Reddit mentions of Samsung 850 EVO - 120GB - 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E120B/AM)

As configured by you (i7, 3TB HD, 4GB video card), the cost comes to $3099.00. I added in 16GB of memory over the stock 8 since that's pretty much standard for most builds, anymore.

5k Dell Monitor: $1,439.99

Retail i7-4790: $307.00

Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 Motherboard: $102.95

Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB Kit: $66.99

Corsair Carbide SPEC-01 Mid Tower Case: $48.99

Silverstone Tek 500W 80+ Gold PSU: $79.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card: $229.99

CM Storm Devastator KB/Mouse Combo: $29.99

Total Cost: $2305.89

Video card was a bit of a toughie since the iMac uses a notebook GPU, so I went with something a bit faster, but comparable. This is a complete system with comparable to better specs.

Given the price difference, may as well go with a 980Ti for that extra graphics oomph or tack on some water cooling.

Edit: Woops! Forgot storage and OS!

WD Blue 3TB HD: $98.70

Samsung 850 EVO 120GB (configured as cache drive): $66.99

Windows 10 Home: $119.00

Revised Total: $2590.58. Still cheaper and could still sub out the 960 for a 980Ti and be under cost.

Buy an SSD for around 80-120 dollars and upgrade the ram to 8GB for about 50 dollars or 16GB for around 100 dollars. Whatever you can afford. If you can only afford to upgrade one thing, upgrade to an SSD. Don't let people tell you that it's always gonna be slow cause it's from 2012. CPU's haven't really advanced much in the last 5-6 years so the i5 or i7 you got in that Macbook ain't that much slower than say the one in the 2015 Retina Macbook Pro. But what has advanced is storage speeds and that's what makes the newer computers feel so much faster. Seriously grab a Samsung SSD like this one reinstall macOS and your computer will feel almost as fast as a new Macbook Pro.

The 850 EVO 120GB is also on sale for $69.99.

I unboxed and deployed about 500 of these a few months ago. They are pretty unremarkable laptops but decent for the price. Durable and reasonably easy to work on. The RAM is not soldered down and you could easily upgrade to SSD later on. The touchpad and screen are both enjoyable. I didn't like the keyboard though, it felt like the key travel was very short and mushy. I am not a keyboard snob at all (no mechanical keyboards in my house) and I still found it hard to type on. We did have maybe 10/500 that came from the factory with sticky keys (that stick down or are very slow to come back up) so this seems to be something they are prone to. Another issue is the cable that connects the touchscreen to the motherboard seems to break under normal use. If you are not buying a touchscreen model though this probably won't matter to you, and in any case they might have come up with a better cable by now since I believe they are aware of this problem. It only affects the touchscreen input, not the display itself. I have played AOE and AOEII on mine and it ran well.

Normally i5 indicates four cores, but the i5 in this laptop is really more of an i3. It is a dual core with hyperthreading. You can now buy laptops with the next-gen i3-5020u which is the same configuration (dual core with hyperthreading) and much cheaper. Then you could spend the difference on an SSD. For instance, you could buy something like this and something like this. This would be a better setup IMO.

Get Samsung EVO 250GB for 6K or 860 EVO, even better, at just Rs. 50 more. 120GB ssd is not worth it, IMO.

Try to find these drive in local market, if you can.

https://www.amazon.in/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E120B-AM/dp/B00OAJ5N6I

Another solid option:

https://www.amazon.in/Crucial-BX100-120GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B00RQA6LQY/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1523020649&sr=1-1&keywords=Crucial+BX100+120GB

Some bits of advice:

1. That Xeon has a 3.3GHz clock. While people will tell you the Xeon works "just as well as an i7", individual clock speed has a pretty decent influence on game performance. I was able to get my hands on an i7-4790k at 4.4GHz (without overclocking!) a few months ago for $238.99 shipped from jet.com. Might want to give a closer look at your CPU choice and check for deals. (/r/buildapcsales should help)
   
   
2. If you're not overclocking, I don't see much of a reason to drop 100 bucks on a liquid CPU cooler. You could put that money towards many different things: a secondary monitor, a mouse and keyboard upgrade, storage upgrade, etc. Even throw it in the bank and save the money.
   
   
3. That's the exact motherboard I have in my rig, the GA-Z97M-DS3H. Works great - My only complaint with it is that there's only one system fan header, meaning if you intend to set up more than one case fan (which of course you do - that case comes with two fans installed) then you'll need a fan splitter similar to this unless you plug your fans directly into the PSU using molex converters, which won't allow your computer to regulate fan speed based on performance.
   
   
4. RAM choice looks good. A good price for 16 GB DDR3 RAM nowadays is $60. I was able to get 16 GB of Patriot RAM from frys.com for $52 after rebate for my build during one of their promotional code deals. They say the brand and speed don't make much of a difference for RAM, so just look out for deals and you might be able to save a buck or two here.
   
   
5. SSD choice is a decent one, and at a great price, but consider also looking into the very popular Samsung 850 EVO or Sandisk Ultra II. I've seen people recommend against the Kingston SSDNow, but I don't have any personal experience with it. I personally have the Sandisk Ultra II and my sister has the 850 EVO (I also have one in my laptop). Can't comment on long-term reliability as all these were purchased less than two years ago but they all work great so far.
   
   
6. Great GPU choice. I would look out for sales on /r/buildapcsales for this piece as well. I was able to get a refurb GTX 970 for $240 from EVGA, and I've seen new R9 390s around that price too. Could probably save at least $20 buying on sale. But definitely good choice with the 8GB model.
   
   
7. I also have the same exact case. No issues with it - love the look and has good enough airflow. Cable management isn't stellar but it's there.
   
   
8. That's a good PSU. People typically recommend the SuperNOVA G2 or GS series or a Seasonic PSU (of which I have this one), but this SuperNOVA NEX scored an 8.5 on jonnyguru, where its lowest scoring category is "Value", which doesn't really say much about its performance. Looks solid to me.
   
   Overall great build. You can save some money here and there. My total build cost about $800 with an i7-4790k and GTX 970. You can probably get yours to about that price with some tweaking and smart buying. Good luck! And let me know if you have questions.

now if only the price per GB would keep going down, i got 2 120gb ssd for 67.99 bucks each. decent, but i also could of got like.... 1tb for that same price but fuck spinners!

these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OAJ5N6I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
reason for 2 and not one large one is in case one failed early

I wouldn't get that Kingston ssd. There was a bait and switch with the unit and the early drives (the ones reviewers got) were much faster than the ones they make now. I would replace that with something else like a Samsung 850 EVO. You may also want to consider getting a hard drive for mass storage, videos take up a lot of space.
You could also get an after market CPU cooler to overclock a bit or just get a quieter PC, although it is not necessary. You don't need anything expensive, a hyper 212 evo.
other than that the build looks fine.

Thinking of building this PC, I'm kinda a noob at this but I got a lot of help. Thoughts?

---

Reasonably good yet cheapish PC. Prices include taxes, rebates, discounts and shipping

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor | $291.98 @ DirectCanada
CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler | $47.98 @ Newegg Canada
Motherboard | MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard | $111.49 @ Newegg Canada
Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $42.99 @ NCIX
Storage | Samsung 850 EVO 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E120B/AM) | $84.49 @ Amazon
Storage | Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $59.75 @ Vuugo
Video Card | AMD's Radeon RX480 Video Card | $199.00 @ TBD
Case | Deepcool TESSERACT SW ATX Mid Tower Case | $59.98 @ Newegg Canada
Power Supply | Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | $69.88 @ Canada Computers
Optical Drive | Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer | $24.55 @ DirectCanada
Operating System | Windows 10 | $119.99 @ Windows
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $1122.08
| Mail-in rebates | -$10.00
| Total | $1112.08

An SSD is a solid state disk that is magnitudes faster than the spinning mechanical drive in your machine right now.

120GB:http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E120B-AM/dp/B00OAJ5N6I/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1463687028&sr=1-6&keywords=120GB+ssd

Ram:
8GB: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-8500-204-Pin-CT2K4G3S1067M-CT2C4G3S1067M/dp/B008LTBJFM/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1463687090&sr=1-2&keywords=mac+ram
16GB: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-DDR3L-1600-SODIMM-Memory-CT2K8G3S160BM/dp/B008LTBJFW/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1463687090&sr=1-1&keywords=mac+ram

Ifixit has some guides so you could easily install these yourself. Then just reinstall the OS using internet recovery or a bootable flash drive.

I searched around and found a website recommending laptops for pool studio:

blog.structurestudios.com/software/structure-studios-computer-hardware-requirements

The only one that fits the bill for <900$ is Del i7559 whose i7 hyperthreaded(HQ) is currently on offer at Dell.com for 800$. For the remaining 100$ i recommend an mainly ram upgrade and SSD upgrade(if possible) to help run program faster.

Yeah, I wouldn't get that SSD or that HDD. 120GB is too small and you will run out of room just from appdata quickly, and especially if you want any games on there. You can get a 2TB drive for literally $3 more, and Hitachi has better drive failure rates.

https://www.amazon.com/HITACHI-0F10311-2-0TB-3-0Gb-Buffer/dp/B002WGH2QK?ie=UTF8&tag=austin101123-20 - HDD

SSD - Uh.. I mean, you can get a cheap one that's still pretty good for like $60 https://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Storage-Solutions-Internal-TRN150-25SAT3-240G/dp/B01B4NUKMY?ie=UTF8&tag=austin101123-20 Or you can get a better one or a 480GB one but I don't see a good deal on it now.

You could also get the same SSD but just the 240/480GB version for $100/155, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147372 240GB version, https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-EVO-2-5-Inch-MZ-75E120B/dp/B00OAJ5N6I?ie=UTF8&tag=austin101123-20 480GB version, but looking at the specs the only difference between the 850 and the OCZ is faster random write speed on the samsung.

E: $100 480GB drive isn't that bad, probably not worth checking all the time for the next week to get one for $80/90. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820228143 - same kinda OCZ drive.

I don't disagree with you, however for now I feel fine getting the 120GB. I'll probably be buying a new MBP in the coming year or two, anyway, and so this was more to scratch that itch more than anything. I had already ordered it, regardless. :)

another option is Samsung 850 Evo - I've seen them and the Pro in buildapcsales a few times this week

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E120B-AM/dp/B00OAJ5N6I/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1426197835&sr=8-3&keywords=samsung+850+evo

This should work fine.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OAJ5N6I/ref=twister_B00PRDMHLU?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

thanks buddy, do you recommend replacing the HDD with an SSD? such as this http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OAJ5N6I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_FEoEwb0T8AREC people say the hard drive is junk

Amazon has the 120GB version for $66 right now. It was on sale earlier for $59.99.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OAJ5N6I/ref=twister_B00PRDMHLU?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

That sounds perfectly promising, thanks for providing one complete reasonable setup, thats pretty much what I wanted to see under my post :)

So just for my conclusion:

I buy the TS440 (standard version 4GB RAM/ NO HDD)

1x Crucial 16GB Kit

1x SSD 120GB

1x HDD 3TB

• I currently only have 1TB of media, and MC/CSGO won't fill the rest that fast, so I guess 3TB is more than enough
  
• I know 20GB RAM might be much, but I "helped" hosting a public minecraft server external and there it ate all the RAM it could get :P
  
  I still have one more quesiton:
  I think I'll just buy one standard lenovo 3.5 inch caddy to start, but where do I put my SSD? It's 2.5 inch. You said 'laying on the bottom' did I understand it correct you just wrapped it in somehow? xD
  
  Second question:
  I can't find the TS440 that cheap anywhere else, amazon won't ship it outside the US, and I don't live in the US...any ideas where to get it?

I'm looking to upgrade my SSD (currently a Corsair Force ls 60gb, which i use only for the OS and drivers, no games or personal files) due to capacity issues; i've found the PNY CS1311 120 GB and the Samsung 850 evo 120 GB. Which one of these would be best for my purposes(only OS, drivers, other computer-operation necessary files), do you think?

If by best you mean, the fastest read/write speeds, then the Samsung 850 Evo would probably hold that title. If by best you mean, the best priced I would recommend the Kingston HyperX

Fractal Designs Define S

This is my current recomendation for cost effective cases. Excellent layout, no wasting space on 5.25" drive bays, and a very efficient layout for air and water cooling.

But anything from fractal designs will be better put together than other cases in its price point. So take your pick

Also i havent seen you post a everyday need/use case for a optical drive, so i would trade that out for even a small SSD. Something like this PNY is a direct swap pricewise, and will make everything feel many times quicker.

The reason people are urging the SSD option is because there is no seek time. I have been using SSDs for something like 5 years now and the difference is night and day. Even the original sataII SSDs are amazingly fast when it comes to running the OS. So while the PNY i listed isnt going to hit the 500MB/s speeds of say a 850 EVO it will be priceless when it comes to general tasks and opening/running most programs on a day to day basis. I have used both the 850 EVO and the PNY listed and outside of benchmarks you wont be able to tell a difference.

If you can save up another $100 you can go with a 6 core x99 solution, since it doesnt look like you are looking to utilize a lot of the new z170 features

Elucktronics are actually doing very well on the market and it is normally not the brand so much that depends on the gaming performance. None of the laptop manufacturers actually make their own processors, graphics card or memory. They depend on the likes of Intel, AMD, Nvidia etc for these components.
Enough of that though. The choice then is really between the MSI and the Asus we were looking at above. The Asus's GTX 970 graphics card makes a bi difference for graphic intensive games, but you want an SSD. Get this Asus then after, you get this SSD for it. Great choice there! You are still within your budget and you have a decent laptop with an SSD.

Some good options are the Samsung 850 EVO, SanDisk SSD, or the Kingston Digital. If you're looking for space and you don't mind the loss in speed you can also go with this Seagate SSHD. You can also use the stock hard drive and use an external hard drive enclosure for some extra space.

I'd go with the Samsung 850 EVO, you can however get the 250GB version for $90

Zotac ZBOX

Crucial 8gig stick

Samsung 850 EVO

My previous Realtek NIC box was cutting my line speeds in half and had a fan, this box still has Realtek NIC but it's not slowing me a bit at 100mbs speeds, has no fan, and is barely breaking a sweat. It has AES onboard but I've not done anything to push that. WiFi appears unsupported but I'm okay with that for now.

Cheap enough for you?

Here you go $75