keywords=western+digital+-+caviar+blue+1tb+3.5%22+7200rpm+internal+hard+drive) or a Seagate Barracudda, both more reputable.

The cases you linked are good for their price, but you will most likely need 1-2 more case fans as they only come with 1. If you would like some cheap fans these will do, but they wont be as good as something like the Noctua NF-F12

Dont worry about asking questions! It's what we are here for :) I'm sure I missed something, so if you have any other questions make sure to ask!

Edit 1: Do you already have windows? If not make sure to but it, as you wont have an Operation System without it (Unless you want to run linux).

if you have some extra cash at all, the best thing to do would be to get a small SSD to put the OS and few most used programs/games on that, and use the other drive for storage. not only is the speed improvement mindboggling, it will be very easy to reinstall and wipe to your hearts content. amazon is having a sale on the samsung 840 pro series, which is one of the fastest and best models around. you can use steam mover to swap games between the two drives at will.

Instead of the 970 M.2 I would recommend the Adata XPG SX8200, it's still 1TB and crazy good performance for almost $100 less. Toms Hardware has done extensive research on various SSDs and recommends the Adata as the best overall. I love it in my build, just like how I love the Royal Trident ram in my build as well, if its in your budget I would upgrade to the 3200 ram as well.

I agree with u/Wirthless, definitely upgrade the PSU to at least a 700/750, since you're running a 2080 and i9. The bronze rating is the only thing I would hesitate about the one you chose. Seasonic is awesome, but go with their Focus line, which has a gold rating. Otherwise good build!

No problems, sorry I couldnt find one on Amazon... the closest I got was 690$ for a T420. The other option is to drop back to Core2Duo and get a T400, i know this is isn't a great option, but thinkpads really are bullet proof! They have the high res panel for Cheap on Amazon then with the leftover 175 bucks buy:

• 4GB RAM making 6GB total
  
• 128GB SSD for increased performance
  
• Put the 320GB in HD Caddy for movies/music etc
  
  So for ~550$ all off Amazon you can get a pretty nicely specced up new condition T400, which will comfortably perform what you want it too.
  
  EDIT: Also has the 9-cell battery so will run for a good 6-10hrs with power management

Best bang for the buck RAM would be the following 8GB stick for $30.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC4-19200-SODIMM-260-Pin/dp/B01BIWKP58/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=8gb+DDR4+2400+sodimm+ram&qid=1574745422&sr=8-3

The best bang for the buck m.2 PCIe NVMe SSD would be the following Crucial P1 1TB SSD for $96. If that is too much, then the WD Blue 500GB SSD (in previous post) would be better.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=twister_B07J5Q6SDH?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

​

A 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD typically sell for around $120 (2nd tier brand). or $150 (1st tier brand). The reason why the Crucial P1 (tier 1 brand) is less than $100 is because it lacks some hardware for the SSD to reach it's full potential. It is still a lot faster than the hard drive and a lot faster than a 2.5" SATA SSD as well. Additionally, what you plan on doing with the laptop does not require you to have the highest performance SSD.

Well, uhh, you might be able to get it for $129 if you don't mind going to a little extra trouble and ordering from an office supply store instead of Newegg.

Staples has the M4 for $158, but they'll pricematch to Amazon who has it for $149. So why not just get it from Amazon then? Well, Amazon doesn't happen to take $30 off $150 purchase coupons like Staples does, so that'll knock you down to $129. It's been bouncing between in and out of stock since I last bought my 64GB M4 last Friday, but you should be able to catch it sometime soon. If you ask me though, I think getting 2 currently-in-stock 64GB M4s at $82 - $25 off $75 each ($57) is a gosh darn steal if you can stomach not having a continuous block of space.

Oh, and if all that is too much fuss, I hear Newegg has the 120GB Mushkin Chronos Enhanced for $125, and it's also pretttty good.

Wish I could afford more, guess I'll just have to be happy with a scrawny M4 boot drive this Wednesday.

Amazon 500GB: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-860-SATA-Internal-MZ-N6E1T0BW/dp/B078218TWQ?th=1

​

BnH is $2 more but you save tax, well for most of us:

500GB: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1382503-REG/samsung_mz_n6e500bw_860_evo_512gb_internal.html

1TB: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1382504-REG/samsung_mz_n6e1t0bw_860_evo_1tb_internal.html


If NewEgg is your thing (thanks GrayOctopus):
500GB: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147677
1TB: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147678

NE has started charging tax as of late in quite a few states though. So pick your eggs wisely!

​

Further addendum. Samsung.com has pretty much the same prices 1TB:
https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/ssd-860-evo-m-2-sata-1tb-mz-n6e1t0bw/

I do not have Samsung EPP, but can someone who has EPP account check if they are getting additional discount?

​

For gaming, generally you'll want a cheaper SSD, as game load times get significantly diminishing returns from increasing SSD performance.

Something like an Adata su800 for $95 is great if you really want to keep down costs.

There are other good choices that are somewhat better like the Western Digital Blue 3d, or the Crucial MX500, but they're also more expensive in the $110-130 range.

For $160 you could get the adata xpg sx8200 pro which is a relatively recently released nvme drive that rivals the popular samsung 970 Evo for the price of the much lower performance 860 Evo.

The biggest reason you'd want a more expensive drive is if you're often transferring files, especially large files. The higher transfer rates can save you quite a bit of time if you're doing a lot of moving.

But if you're just occasionally installing a new game and most just playing them? You probably want something cheap.

It'll fit, but this is a better drive for less money.

An NVME drive is pointless unless you're going to be transferring huge files. Since you're only buying a 500GB drive, it doesn't seem likely that you'll be working with huge video files or something like that. As a boot drive and general program drive, the increased theoretical speed of NVME doesn't gain you anything because you're dealing with lots of small files and NVME only shines with individual huge files. An NVME drive will boot windows less than 1 second faster than a SATA drive.

$130 - Sennheiser HD 599 SE Special Edition, Black

$130 - Sennheiser HD 4.50 Special Edition, Bluetooth Wireless Headphone with Active Noise Cancellation, Black

​

$541 - HKC 34'' (3440x1440p) 21:9 Ultrawide 100hz Curved Freesync VA Panel 8ms GTG Rebranded Viotek GN34C, I think it's a Samsung CF791 Panel

$870 - Samsung LC34J791WTNXZA 34" 3440x1440 100Hz QLED 21:9 VA Freesync Thunderbolt 3

$115 - ViewSonic VX2257-MHD 22 Inch 75Hz 2ms 1080p TN

$650 - Samsung 32" QLED 1440p 144Hz HDR 600 WQHD Curved Gaming Monitor Freesync 2 VA

$315 - LG 27GL650F-B 27" 144hz IPS HDR 10 Freesync

$165 - AOPEN 24HC1QR Pbidpx 23.6" 1080p 144hz 1800R Curved FreeSync 4ms VA

$320 - AOPEN 32HC1QUR Pbidpx 31.5" (2560x1440) 144Hz 1800R Curved VA 4ms Freesync Ships within 1-3 months

$260 - ViewSonic VX3276-2K-MHD 32 Inch 1440p IPS Frameless

​

$270 - AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

$765 - AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X

​

$200 - Toshiba X300 8TB Hard Drive 7200 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5 Inch

$120 - Toshiba NAS N300 4TB NAS 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive- SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 128MB

$315 - Toshiba NAS N300 10TB NAS 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive- SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 256MB

$80 - Seagate FireCuda 2TB SSHD 2.5 Inch SATA

$57/96/186 - XPG GAMMIX 256/512GB/1TB S11 Pro 3D NAND PCIe NVMe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 SSD

$106 - Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD

$107 - Crucial BX500 960GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-Inch Internal SSD

$242 - Crucial MX500 2TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch SSD

$104 - Toshiba Canvio Advance 4TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0, White

$120 - WD Elements 6TB USB 3.0 External HDD Color Black WDBWLG0060HBK-NESN

$95 - Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5" SATA III SSD

​

$81 - Ballistix Sport LT 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR4 3000 MT/s (PC4-24000) CL15 SR Gray

$137 - Ballistix Elite 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 3600 MT/s (PC4-28800) CL16 SR Ships within 1-2 months

$73 - Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 3000 CL16 Black Non-prime, ships within 1-3 months

​

Other Components

$110 - DEEPCOOL Castle 240 RGB Liquid CPU Cooler Non-prime

$170 - Corsair H115i 280mm RGB Platinum AIO Liquid CPU Cooler

$35 - Deepcool RF120 3-Pack 120mm RGB PWM Fans with Fan Hub and Extension Non-prime

$805 - ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Twin Fan 8GB

$198 - Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO ATX Motherboard

$120 - Corsair RM750x 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular ATX PSU CP-9020179-NA

$170 - Corsair HX850i High Performance 80+ Platinum Fully Modular ATX PSU

$60 - Corsair Fan Controller Commander Pro CL-9011110-WW

​

$33 - Logitech G602 Wireless Gaming Mouse

$40 - Logitech G403 Prodigy Wired Gaming Mouse

$50 - Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum RGB Tunable Gaming Mouse

$50 - Razer DeathAdder Elite: True 16,000 5G Optical Sensor

$64 - SteelSeries Rival 600 Gaming Mouse, 12,000 CPI TrueMove3+ Dual Optical Sensor

$55 - Logitech MX Master 2S Wireless Mouse, Graphite Ships within 1-2 months

$22 - NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch

$25 - HyperX Double Shot Black & White Pudding PBT Keycaps - 104 Mechanical Keycap Set for Cherry MX

$30 - Corsair mm350 Anti-Fray Cloth Gaming Mouse Pad Extended XL

$10.50 - SteelSeries QcK Gaming Surface - Medium Cloth

$23 - SteelSeries QcK Gaming Surface - Medium Hard

$135 - Razer Huntsman: Opto-Mechanical Switch

$55 - Logitech C920 Webcam HD Pro (960-000764)

​

$10.91 - AmazonBasics AAA High-Capacity Rechargeable Batteries (8-Pack) Pre-charged 850mAh

$12.48 - AmazonBasics AAA Rechargeable Batteries (12-Pack) 800mAh

$18.89 - AmazonBasics AA High-Capacity Rechargeable Batteries (8-Pack) Pre-charged 2400mAh

$1.49 - Oreos and other snacks :)

People will tell you to stick with a more trustworthy brand (like a Samsung EVO) but I personally have the PNY 240 and it's worked perfectly for me.

Honestly, I would spluge for 240 as I currently am sitting at around ~120gb filled of just primary applications and a few games (Overwatch and Dark Souls) installed for speed (I use my 2tb Barracuda for the bulk of my Steam library). I also use this for programming/Web Development, so I definitely appreciate the extra room.

If you're just going to be doing basic web-browsing/word-processing, a 120 is totally fine; if you want to throw a few games on there get the 240 and you won't regret it.

I like this idea, but can't justify buying more than one of these right now. http://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-Internal-Solid-State-2-5-Inch/dp/B00E3W16OU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1427522722&sr=8-3&keywords=ssd+1tb+samsung

Even if I can find a better price, which I know I can.

Good to know that the GTX 680 would be a better fit. My tech guy was looking into it and told me the 7970 has a different number of pins.

The 850 is one of the top drives for TLC-memory SSDs. Usually, the read/write speeds tend to decrease as price lowers. To get better performance, most TLC SSDs have a buffer cache to get better read/write speeds. The difference is between SSDs, in my opinion, is pretty much unnoticeable is normal use. The jump from mechanical HDD is what matters.

Some good entry-level SSDs are the ADATA SP550, Transcend 370 or Sandisk Ultra II and a direct competitor to the 850 EVO, the Crucial MX200

If you want good value for space and performance, the MyDigitalSSD BP5e offers that.

HDD is better "dollar value," SSD is dramatically better performance for load times, general feel, etc. But if value is most important, you can get 3TBs for < $100, easily.

If you don't need space, this is the best 250 GB SDD for < $100.

Or both: SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB + Seagate 1TB BarraCuda for roughly $98.

Looking at cheap SSD's for a friend. I have came across the ADATA SP550 (240GB) a few times and it seems the cheapest around. Most reviews seem to agree that it has its failings but none that would impact greatly on an everyday/gaming PC. Just wondering if anyone has used them before and how they found them.

Most places also recommend the Samsung 850 for the budget SSD but the ADATA id £60 vs £87 for the 850.

EDIT: Also noticed the WD Green SSDs any good or aimed more at office use?

If you're getting another platter drive, just about any 7200rpm drive will do. The Western Digital WD10EZEX is cheap, reliable, and benchmarks at around 160MB/s. That would be fine for recording 1080p 60fps.

If you're getting SSDs for your OS/games disk, I've used both the Samsung 850 EVO and the ADATA Premier with great results. Both of those systems have 2 SSDs in RAID 0, for double the read/write speeds. That's not necessary, but it is cool to have over 1GB/s in read/write.

Either option should help with the hard drive bottleneck. I haven't checked benchmarks for your 4590, but that's a relatively new chip. You could always add more RAM, but only if you deem that you need it. H264 likes to eat memory. That will improve your encoding times if you're editing your footage in Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas. I think you should be fine after recording to a separate drive though. If you're still having issues, it may be aggressive/overly demanding settings in OBS.

Odd that you want to build this yesterday but okay.

Jokes aside, I’ve got a brand new build for you because your rig is pretty dated and if you’ve got $800 you can definitely afford a new system.

|Component|Title|Price|
|:-|:-|:-|
|CPU|Ryzen 5 3400G + Vega 11 GPU|$149 (Amazon US)|
|GPU|Empty GPU|$0 (Amazon US)|
|RAM|(2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000|$74 (Amazon US)|
|Motherboard|Gigabyte B450M DS3H|$70 (Amazon US)|
|Storage|Crucial P1 500GB|$66 (Amazon US)|
|Storage 2|Empty Storage|$0 (Amazon US)|
|Power Supply|Seasonic FOCUS Plus 650 Gold|$88 (Amazon US)|
|Case|Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L|$35 (Amazon US)|
|Monitor|Empty Monitor|$0 (Amazon US)|

Generated by BuildCores on August 21, 2019 12:28 AM

It doesn’t quite take up all of your budget but if you want something a bit better you can toss in a 2060 to that build.

The Gigabyte Mobos for z390 are solid picks according to reviews. They are said to have done the best or one of the best for the z390 chips. They have good VRM. I ended up getting a Gigabyte z390 Aorus one just because I want RGB lights. But the UD would have been my choice otherwise.

The different brands take the stock GPU and add their own heatsinks and fans and clock them at different speeds. With each different manufacturer having multiple versions, reviews and guides help find the better ones. I personally like to get the higher clock speeds of a graphics card so I like the Duke 8G OC and the the Zotac AMP Extreme if you want RGB and one of the highest clocked.

​

MSI 2080 Duke

https://www.amazon.com.au/GeForce-RTX-2080-256-bit-Graphics/dp/B07GHXMMYF/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=msi%2B2080&qid=1554979139&s=computers&sr=1-1&th=1

Zotac 2080 Amp Extreme

https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0ZX8G77696&Description=zotac%202080%20amp%20extreme&cm_re=zotac_2080_amp_extreme-_-9SIA0ZX8G77696-_-Product

​

I would suggest getting an NVMe SSD as they are faster than Sata SSD due to the limitations of the Sata connection. I'd rather get less space and have it faster. Here is a Crucial 500GB that would be faster. Most motherboards these days have 1 NVMe M.2 slot. The Gigabyte UD does have 1 NVMe slot from what I quickly read (double check to make sure). Here is a read to understand more.

https://www.velocitymicro.com/blog/nvme-vs-m-2-vs-sata-whats-the-difference/

​

Crucial P1 1TB

https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820156200&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

​

You can get a slightly faster RAM and these Corsair ones are highly rated. They cost a bit more than the one on the list, but the cheaper NVMe SSD that I showed allows you to put a bit more money on the RAM.

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07J2WBKXF/?tag=pcppau-22

​

Don't forget Thermal Compound. I suggest getting a good one.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Compound-Performance-Heatsink-Interface-Material/dp/B0045JCFLY/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=thermal+paste&qid=1554981798&refinements=p_85%3A5444100051&rnid=5444099051&rps=1&s=electronics&sr=1-4

I think I understand. So the 9xx series are NVMe and the 8xx are SATA. The amazon link you provided though was the 860 EVO is that correct? Or would it be better to go with the PCpartpicker link 960 EVO?

"Edit: There's a sale going on right now, the 500gb version of the SSD I linked is just $20 more. I'd get that, it's a good deal. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078218TWQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QwA-AbVX5T0H8"

So for the Ryzen cpu it's more for being able to multitask and the i7-8600k is slightly better for performance? From what I read here http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8700K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-2700X/3937vs3958

I have two other questions that came up before picking up more parts. My friend is always telling me about picking up a 144hz monitor but I see you listed a 60hz is there a reason for choosing the 60hz over the 144hz? I tried checking out a video on youtube of 60hz vs 144hz but I couldn't tell the difference between the two but maybe that's because I haven't tried gaming before so it's hard for me to notice the difference.

For video card my buddy also suggested the nvidia I think mainly because he doesn't like the UI of radeon or something like that. Would there be an alternative to the radeon as well?

Thanks again for answering all my questions. This is really all new to me but I plan to read up on it more and watch some video guides on how to put everything together. I'll start picking up parts soon. Just got the kb, mouse, and case for now.

This build is not very tight in terms of getting your moneys worth, but it's not necessarily bad, just that I think you could do more with it. I would switch out the evo 970 with an ADATA XPG 8200: link


After that I would consider downgrading the motherboard a bit since 275 for a MOBO is ludicrous unless you're REALLY into overclocking. Typically the way I look at MOBO's currently is if they have Intel Lan over realtek, if they have built in wifi, and if they have 4 RAM DIMM slots, and they have good VRM heatsink they are a top end board, so anything after that is probably a waste.

Next up, the PSU is a waste of money, you don't need 850 watts. If you're looking for a gold rated PSU you should be able to find one for like 70-80 bucks if you keep an eye pealed for sales. If you're looking for a high-end 650 watt PSU I'd recommend the Seasonic Focus+ Platinum.

Lastly, that case is really unnecessarily expensive for seemingly no reason. I know RGB is big right now, but there are way more affordable RGB options that will be just as good. I'd recommend the coolermaster H500P or H500M, the thermaltake h500i, or the fractal design S2.

Like I said this isn't a bad build, but there's a lot of 'fat' that could be trimmed to either save money or make an upgrade to a 2080 ti.

NVMe is MUCH faster than Sata SSD. Is that what you're asking?

M.2 is the connection but there are two types of drives that use this port.

One is SATA ssd (6gbs) which is the same speed as a typical 2.5 sata ssd.

But the NVMe (32gbs) is many times faster than that. (It uses PCI bandwidth instead of sata which is part of the reason its so fast.)

Its noticeably faster if you're doing content creation like editing and such. And while it is slightly noticeable in game load times and day-to-day PC use, most people don't feel the extra $$ is worth the upgrade to NVMe. (I am not one of those people lol. I like speeeeeed)

I have a few comments:

Nice choice of case, it is a very low-key simplistic sophisticated look, and very nice to build in

That hard drive has to change, you have 1TB at $45, you can get the same model in 2TB for only $5 more here

I've never heard of Transcend storage products, I may live under a rock but idk if thats very reliable, you can get a 250GB ssd from Crucial which is more well known (to me at least) for the same price here

Other than that, good looking build, welcome to PCMR!

If you're going to Skylake, which you probably should, you should also go with DDR4 RAM. Keep the 8GB of DDR3 RAM in the other build.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor | $197.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $64.99 @ Amazon
Memory | PNY Anarchy 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory | $27.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $47.49 @ OutletPC
Case | Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case | $32.99 @ SuperBiiz
Power Supply | Rosewill 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | $49.99 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $421.44
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-29 03:52 EDT-0400 |

>An ssd would be very nice.

Add this to the build. That would add $60 though. Alternatively you could bump the CPU down to an i3 like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor | $110.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $64.99 @ Amazon
Memory | PNY Anarchy 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory | $27.99 @ Amazon
Storage | PNY CS1311 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $59.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $47.49 @ OutletPC
Case | Zalman ZM-T4 MicroATX Mini Tower Case | $32.99 @ SuperBiiz
Power Supply | Rosewill 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | $49.99 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $394.43
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-29 03:52 EDT-0400 |

Obviously the i5 is better for gaming and in general, but for CS:GO the i3 will do the job perfectly fine.

For upgrading the other system, I would wait a month or two for the prices of the 1070 and 480 to normalize. Then get one of those that suits your needs.

Agree that 4 is the best option but it is also $85 more. The question is what will you be doing? Optane is pretty good for speeding up OS loading and application loading and is supposed to work quite well. I would go with option 2 . If you still feel you need more speed, you can get your own NVMe SSD ($70 will get you 500GB ) and clone your OS from the 5400 HDD and now you have an system with an 500 GB SSD and a 1TB drive.

Edit: I would also by 8GB of RAM on your own and add it later to get proper dual channel performance. Ask the sub again when you get your laptop and folks will chime in on how to get the right memory to match the timings of what your HP ships with.

Changed the cooler. New one uses less power, runs quiter and has adjustable fan speed. Put everything except the case in via Amazon. MUCH easier when you get it all in one delivery. Also you will need some Thermal Paste

The PSU will be fine for your question below.

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor | £177.91 @ Amazon UK
CPU Cooler | Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer C + LNC 81.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | £49.99 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard | MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard | £89.58 @ Amazon UK
Memory | Kingston HyperX Fury White 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory | £63.99 @ Amazon UK
Storage | Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | £115.90 @ Amazon UK
Storage | Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | £54.00 @ Amazon UK
Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card | £544.98 @ Amazon UK
Case | NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case | £88.98 @ Aria PC
Power Supply | EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | £90.11 @ Amazon UK
Monitor | Asus ROG SWIFT PG278Q 144Hz 27.0" Monitor | £530.88 @ Amazon UK
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | £1806.32

Yes it will fit, tust don't buy that SSD

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

The reviews are not actually representative of what you might. The reason being that everywhere did their reviews of the model of drive after it was released and then Kingston switched to slower NAND memory which performs vastly slower than you would see in reviews. In some cases the figures are 1/4 of what they were presented to be in review models and the first batch received to consumers.

Yes it's faster than a traditional hard drive, but out of principle the V300 models are worth avoiding as you can get other brands that will be better performing.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Internal-120GB-2-5-Inch-SDSSDA-120G-G25/dp/B00S9Q9UKS/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1450209875&sr=1-5&keywords=ssd

Something like that would be better.

I would also add that if you are going the windows route that you consider something a little larger. I have a dual hard drive setup in my Dell E6330 and the primary drive is 120gb and it's just a little too small for general use. It's not a major problem but if you have anyway reasonable collection of family photos on the computer you'll probably find you don't have a lot of spare space. Additionally, as SSD drives work best when not rammed to capacity having a little overhead in terms of available really makes a speed difference. I've tried and seen the degradation in performance to know.

With that money you can either build a mini itx build (small PC) or a quiet PC, both with respectable performance.

(excuse the price, from the UK so I don't really know the many different sites to get cheaper components)

Mini-ITX build

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor | $219.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler | Stock cooler | $0.00
Motherboard | ASUS Z97I-PLUS LGA 1150 Mini ITX Motherboard | $159.99 @ Newegg
Memory | Corsair XMS 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $69.99 @ Newegg
Storage | Transcend 256 GB SATA III 6Gb/s MTS400 42 mm M.2 SSD | $150.33 @ Amazon
Storage | HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 32MB | $80.77 @ Amazon
Video Card | MSI Graphics Card N760 | $379.00 @ Newegg
Case | Cubitek Mini Cube ITX Computer Case | $99.99 @ QuietPC
Power Supply | Corsair CS Series 450 Watt ATX Semi-Modular | $62.08 @ Newegg
| | Total
| | $1,221.15

This is sorta the build I personally want. It's a small setup but powerful enough. Hopefully more manufacturers will be Mini-ITX-ing higher end graphics cards.

You probably want to get a m.2 SSD (faster than your standard 2.5" SSD) which is only supported by Z97 and H97 motherboards.


_____

a quieter build will be using Nanoxia Deep Silence series cases and this beast of a CPU "fan".

Hmm. So i was running 2 x4gb sticks of ram then i heard a suggestion to get more ram. Because I didnt really know what to do, and I read online that using different sticks of a ram can lead to bottlenecking I simply just purchased two more sticks of the previous type of ram sticks I had. Now all 4 slots are used up.

I am not really sure what an SSD is but I am definitely open to looking into it. Will this be a good purchase for an upgrade?

as far as CPU goes i think I want to go i5 or higher. I just dont know what is the most bang for my buck. Looking at steam games a lot require i5 (something somethings) for their games. I definitely regret skimping on my cpu the first time around.

Edit: also im glad my gpu doesnt seem like it needs to be upgraded yet so i will definitely focus on an ssd and cpu upgrade hopefully.

Looks good, but I cannot stress enough how much you will benefit from an SSD. I'd say ditch the OS and find a way to get it for free (like through your high school, university, or other ways) and use that money for a 120GB SSD for your boot drive and open world games like Skyrim.

For example, you could ditch the OS and buy this SSD: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-120GB-2-5-Inch-SDSSDA-120G-G25-Version/dp/B00S9Q9UKS/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1469133001&sr=1-6&keywords=120+gb+ssd

Then use the remaining $60 on your GPU and you should be able to buy a GTX 1060 or RX 480.

It has PCIe 3.0 and it's considered to be a better board overall.

Forgot the SSD, better get this:

http://www.amazon.de/Crucial-CT128M4SSD2-128GB-interne-SSD-Festplatte/dp/B004W2JKZI/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1323954768&sr=1-1

http://www.alternate.de/html/product/Crucial/RealSSD_M4_2,5_SSD_128_GB/954190/?


That Creative is old, better this one

http://www.amazon.de/interne-Soundkarte-Digital-Technik-Profile/dp/B00198DM2K/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1323955026&sr=1-1



Here's a nice case

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/info/p619050_Lancool-PC-K62-Midi-Tower-ohne-Netzteil-schwarz.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4XCT9yibwQ

Thank you! Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like I'd be able to upgrade to the SSD linked below, right?

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-SATA-Internal-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU

I think it's best for me to get the $980 version with a still very capable 1TB 7200RPM HDD to get me started and then perhaps consider the 500GB+ SSD upgrade at a later date. What do you think?

Everything looks pretty good, I changed RAM brand to get her an small upgrade to 3200mhz (same price)

I upped the PSU to 550w because it was actually cheaper.

I would consider an SSD change, but my favorite is about $50 more, this one is TLC... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K1J3C23?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor | $119.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard | ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $78.98 @ Newegg
Memory | Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $64.99 @ Newegg
Storage | Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | $95.99 @ Amazon
Case | Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case | $54.97 @ Amazon
Power Supply | Corsair CX (2017) 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $44.99 @ Newegg
Optical Drive | Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer | $19.85 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $498.77
| Mail-in rebates | -$20.00
| Total | $478.77
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-20 22:53 EST-0500 |

Time for bedtime but I have been doing a lot of Googling. And many thanks for the efforts of those contributors to this posting. It looks like a good compromise is " Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E500BW)" at $94.99 via Amazon. It may not be the fastest but after all the Gen 3 dates to 2015. If anyone says that's a bad choice, please let me know. Thanks again.

Hey Reddit community! We have got some upcoming deals on Seagate computer storage and wanted to share them with you. Listed are the retailer, link, product name and capacity, and the deal price:

Available Thursday, Nov 28 - Monday, Dec 2

(Amazon) - 2TB FireCuda SSHD - $59.99

(NewEgg) - 1TB FireCuda 510 NVMe SSD - $169.99

(Amazon) - 6TB IronWolf HDD for NAS - $134.99

(GameStop) - 2TB Game Drive for Xbox- $64.99

(GameStop) - 2TB Gears 5 Special Edition Game Drive for Xbox - $79.99

(GameStop) - 4TB Game Drive for Xbox - $99.99


(GameStop) - 2TB Game Drive for PS4 - $64.99

(Amazon) - 8TB IronWolf HDD for NAS - $189.99

Available Friday, Nov 29 - Monday, Dec 2

(Best Buy) - 8TB Game Drive Hub for Xbox - $139.99

(Best Buy) - 2TB Game Drive for Xbox - $64.99

Available Sunday,, Dec 1 - Monday, Dec 2

(Best Buy) - 2TB Game Drive for PS4 - $64.99

Good luck with your holiday deal hunting, everyone!

---
Seagate Technology | Official Forums Team

Whos saying the vega 56 overheats and stutter? That seeems like misinformation at worst and anecdotal info at best. Anyway yeah a 1660ti may work better as it has better power efficiency over thje long run.

​

Also which nvme are you getting, i would recommend cheaper alternatives to the 970 evo and definitely dont get the intel 660p which due to being QLC will last much less and becomes slow after just a bit of writing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OffzVc7ZB-o

​

See when this one goes on sale https://www.amazon.co.uk/ADATA-SX8200-Pro-512GB-Gaming/dp/B07K1J3C23?th=1

> NMVE SSD

Are they any more expensive than regular SSDs? This 1tb doesn't seem that much more expensive than regular SSDs (price in CAD, its 131 in USD https://www.amazon.ca/Crucial-1TB-NAND-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=nvme+ssd&qid=1555898363&s=gateway&sr=8-2) $30 isn't that much more expensive and it looks like there's a performance boost "SATA SSDs have a maximum speed of 600 MB per second, while M.2 PCIe cards can hit 4 GB per second"

However it looks like the intel read speed is 225MB/s, not exactly close to the SATA limit? The slower SSD claims 351/85. I'll need to look around more and make sure one isn't in bytes while other is bits.

> If you are getting a Ryzen CPU, get memory that's compatible with the CPU family

Not sure what that means but I might get the 2400G you suggested as many have.

Thanks! That all looks fine. Looks like I take out one of the SSDs and I'm all set? I think you said I don't need a case fan. I think 1gb of SSD is overkill so I crossed out the above.

The Crucial M4 is what I have an it is amazing. I used the Optibay kit from OWC and it was an amazingly easy install. As far as the OS, I did a clean install. I like to do the clean install from time to time anyway so it wasn't a big deal.

Do I need to worry about my MOBO's QVL for SSDs? I'm planning to snag this MOBO while it's on sale @ Newegg. I was hoping to grab this SSD, as it seems like a great deal, and has excellent reviews. The PRO 1tb model of the SSD is not on the linked QVL page, in fact none of the PRO models; however, the QVL does list the less than 1tb non-PRO models as compatible. I'm hoping to use this drive as my boot drive, and boot drive compatibility is my main concern for following the QVL. Should this matter? Thanks!

This one has a better writing speed, for 3$ more, but 16GB less.
Not sure what would be the best deal, please help me compare both drives.

ADATA Premier SP550 240GB 2.5 Inch

If you get him a hard drive, make sure it is 7200 RPM. 5400rpm drives are seriously soul sucking.

This 1tb from Seagate is a bit more than the WD Blue, but it is significantly faster.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000DM010/dp/B01LNJBA2I/

If SSD, 256gb is the sweet spot. 120gb out of the box after formating to NTFS is about 95gb to 105gb, then you subtract 25gb for Windows and Windows updates. You are left with 60gb to 80gb for everything else. Do keep in mind that a drive perforforms best when it is more than 50% full. So with a 256gb, you are still left with at least 190gb after formatting and Windows.

The SSD is actually a good addition as it does increase boot time and increase overall speed of laptop... But if you should get the cheaper rig and get a low budget yet great SSD like this and add your self, you still save a decent $.

I agree with ddubbsmax, an SSD would be your best bet. Something like a 128gb crucial m4 is only about a $100 and will easily store your OS and any other important programs. See this video to see the increase in load times you can expect.

Free shipping! It's a pretty good deal. Also available on amazon.ca (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01LNJBA2I/?tag=pcp0f-20) for the same price! Don't forget that some provinces don't pay provincial tax with Newegg.ca, so that might be the better choice for you!

I'm building a new high end pc from the ground up. Should I be taking advantage of any of these sales? I feel like the mouse and power supply are automatic purchases but I'm a newbie so I wanted to see if I can get any help here first. Sorry if this is filling up the discussion post.

SSD

I read that the crucial's aren't good because once you reach 75% capacity it dramatically slows your pc down? Also, don't know if external SSDs are recommended but should I bite on that SanDisk?

Samsung 1TB 860 EVO

Crucial P1 1TB m.2 SSD

SanDisk 1TB Portable External SSD

Power Supply

Corsair RM850x, 850 Watt Gold Certified Fully Modular Power Supply

Cooler

I don't even know if I will need a coouler, and if I want to go liquid cooling route, and I don't care about RGB, but for a high end pc I'm assuming I should buy?


Corsair H115i RGB Platinum AIO Liquid CPU Cooler

Mouse

This seems like the best deal on a mouse no?

Logitech® MX Master 2S Wireless Mouse

RAM

Was actually looking for 32GB RAM, should I pass since if I go AMD mobo route, having to use more than 2 will cause a slowdown right?

Ballistix Elite 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 3600 MT/s

Yeah is very easy to find good NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 at better prices than SATA (60$), like THIS one or THIS, or even the CRUCIAL P1 (wish i think is worse than the other two, but is a better known brand).

Thanks for the replies.

I would go with an AMD Gpu. Good build, get a discount OS. I am almost positive that board supports M.2 Drives, and I would most certainly switch to M.2, it provides easy installation and faster Read/writes.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-275GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B01IAGSDJ0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1497500931&sr=8-4&keywords=250gb+m.2

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-250GB-NAND-Internal/dp/B0764WCXCV

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Tool-free-Enclosure-Optimized-EC-UASP/dp/B00OJ3UJ2S

I was right in front of my destination so I guess I could have just waited a moment. Oh well lol.

I’d absolutely recommend getting this instead of the X. Performance wise, this will provide the game you want. Graphics wise, the X is still appealing, but the SSD route is great for other reasons.

It's honestly a lot to do with your price range, and if you 'like' the board. You can post some ones you are interested in and I can help you with that.

You kinda lucked out

http://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS1311-Internal-Solid-SSD7CS1311-240-RB/dp/B019H3B3OW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456806987&sr=8-1&keywords=pny+cs1311

Is on sale today. This drive goes on sale for $59 about two days out of every week now for the past three weeks. It's a very good drive for $59.

If you did want a laptop I would totally snag this or this. Both have enough hardware to play current AAA titles and will last for a few years for sure

If you do want to part out a PC to build Amazon might not be the most cost effective so check a bunch of different sites to make sure before pulling the trigger (including microcenter if there's one near you). Here's a decent start list though:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 $199.99

GPU: Zotac RTX 2070 $556.43

Mobo: Gigabyte x470 Aorus Ultra Gaming $124.90

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance 3000mhz $69.99

Storage: Samsung 970 Evo m.2 nvme 500GB for OS/select programs $89.99

2TB Seagate Firecuda SSHDD for library storage, if necessary $59.99

PSU: EVGA 650W, 80 plus gold rated fully modular PSU $97.06

OS: [OEM Win10](https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Home-English-Language-Product/dp/B07TW6G6JP/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=windows+10&qid=1563210474&s=gateway&sr=8-7]. $72.00 Not need if you already have. Pretty sure you can get even cheaper OEM copies out there. Or y'know, other means. Or Linux, etc

Total: $1270.35 including the OEM Win10 which you may or may not need

Missing items: monitor, mouse, keyboard, case. Compared to the prebuilt at $1499.99 that leaves you $229.64 to get a case & any necessary peripherals, upgrade any items on the list, or just pocket the 'savings'

The ibuypower one linked doesn't appear to be that bad. But when reading the comments there are people who got the 8700k version for $1350 (currently $1433, one you linked "on sale" for 1499.99)...so pricing might be misleading. Also keep in mind SI's need to make a profit and usually skimp when it comes to things like cooling, storage and motherboards. I can't tell what mobo that has, but it shouldn't be much of an issue unless you want to overclock, probably not as good components and features as what I listed though. The cooling is actually pretty nice with the cpu watercooling at that price. But not sure on how it is for the other components (ie system case fans). The storage is a bit shit, with a smaller sata ssd and a smaller much slower mechanical hdd. The RAM isn't much better, going off amazon reviews it's basically no name ram at 2666mhz. Also they use a generic 600W psu and apparently the included mouse and keyboard stink. So gotta take the good with the bad but the one I price out looks like a much better option across the board and leaves you room to pick and choose certain upgrades n such

awesome thank you, i was looking at the pny one as well;

https://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS1311-240GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B019H3B3OW/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1465866694&sr=1-1&keywords=pny

Any thoughts on this one? if not i might just grab the sandisk, the one i have now has been great

Yeah total troll comment, I'm such a dick for trying to inform people about their options.

>For those who were hoping for a new MacBook, my condolences. I too was hoping to see what Apple would come up with, and honestly I'm a bit depressed with the lack of innovation

>For those who need a laptop now or for school I would highly recommend the XPS 13 9350 i5 8GB 128GB FHD Non touch model. This laptop will run you $800-900 depending on where you purchase it, And you can get a 500gb Samsung 850 Evo m.2 drive for about $160. In total you are looking at a Skylake i5 laptop with 500GB of storage for around $1000.


>Additional specs: The FHD version gets about 8-10hrs battery and only weighs 2.6lbs (only about 250 grams heavier than a Macbook 12"). The laptop also supports NVME PCIe SSDs if you need super fast read/write speeds

The weird stutters are, as I said, caused when VMWare Player seems to propigate from one of it's disk files to another. It has nothing to do with 'load more of the program into RAM'.

I've had some success with creating a pre-allocated disk, rather than letting it create it on the fly. The other option is to throw an SSD at it. Given that you can now get a 60GB SSD for all of $35, I find that option the easiest.

Quick Edit: Since this is a drive just for a VM to reside on, why not go with something a wee bit larger? Found a simple ADATA 240GB drive for $60, way better deal :)

This seems to be the best price to performance SSD around right now. http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E250B-AM/dp/B00OAJ412U/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1449708962&sr=1-1&keywords=ssd
Just about every build I've seen is putting it in. Its only $18 more then the one you have with double the storage and apparently better performance. http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/SanDisk-Ultra-II-240GB-vs-Samsung-850-Evo-250GB/2548vs2977

if you cant swing the extra money, the regular Sandisk plus (non ultra) is ~$15 cheaper
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Internal-120GB-2-5-Inch-SDSSDA-120G-G25/dp/B00S9Q9UKS/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1449708962&sr=1-5&keywords=ssd
although 120gb is pushing it pretty close as your only storage.

Also, I was advised through Tomshardware when I built my first PC (sub 500 budge) to just go with an AMD APU (cpu and gpu in case unfamiliar) as its much cheaper and you could save or put the money in other places.

heres a comparison between the i3 you have listed and a higher end AMD APU.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i3-3250-vs-AMD-A10-7850K

I've never posted in here so I'm not sure if there's much bias against AMD parts in here.

It's a 2015, search around for a SATA based M.2 SSD. Something like this WD SSD would work for you. If you want to go all out that SSD is really nice and has a huge capacity. If you're looking for just a 500GB one, check out the 850 EVO.

> Acer Aspire F 15 F5-573-50WE

I own an Acer E 15 - something or the other, and I'd be willing to bet that it's got the same lay out on the inside. Let's assume that the laptops are the same, at least as far as SSD / HDD layout is concerned....

I happen to have a parts laptop lying around. So if your laptop looks like this on the inside, it's probably safe to assume that they are basically the same. This is a small, two picture album that I took. One picture is relatively far away, with the back cover of the laptop taken off. The second picture is closer up, at an angle. You're looking at where the RAM installs, though there is no RAM installed in the laptop.

In the upper lefthand corner of the zoomed in picture, you'll see a connector hidden in the back. That is where an M.2 SSD slides in. Note how there is only one key instead of two. The key is just the piece of plastic that blocks certain items from sliding in.

I don't know the differences between they keys and the protocols, however it should be noted that while you can (most likely) fit an m.2 SSD like this one into the slot, you probably should avoid it, since it's clearly keyed for something with two keys, not one. You should get something like this, clearly keyed for the slot. Note that my links are simply given for picture reference, shop around for the right price and/or size you want. I recommend at least a 250 GB SSD, preferably closer to 500 if you can afford it.

Shoot me any more questions if you want.

P.s. The laptop has a HDD bay, as seen on the left of the zoomed out picture. That's where your HDD is located. When you open yours up, I'm sure you'll see an m.2 SSD already installed your machine. There's the one screw that holds it in place.

Also, was your laptop new or used? I had to install the SSD into mine myself. If it's used, you'll need to see which drive your OS is installed on. Simple really, remove one drive, try to boot. If you can't boot, then your OS is installed on the removed drive.

It's definitely time for a new machine, but you can certainly still make this one serviceable for cheap.

The RAM is fine the way it is. Grab a ~$40 256GB SSD today on sale and do a clean install of Windows. It will feel like a much faster machine. That right there will hold you over if you don't want a whole new laptop right now.

https://smile.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-NAND-SATA-Internal/dp/B0764WCXCV

If buy a Samsung SSD, they come with migration software that works well. I just bought an 840 Pro this week, and the migration was flawless for Windows 7. It allegedly supports Windows 8 as well.

The process might take a long time. I was moving from SSD to SSD, and it took about five minutes. Obviously HDD read times are going to be longer.

840 Pro

If your current disk usage is greater than the capacity of the solid state drive there will be no easy way to migrate.

Firecuda=hybrid, yes... Barracuda and Barracuca pro are just regular mechanical drives, except the pros are 7200RPM, and the non-pro are 5400RPM. the pros have MASSIVE caches, though. Mine's got 128MB of cache.

Here's the thing about the firecuda though...and this is the deal-breaker for me. The actual spindle speed is only 5400RPM.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H2F3741/ref=psdc_1254762011_t1_B01M1NHCZT

​

It appears that it has 128MB of cache as well....it's almost like it's a stock Barracuda, with some funky memory-handling written into the firmware, because it doesn't say anything about a separate flash module...usually, when you're reading all this marketing wank, they LOVE to throw out numbers, and jargon that sound smart, but that the average consumer knows fuck-all about what it means.... So, since they're not bragging about "an additional 2GB of super fast flash memory", or somesuch bullshit, i can only assume that the 128MB IS the enhanced SSD part, and that the firmware's doing something different with it, than a standard drive.

It honestly looks to me like a jumped up Barracuda, and i ain't feelin' it..

Looks like it does! Awesome. Looks like PCIe SSD cards are pretty cheap as well.

You do not need a fulltower case IMO, it is way overkill and takes up too much space.

Something midtower like this:

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/8850694858626857081?lsf=seller:6136318,store:18011995565160192565&prds=oid:7992287768184037503&q=nzxt+s340&hl=en&ei=UMBCWZ_5IYfMjwOk36qoCg&lsft=gclid:CNqP59mswNQCFRKUfgodp9kJ1w

Would take $90 off.

Don't listen to the person saying i5 over i7. I5 is dead so if you can't afford the I7 then go for a ryzen build instead but I would personally stay with the 7700k.

For the GPU look at eBay at buying one second hand. With EVGA the warranty is transferable so buying second hand is very very safe (since it is still within the three year warranty).

You can see the GTX 1080 FTW (and also even the freaking FTW hybrid edition which is a beast). Has sold on ebay (by looking at recently completed listings) in the last three weeks for ~460. Doing that can give you the same (or better if he gets a hybrid) card with the same warranty and EVGA protection for 80$ (plus tax if amazon taxes you) less.

Doing those two things puts you down to $1260.

You can buy the CPU brand new here for $310 to bring it down to $1240

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Intel-i7-7700K-Kaby-Lake-Quad-Core-4-2GHz-Processor-BX80677I77700K-/272635222784?hash=item3f7a535b00:g:dsYAAOSw53NY9WmO

For the cooler, a single radiator AIO is not worth it for a CPU. So you need to either go cheaper for an aircooler (which would be comparable but wouldn't be good for overclocking) with the cryorig H7 for 35$ (bringing your total down to 1210) or go more expensive with the Noctua NHD-15 or corsair H100i for 80 (brining your total up to 1275).

Personally, I would upgrade the ram to something 3200mhz - you don't want to be locked down by slow ram with that killer CPU/GPU. For $20 more you can get this (also matches the case!):

https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-3200MHz-Desktop-Memory/dp/B01EI5ZRQY/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1497547277&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=ddr4+dram+3200mhz

I would also trade the 3TB drive for a 120GB SSD for 50:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PNY-CS1311-120GB-Internal-SATA-Solid-State-Drive-/322271147966?hash=item4b08db77be:g:JbIAAOSwmfhX5aT1

With a 1TB HDD for 45:

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST1000DM010/dp/B01LNJBA2I

About the same price but much higher performance.

Doing this all would put you between 1250-1300 and would be much higher performing in my opinion.

This would murder anything @ 1080P 60FPS (probably even 1080P 144FPS) and be future proof for a while.

I bought mine two weeks ago, with the i7 and 16G of ram, if you get the 8G single stick you can upgrade later on. I upgraded my storage myself with an ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro which are significantly cheaper than Samsung EVO’s counterparts, in my case I wanted a 1TB nvme drive and the XPG was $163 compared to the +$335 upgrade cost of the similar Samsung nvme while also performing just as well or very close to Samsung nvmes in real world benchmarks so they are a good choice to consider if you’re trying to save a couple hundred bucks. Also, when i upgraded my storage on my own, not only did I save $172 but also got to keep the stock 240G ssd so that was a cool bonus.

A lot of people are suggesting you build a pc, and I suggest you to build one too! My previous PC Build was good enough to run iRacing and, Including a BenQ monitor, cost around the £600 mark. I'll post my specs however some of the parts may be discontinued so I'll try and source similar components if they are.

Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P

AMD (Piledriver) FX-6300 3.50GHz

ASUS GTX 750Ti

Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB)

500W EVGA 80+ White Rated PSU

DVD Re-Writable(For Installing Windows)

1TB Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive

BitFenix Comrade Midi Tower


BenQ 22inch Monitor

Let me know if want any of the peripherals(Keyboard/Mouse etc) aswell

Total Cost = ~£543

You might be able to find components cheaper on different websites, especially American based ones(NewEgg).

As for assembly, I followed a tutorial from popular Battlefield YouTuber, JackFrags. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WQxr59KRto He uses old components but the build is more or less the same than the specs above.

You also may want to upgrade the Graphics Card, RAM or CPU. I recently upgraded the 750Ti to a 1060 3GB, FX 6300 to a FX 8350 and RAM by an extra 8GB. Remember, if you do upgrade anything like this, you will most likely need a bigger PSU.

Have fun building :P

Edit: As Raptord put, you should also think about getting a Ryzen CPU. But keep in mind, you would need to get a different motherboard as Ryzen uses an alternative socket to AM3+

Ram on Amazon

SSD on Amazon

Super easy install. It took about ten minutes. The hardest part was getting the Amazon box open. LOL

I currently have my OS and a few games on a 256 GB Samsung 960. Most games and other files are on a 7200 rpm 512 gb HDD. I mostly use my PC for gaming, some video downloads (no monster 4K files), and I dont do any media editing.

I am looking to upgrade the HDD to a 1TB SSD. Ideally it would be M.2 NVMe but open to other options. I have the option to ship US products to a US address and grab them.

I am looking for recommendations on what drive would fit best.

From brief research I've found the following:
Sabrent rocket (USD 100) - https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rocket-Internal-Performance-SB-ROCKET-1TB/dp/B07LGF54XR

ADATA su800 (USD 133) - https://www.amazon.com/ADATA-SU800-Ultimate-Solid-ASU800NS38-1TT-C/dp/B01MR7FVM9/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=sx8200+pro&qid=1562260212&s=gateway&sprefix=sx82&sr=8-3

XPG sx8200 pro (USD 140) - https://www.amazon.com/XPG-SX8200-Gen3x4-3000MB-ASX8200PNP-1TT-C/dp/B07K1J3C23/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=sx8200+pro&qid=1562260377&s=gateway&sprefix=sx82&sr=8-1

Yeah, the PNY CS1311 line is pretty good for the price. 120 GB for $40, or 240 GB for $60.

Right now I use the old 480 GB model, have been for almost a year, it's been fantastic.

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01LY65EVG/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AKNP96FBWTD0Y&psc=1 Hard drive
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0764WCXCV/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 ssd
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B078MVFXFL/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 The gpu
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B06X9LN311/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A3NOUUHLVV3QXQ&psc=1 Mobo
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B019NWRUXK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 Psu
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01N5TJ5AH/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 ram
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B075DMYVBV/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 case
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00GGQFO5I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 60hz monitor
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B074PXZMDX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_9?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 144hz monitor
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B06XNRQHG4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_10?smid=ATJ8UQLEY2ARZ&psc=1 processor
You can order all these parts for free to Finland from amazon.de, should take 2 weeks. Ryzen is good for streaming and the second gen ryzen is too expensive for the 2% performance increase. 16gb of ram should be enough and the gpu has enough juice to stream most games at 1080p 60fps. Also i found a pretty cheap 27 inch 144hz screen. Ole hyvä.

the ssd isn't bad but a well known brand may serve better. this is a little pricier but adata is a well known company and currently the fastest M.2 nvme pcie 3.0 ssd https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K1J3C23/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07K1J3C23&linkCode=as2&tag=techy067-20&linkId=df95230ca0c61f24fd40f75ac35c90d6

​

as far as that aio goes it will fit but will have to be mounted in front. if you wanted to mount a radiator on top you'd either have to pick a new case or smaller aio.

Here's how I built mine. It's completely silent and performance wise, this thing is awesome. With some additional tweaking it could probably meet all your requirements.

DS81 - approx. $188

Crucial 16GB RAM - approx. $94

Intel I3 CPU - approx. $118

Scan Disk 120GB SSD - approx. $45

Total Cost - approx. $445. For your requirements you would probably want to buy a SAN or some extrernal USB storage and consolidate your media/music.

Software

Install Kodibuntu

Listening/viewing the media remotely is largely just a matter of properly setting up your home network routing and using dynamic DNS.

You might consider getting the cheapest laptop you can find that will otherwise fit your needs, and adding a 512 GB SSD after the fact. A 512 GB SSD often comes as a premium upgrade, but it's not terribly expensive to buy separately. A Samsung 850 EVO Sata III SSD will only cost you $157.10 on Amazon, and places like Micro Center will match that. Want the same thing in m.2 format? $158.56. Want it in the faster NVME format? $314.99, though I expect that'll drop in a month when the 960 series comes out. The first to options are the most cost-effective, and the last only matters if your laptop supports NVME, which it probably won't at your price point.

If you go with either of the first two options, you're probably paying less than what most manufactures would charge to upgrade from a HDD to a 128 GB solid state for the same model laptop.

I ordered it from Amazon, and it was this hardrive. It got here today but I put a refund in on Amazon and dropped it off at a UPS. Since I've proven to not be able to do this correctly, what hardrives would you recommend? Ideally something around 1tb should be fine since I want it to at least be an upgrade from the default PS4 hardrive.

Well, two reasons. One, Crossfire scales better than SLI. If you're set on two cards, I'd get a pair of 6950s for ~$450 total and receive about 95% of the performance of a pair of 570s at $636. The difference is a high-grade SSD or 24-inch monitor.

Two, a pair of 560 Tis will also cost you hundreds of dollars less while satisfying pretty much every performance scenario that a single monitor will encounter. You can a pair of those for as low as $410 after rebate, saving you $225 to spend elsewhere, like a 128GB SSD.

I don't think M.2 SSDs take up much space (my build has one). I think any case can easily fit like 10. Plus, the number of M.2 SSDs a system can accommodate is usually determined by the motherboard, so not sure what that has to do with the PC case.

Maybe you're talking about something else? I'm talking about something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-MTS400-Solid-State-TS256GMTS400/dp/B00KLTPUG4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421633733&sr=8-1&keywords=m.2+ssd

$60/year is $5/month. That means you want something around $5/month/TB or $0.005/GB.

At that price your options are very limited:

• Backblaze B2 - $5/TB/month storage, $20/TB retrieval
  
• Wasabi - $3.90/TB/month storage, $40/TB retrieval
  
• Buy a 1TB HDD and give it to a friend to keep for you - $45 per drive, or $15/yr.
  
  All those services you mentioned are out of your budget. Honestly you're probably going to get the best value from just buying a drive and storing it somewhere.

That model Alienware (same that I have) supports m.2 ssds like https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-256GB-MTS400-Solid-TS256GMTS400/dp/B00KLTPUG4 so grab yourself one of those, easy done

as for the HDD, just get any 2.5" drive of your choosing and grab a sata to USB connector https://www.pccasegear.com/products/34864?gclid=CjwKEAjw5cG8BRDQj_CNh9nwxTUSJAAHdX3f7h42fX9FSBg_nD3GkFAo-TMimlfxdzbmFatKDQmu4xoC0avw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds use it like a USB to copy over your files and then put in the new one

Also I recommend reinstalling your OS

144hz just makes everything much more smooth. The competitive argument is that it can allow for better reaction times. That said, I saw that you have a 1050 sc. A 1050 really isn't enough to do 144hz gaming. You'll really want a 1060 6gb/RX 580 to get the most out of it, minimum 1060 3gb/RX 570.

240/250gb SSDs are a great starting point. You can get them around $75-85 and they're big enough to hold Windows and a decent amount of games. The Crucial MX500 is a good choice. If you have the extra money, you can bump it up to a 500gb version for $135.

Nah the psu is perfectly fine. Don’t think they’ll be going for a 2080 TI plus you won’t find any sfx with a higher wattage than 600 (Corsair has one for 750w) but it’s expensive. I have a similar set up except the 600w Gold rated on a gtx 980 and an i7-9700k, nearly identical set up

You’re spot on about the m.2.

WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280 - WDS100T2B0B https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073SB2MXT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ph4lDbW120T9Z

This one is good though not NvMe fast speeds,
The one OP has is solid and it’s on sale $150 isn’t bad for an NvMe 1tb but here are ones a little cheaper

Silicon Power 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 TLC R/W up to 3,400/3,000MB/s SSD (SU001TBP34A80M28AB) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L6GF81L/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_tj4lDb7HY225A

Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1j4lDb9MCJZFM

Kingston Digital SA1000M8/960G A1000 960GB PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C8NNQ4Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ml4lDb73E6M6P

I'd return it and get a replacement. WD are usually pretty good, if you still want another brand you could try this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LNJBA2I/ref=twister_B01MFAITZ1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Amd coolers are pretty good compared to intel ones. The 2600 comes with one in the box

Also you could get a crucial NVMe ssd for only $59.99
Crucial P1 NVMe Is the same price as a MX500 2.5inch sata3 ssd.

The 1Tb version of this ssd is pretty cheap tho, however it isn’t available at the moment, I personally have it and I recommend it.

I can second what bizboz said. I have a 9343 so the faster and pricier nvme SSDs are not fully supported, I installed the Samsung EVO 500GB which was only $150 now. Some Xps13 ssd install instructions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/3hql7y/xps_13_ssd_upgrade/

https://m.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/3y30nl/install_samsung_950_pro_in_xps_13_9350/

Brick and mortar stores probably won't have these SSDs in stock. Make sure you get the m2 form factor not the larger SATA III.

This is the EVO at $157:
Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB M.2 3.5-Inch SSD (MZ-N5E500BW)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TGIW1XG/

If you can spend $300+, the skylake versions (9350) motherboard support the Samsung m2 nvme SSD which gets 2500/1500 read write, which is nuts.

This is the faster nvme at $327
Samsung 950 PRO -Series 512GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD 2-Inch MZ-V5P512BW

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01639694M/

I don't think there are other brands than samsung for the nvme, but you can use other brands for the slower pcie ssd, won't save much $ tho.

You need a spudger and torx screws, cheap on amazon, and if you want to clone your drive then an m2 ssd external housing, and samsung clone utility doesnt always work so you might need a third party cloning software. I did a clean install so i think i could have done without the external housing. Reports that the external housings don't work with the faster nvme anyway, too, so YMMV.

And yes crystal mark shows 500+/500+ read write with the EVO 850, before it was only 450/150 or so with the stock 128GB SSD.

Thank you for the reply! For the Hard drive what happen was that it sold out in amazon. Could this one be a good replacement https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LNJBA2I/?tag=pcpapi-20?

Also the reason is want to get everything from amazon is that I caan get free shipping and since it will come from that one vendor.

Here is my recommendation. Much better CPU, more cores and threads, it can also be overclocked for even more performance and comes with a nice cooler. RX570 is faster than the 1050 Ti for the same price.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor | $159.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard | Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $59.99 @ Amazon
Memory | G.Skill - Aegis 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory | $114.99 @ Newegg
Storage | PNY - CS900 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $50.36 @ Amazon
Video Card | Sapphire - Radeon RX 570 4GB PULSE Video Card | $169.99 @ Newegg
Case | Cooler Master - MasterBox Lite 3.1 MicroATX Mid Tower Case | $30.98 @ Newegg
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $596.20
| Mail-in rebates | -$10.00
| Total | $586.20
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-23 19:12 EDT-0400 |

Edit: This is a better SSD, it's not on PCpartpicker for some reason.

I do not know if it supports NVMe or SATA over said port, the current one you have is SATA.

Either way, i would not suggest the 960 EVO at all. Its performance is inflated by a small cache that looks great in benchmarks (and spec sheets) but gives no noticeable performance improvement at all, and i read pleeeenty of tests. Your littarly paying twice the price for nothing. Just go with a 850 instead https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-EVO-Internal-MZ-N5E500BW/dp/B00TGIW1XG/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1519673940&sr=1-6
or any other m.2 SATA drive.

Otherwise, the manual might indicate if the port supports NVMe or not, or simply contact their support to ask for specifics. But either way, the 960 EVO is a huge waste of money.

If you're getting an 8700K, you are going to want a Z370 board or else you're just wasting the potential of the CPU. If you don't want to spend that money on a Z370 board, then you either go AMD or get a lower end Intel CPU, a non-K SKU.

I also agree with the other poster talking about how overpriced that M.2 SSD is. I bought the same one back when SSD prices were near their peak...for $18 less. You can get the 860 for damn near close to half the price or get a 1TB for the same price. The HDD is also a bit overpriced, but not by a ton. They're also correct that you don't need that much RAM, and (someone feel free to correct me) I'm pretty sure 4 sticks actually gets lower performance than 2 sticks on Z370 boards. 16GB is more than enough for this build unless you plan doing video editing or rendering or something.

I don't know much about that AIO, but I have an 8700K with an H100i PRO and my temperatures are fine.

You can try these three links (prices in $).
1, 2, 3

And these two links (prices in £) 1, 2

Hopefully something listed there is what you're looking for. Just make sure the MHz of the RAM matches up to what your computer requires so it doesn't cause any weird issues (rare, but it happens).

Your current 4GB isn't bad though, for general purpose usage. Your harddrive is likely the slowest component in your computer currently. Since the computer uses DDR2, it probably has a small harddrive anyway which would make it easy to clone everything over to an SSD such as this one here for £35. Link.

That is, of course, assuming that the computer uses SATA and not IDE/PATA for the harddrive. If it does use IDE/PATA, you can also just buy a IDE to SATA adapter to make it work. Not the optimal configuration, but it can be made to work well enough.

I have another question, if you don't mind! In previous posts I've seen people comparing the Acer Aspire E15 E5-575G-57D4 to the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM.

Again, I'm a complete newbie to comparing computer specs for gaming, so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. If I add a Crucial MX300 275GB M.2 SSD and a Ballistix Sport LT 4GB to the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM, I will be around $500. For the Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575G-57D4, without adding anything, I will be paying about $550.

My question is, which option is better? $50 is an insignificant difference, so I'm just looking for the best specs for the money. Thank you, again, for answering my questions, your advice has been a big help!

Oops: I posted affiliate links in my last post, so I've deleted it and reposted.

Hi! The option you mentioned will NOT work...

​

All Retina Mid-2012 - Early 2013 will need an adapter like this: https://www.amazon.com/QNINE-Adapter-MacBook-Replacement-Converter/dp/B01LXLU3A9

​

You can also only use M.2 SATA drives, like the M.2 860 Evo: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-SATA-Internal-MZ-N6E500BW/dp/B078218TWQ

​

Good luck!

At that price you'll be looking at mass-market drives without fancy features, but there are lots of solid choices. I wouldn't worry too much about finding "the best" or getting lost in the technical details. Find the highest capacity drive you can with good reviews.

For SATA 2.5" drives, there's a Silicon Power 512gb SSD for $49.99.

If your motherboard has an m.2 slot for an NVME drive, and you can stretch your budget to $54.99, there's a Silicon Power 512gb NVME m.2 2280 SSD.

I'm positive I have an SSD (here is the model).

I bought a case and cable that support UASP (here is the case).

I do still have OSX installed on the internal HDD. I was giving it a few days to make sure everything runs smoothly before formatting it. The Mac Mini runs considerably faster off the external SSD than it did with the internal HDD.

To re-iterate, I don't notice any day-to-day difference between my external SSD and my family's internal SSD in a Mac Mini. I do feel by boot time is a bit slower, though.

As far as I know there's no size limitation, but those MacBooks took SATA I drives, so theres no point in buying a SATA II or III drive - you can probably find a sizable SATA I drive online for cheap. If you can't, SATA II or III will work, you just won't be able to take advantage of the higher speeds.

Also, you should consider putting in an SSD. The speeds will make your laptop feel new again, and Amazon has some pretty big discounts right now, like this 500 GB drive, or this 1 TB drive.

Amazon takes care of all the shipping charges. If you contact customer support and plead for some discount you might get it aswell.

Also is that shipping charges only or customs duty aswell?

I read you're ordering on a business account, just make sure IT department won't demand GST on it later.

Curious to check shipping costs I checked myself too and for all the parts chose by you I'm also getting about 570usd as shipping charges. Could probably because due to large amount of things they'll send it in a single shipment and costs go down.

I used my personal account not a business account.

Also suggestion instead of 860 pro get 970 Evo plus you'll save more money.
If you really want a data SSD, I'd suggest to go for crucial MX 500 500gb SSD. It's half the price but has similar performance. The difference which there is you most likely won't notice.

The 70-80 USD you save then use it to get crucial mx500 m.2 500gb SSD

Or just get crucial MX 500 1tb m.2 nvme SSD.

All these alternatives (barring the first )will give you some faster storage and not much price difference,

I've an 850 Evo 500gb and it's been great so far. I have Windows, my main programs and games on there. However with big games now reaching 50gb+ I'll need another soon.

I got mine from Amazon for around £145 - this SSD is listed twice on Amazon, at slightly different prices, I don't know if one is a retail version or how they've done it, but it's the same SSD, just a little cheaper.

ETA: Here it is. Temp out of stock. It shows £169.58 here, I paid £138.73 in early December. Worth keeping an eye out for.

ETA 2: The regular listing is a tenner off, at £144.27 - still a good buy IMO.

Hello im very knowledgable on laptops and this topic haha

if you purchase an m.2 ssd whichever one you want lol

and you will need to take apart the laptop to get to it

unplug the battery

put the ssd in

put the battery in

now

you need to make a bootable windows 10 drive a usb or hard drive will do above 16GB

follow this guide

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-create-windows-10-usb-bootable-media-uefi-support

after this go through the process of selecting the ssd drive to install windows onto

and then reinstall all the programmes you want to be fast and delete them off the HDD so google chrome

you will need to delete this off the HDD and reinstall it will auto go to the ssd as the OS is running of of it now

and same for anything else

​

hope this helps if you want any reccomendations for an SSD i can link a few below of different prices

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-SN500-High-Performance-NVMe-Internal/dp/B07P7TFKRH/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=m.2+ssd&qid=1565811367&s=gateway&sr=8-6

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-CT500MX500SSD4-2280SS-Internal/dp/B077SQ8J1V/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=m.2+ssd&qid=1565811382&s=gateway&sr=8-9

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDS120G2G0B-Internal-Green/dp/B078WYRR9S/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=m.2+ssd&qid=1565811382&s=gateway&sr=8-16

​

Ross :)

Thanks for the heads up. Was going to get an 840 Pro off of Craiglist for $120 but I like the piece of mind and satisfaction of knowing I'm getting it new for a little bit more. (And if there are any issues, Amazon makes things very easy).

Link: Samsung Pro 840 SSD

NVMe for $60 here (QLC NAND but for everyday applications it will be blisteringly fast)

You can also get 1TB NVMe drives with proper NAND for $100 which is $50 per 512GB

I am sure if you do some shopping around you can find a SATA interface M.2 drive for $10 less

Prices have dropped dramatically since Christmas of last year so I wouldn't put much stock in what the other commenter said, I paid $185CAD for a 1TB WD Blue M.2 SSD last October which was a "reasonable" price at the time, now that same drive is $40CAD cheaper even from the same website, and even here in Canada you can get a 1TB NVMe drive for less than I paid back then for SATA

Thankfully you don't need to spend much.. something like this would be more than enough, or for even cheaper, this would be fine for a few of your most-played games.

I'd also recommend running your OS from a (different) SSD as well.

I have a friend who's SSD got wiped so I would recommend a good quality SSD like this one and get a standard 1 tb for all program installations and files like this one.

SSD would hold only the OS and high capacity programs as they load waaaay faster than conventional hard drives. If it's over your budget you could even aim for a 120 gb SSD instead.


^^^chicho

Hey my man, I think I’m ready to make the leap to an NVME drive. Is this the crucial you recommended?

Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_yS3GDbG5AMG06

Also, I’m assuming I would need an adapter right? Could you perhaps recommend me a good one.

Finally, are there any 2 TB NVME drives you could recommend that are not insanely expensive but still good performers?

I agree with others about a different CPU, although I think the 2600X the better choice at the current $25 price difference over the 2600, if $25 is not a burden to you. It is a little bit faster processor that has a much better CPU cooler, the wraith spire. See the thermal benchmarks for the stock coolers: https://www.techspot.com/review/1635-amd-wraith-coolers-compared/ .

If you choose a motherboard that supports NVME M.2, skip the mechanical hard drive and get a 1TB M.2 drive. Once/if you fill the drive up 75%, you can think about adding another drive. Look into the Intel 660p and the Crucial MX500: A

https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-512gb/p/N82E16820167460

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-500GB-2280SS-Internal/dp/B077SQ8J1V