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Kravengl
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Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Fri May 08, 2020 12:34 am

I have just ordered a Samsung EVO SSD 1 Terabyte for my 7 years old desktop.
Before that, I got a new power supply ($80-ish) and anther 8GB ram ($35) (now the total is 16 GB ram)
I do games, and one day that used to be a gaming machine. Not anymore due to my outdated graphic card (Nvidia GTX 660 - 2GB Ram).

I already have a functioning 1 Terabyte HDD. So when the SSD arrives, I would clone everything over to the new SSD.

My questions:
- If I kept the HDD connecting while making the SSD the primary drive, would the connecting HDD slow down the entire machine just by being connecting?
- Is it really worth it to spend around $150 for a 1 Terabyte SSD, given that there were cheaper options (i.e: Crucial) in the market or lower capacity (i.e: 500GB) (But then I wouldn't be able to clone to a lower capacity drive)?
- Almost the majority saying this is the best upgrade one could do to a computer, would I really feel a difference that worth the $150 I paid? When I doubled the rams, I didn't find the change in speed noticeable. Only 1 game felt the difference.
- PC Gamers: Should I wait a bit for the services like Google Stadia to be out there and utilizing the new gaming platform generations? Or I should start considering upgrading the graphic card as well? I tried a game before on Google when it was experimental, and I liked playing that game on their servers so much. No issues, high quality always, fast to load..etc

ETA:
For those who ask about the rest of the specs:
- Intel Core i5 4670
- Gigabyte Z87-HD3 (Updated bios to F8 version)
- DDR3 Ram. 16GB as mentioned above
The rest was already mentioned.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Fri May 08, 2020 1:16 am

Kravengl wrote:
My questions:
- If I kept the HDD connecting while making the SSD the primary drive, would the connecting HDD slow down the entire machine just by being connecting?

No. Not unless you install something on the HDD that needs to be accessed constantly. That will introduce a pause. You can attach the HDD for least used stuff or keeping backup copies of important data. Running everything from SSD will be a much better use of available resources. Just ensure to keep at least 100GB free on the SSD. If the SSD gets too full, that will have an impact on performance. SSD needs free space in order to do its internal housekeeping tasks.

Kravengl wrote:
- Is it really worth it to spend around $150 for a 1 Terabyte SSD, given that there were cheaper options (i.e: Crucial) in the market or lower capacity (i.e: 500GB) (But then I wouldn't be able to clone to a lower capacity drive)?

1TB is good. I would go with 2TB but that's up to you. You got an 860 EVO? That's a good drive. 5 years warranty. Don't fall for the cheaper options. They use cheaper, lower quality NAND flash that might not last longer comparatively. See if you can get an NVMe drive like the 960 EVO. That is much faster than a SATA drive like 860 EVO. You may need to get an NVMe to PCI express adapter card to install the NVMe SSD in one of your PCI Express 4x slots.

Kravengl wrote:
- Almost the majority saying this is the best upgrade one could do to a computer, would I really feel a difference that worth the $150 I paid? When I doubled the rams, I didn't find the change in speed noticeable. Only 1 game felt the difference.

Boot up and launching applications will feel faster. Rest depends on how much multitasking you do. If you open a lot of browser tabs or run many different applications at once, you will feel a noticeable difference in overall smoothness of your computing experience.

Kravengl wrote:
- PC Gamers: Should I wait a bit for the services like Google Stadia to be out there and utilizing the new gaming platform generations? Or I should start considering upgrading the graphic card as well? I tried a game before on Google when it was experimental, and I liked playing that game on their servers so much. No issues, high quality always, fast to load..etc

Honestly, if you loved Stadia, stick with that. It will save you from an upgrade (as right now isn't the best time to upgrade. Maybe December when you have better hardware options like Geforce 3060 or AMD Big Navi. Though if your favorite game isn't on Stadia, that will be a problem.

Kravengl wrote:
ETA:
For those who ask about the rest of the specs:
- Intel Core i5 4670No
- Gigabyte Z87-HD3 (Updated bios to F8 version)
- DDR3 Ram. 16GB as mentioned above
The rest was already mentioned.

Only the CPU here seems to be slow. Try getting a used i7-4770K.
 
K-L-Waster
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Re: Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Fri May 08, 2020 8:10 am

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
See if you can get an NVMe drive like the 960 EVO. That is much faster than a SATA drive like 860 EVO. You may need to get an NVMe to PCI express adapter card to install the NVMe SSD in one of your PCI Express 4x slots..


With the OP's motherboard, he will need a PCI card if he wants to go NVMe. And to be honest, while NVMe drives do have much higher theoretical speeds than SATA drives, in practice for gaming it doesn't make much difference (if the OP was doing heavy database operations or video editing it would be another story). For this use case a SATA SSD will provide ~97% of the performance improvement that NVMe would without incurring the cost of the PCI card.

I completely agree with all of the other points Igor made, though.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Fri May 08, 2020 9:27 am

Buying a new SSD is fine. Worst-case, you can move your drives to a new PC in the future. Shopping for another CPU for your old motherboard, however needs to be approached with caution. The lowest-end Ryzen 3 3000 series processor on a new B550 motherboard outperforms the best processor available for your socket. If you can get a Core i7-4770K or 4790K CHEAPLY, fine. Just don’t spend much.
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Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Fri May 08, 2020 9:50 am

JustAnEngineer wrote:
If you can get a Core i7-4770K or 4790K CHEAPLY, fine. Just don’t spend much.

Yeah, I second the suggestion for i7-4790K.
 
K-L-Waster
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Re: Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Fri May 08, 2020 2:50 pm

JustAnEngineer wrote:
Buying a new SSD is fine. Worst-case, you can move your drives to a new PC in the future. Shopping for another CPU for your old motherboard, however needs to be approached with caution. The lowest-end Ryzen 3 3000 series processor on a new B550 motherboard outperforms the best processor available for your socket. If you can get a Core i7-4770K or 4790K CHEAPLY, fine. Just don’t spend much.


Agreed. The new 3300X with a B550 would be a beastly budget system (basically 7700K level performance for 1/3 the price).

I wouldn't spend any more than $40 US on an Intel 47XX chip. Anything more than that isn't really money well spent.
Main System: i7-8700K, ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-E, 16 GB DDR4 3200 RAM, ASUS 6800XT, 1 TB WD_Black SN750, Corsair 550D

HTPC: I5-4460, ASUS H97M-E, 8 GB RAM, GTX 970, CRUCIAL 256GB MX100, SILVERSTONE GD09B
 
Aranarth
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Re: Upgrading a PC, am I spending too much in too little time?

Sat May 09, 2020 7:22 am

When the new drive turns up if you have sufficient free disk space you can use macrium reflect to copy the entire contents of the hdd to the ssd.

Try to keep the ssd drive at no more more 75% used once you have moved rarely used files back to the hdd.
You will want to format the hdd once you have confirmed everything copied over to the ssd successfully.

Next I would look at getting a better video card either an rx580 8gb or the nvidia equivalent.

I currently used a 2600k with a rx580 and can usually game just fine at 1920x1080 at medium/high settings targeting 65fps+
Main machine: Core I7 -2600K @ 4.0Ghz / 16 gig ram / Radeon RX 580 8gb / 500gb toshiba ssd / 5tb hd
Old machine: Core 2 quad Q6600 @ 3ghz / 8 gig ram / Radeon 7870 / 240 gb PNY ssd / 1tb HD

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