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ptsant wrote:

This is exactly what I'm thinking. Current alternatives I am considering are Intel and Plextor drives, because they have a reputation for reliability.

FWIW, I choose Intel or Crucial for the power loss protection feature, which AFAICT no other SSD brands have.

Which brand depends on budget, as the Intel PLP implementation is much better (where present, i.e. not in Intel's "cheaper" SSDs) but more expensive than the Crucial version, and on tolerance (or not!) for the Intel hard endurance limit feature.

Topinio wrote:

FWIW, I choose Intel or Crucial for the power loss protection feature, which AFAICT no other SSD brands have.

You are aware that this only applies to certain models, right?

just brew it! wrote:

Topinio wrote:

FWIW, I choose Intel or Crucial for the power loss protection feature, which AFAICT no other SSD brands have.

You are aware that this only applies to certain models, right?

Yep, hence the

Topinio wrote:

(where present, i.e. not in Intel's "cheaper" SSDs)

Doesn't mean I don't buy any SSDs without PLP, but I like those brands because I know they've thought of this and offer it as an option if there's enough budget, which there usually is. Sorry, should've been clearer.

ptsant wrote:

This is exactly what I'm thinking. Current alternatives I am considering are Intel and Plextor drives, because they have a reputation for reliability.

Am a Plextor/Liteon fan,but avoid their latest TLC drives. It's a race to the bottom-same as nearly all planer TLC.
As for Intel-the plextor/Liteon drive was so similar to the Intel 540 I'm guessing Liteon might be the OEM (SM controller Hynix flash)
The only two companies that seemed to get a grip with planer TLC are Samsung (750EVO) and Sandisk (Ultra 2)
My advice is pick something 3D.........................

ptsant wrote:

This is exactly what I'm thinking. Current alternatives I am considering are Intel and Plextor drives, because they have a reputation for reliability.

Plextor is the brand name now used by Lite-On, who also made fantastic CD-R(W)/DVD+-R(W) drives a decade ago. Lite-On uses the Plextor logo for SSDs - that's the only thing Plex about them. I am not saying they are bad - in fact, LiteOn and Hyundai and SK Hynix all seem to make pretty solid entry-level SSDs (planar TLC with SLC cache - plenty good enough for booting Windows). I own a couple of PCIe Plextor-branded drives with MLC - there have been no problems, but I should have waited for 960 EVO, which I now have.

I bought an Intel 600p the day it came out. Returned it after a few days of usage as secondary drive.

Anyway, Samsung is the only name in the game right now. 750 EVO and 960 EVO/PRO are good current stuff from multiple reviews ive read. I have a 950 Pro NVMe that i have no issues with.

All other brands are just not as good, but can be quite sufficient if you can find reviews saying they are OK. All the other names use random mix of controller and flash. Only Samsung makes Samsung controller and flash. None of the others do.

Reason the 600p was a piece of **** was because it wasnt Intel firmware/hardware. Just a cash grab.

blahsaysblah wrote:

I bought an Intel 600p the day it came out. Returned it after a few days of usage as secondary drive.

Anyway, Samsung is the only name in the game right now. 750 EVO and 960 EVO/PRO are good current stuff from multiple reviews ive read. I have a 950 Pro NVMe that i have no issues with.

All other brands are just not as good, but can be quite sufficient if you can find reviews saying they are OK. All the other names use random mix of controller and flash. Only Samsung makes Samsung controller and flash. None of the others do.

I see there is a sort of consensus in favor of Samsung. In practice, the Plextor M.2 1TB ($450 local price) is equivalent to the 960 EVO (also ~$450), see for example here.  That is why I was considering it, to avoid Samsung for what they did with the 840.
The 960 Pro is out of my league ($619) and the only options from intel in that price range are either the consumer M.2 600P ($324) the M.2 540S ($360) or the datacenter SATA DC 3510 800 GB (deprecated by the 3520, on sale) at $500.
Anyway, what I'll do is I'm going to put the Plextor, the 960 Evo and the 960 Pro in a shopping list in a the major retailers around here and I'll keep an eye on the price. If any of these is on sale or gets a massive price cut, I'll get it immediately. If nothing budges until april, I'll probably get the Plextor...

ptsant wrote:

I see there is a sort of consensus in favor of Samsung. In practice, the Plextor M.2 1TB ($450 local price) is equivalent to the 960 EVO (also ~$450), see for example here.  That is why I was considering it, to avoid Samsung for what they did with the 840.
The 960 Pro is out of my league ($619) and the only options from intel in that price range are either the consumer M.2 600P ($324) the M.2 540S ($360) or the datacenter SATA DC 3510 800 GB (deprecated by the 3520, on sale) at $500.
Anyway, what I'll do is I'm going to put the Plextor, the 960 Evo and the 960 Pro in a shopping list in a the major retailers around here and I'll keep an eye on the price. If any of these is on sale or gets a massive price cut, I'll get it immediately. If nothing budges until april, I'll probably get the Plextor...

Plextor/Liteon with Marvel controller and Toshiba MLC sounds a good mix.
As long as it'll fit in your intended application I'd definitely recommend getting the model with the heatsink.
M.2 NVMe drives are really pushing the boundaries and get hot.
Don't know whether you need the speed but if not from a price perspective I'd add a 850EVO to that shopping list.
Avoid that 540...........................................

Just to give a short follow-up, I got the replacement BIOS chip.
I installed it, cleared the CMOS and ... could not boot. For some obscure reason, the new BIOS had lost the boot entries, even though the EFI partition is still present. I tried tweaking the thing, but I suppose I would have to find a linux USB and rewrite the EFI configuration. I was too bored to do that, so I'll try another day when I have more time.

If anyone is aware of an alternative obvious, easy solution, please enlighten me.

One more follow-up. As discussed, I kept my eyes open for sales and managed to get a Corsair kit 2x16GB DDR4 3000 for $199, which I think is a good price. I will max out memory at some point to 64GB. Do you think I should wait for prices to fall even further or will DDR4 prices increase, as some have been saying? I don't need more than 32GB right now, but bioinformatics algorithms routinely benefit from 16-32GB and 64GB leaves some breathing space for the future.

Forgot to add: the Corsair H80i I own supports the AM4 socket. The newer H80i v2 requires an adapter from Corsair. Generally, it appears that Corsair AiO coolers that attach on the socket (mostly older ones) will work, while those that attach on a backplate will need an adapter.

If it was me I would first get the Wife's approval for an upgrade. (Happy wife, happy life!)
Next budget for $1200 and save $200 a month for the next 6 months.
At the end of 6 months wait for the next Tech Report system guide.
Buy what I need/want looking on amazon.com, newegg.com, ebay.com to get the best prices.

There you go problem solved.

Aranarth wrote:

If it was me I would first get the Wife's approval for an upgrade. (Happy wife, happy life!)
Next budget for $1200 and save $200 a month for the next 6 months.
At the end of 6 months wait for the next Tech Report system guide.
Buy what I need/want looking on amazon.com, newegg.com, ebay.com to get the best prices.

There you go problem solved.

Thanks for the advice, but finding the money was not part of the problem and, thankfully, my wife knows I need an upgrade. I can't wait 6 months, though.

My question to all readers now is about the case: what is a good choice, not noisy, with good thermals and ease of use? The case must have place for a radiator (have an H80i but may buy a bigger one, so 240 or 280mm radiator should ideally be supported, just in case). I was thinking about the Corsair 750D, which is quite big, and I then noticed the Fractal R5, which is a bit cheaper, and the Cooler Master MasterCase 5. All three are in TechReport's system guide so they can't be bad. Price differences within this price bracket ($100-160) are not an issue.

Which one would you choose?

I recommend micro-ATX for most applications.

The Fractal Design Define Mini C is worth a look. From Cooler Master, you might consider the MasterCase Pro 3. Newegg has a couple dozen micro-ATX cases that are reasonably roomy.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I recommend micro-ATX for most applications.
The Fractal Design Define Mini C is worth a look. From Cooler Master, you might consider the MasterCase Pro 3 or Silencio 352.

Thanks for the advice.

I really need the 4 memory slots (many mATX don't seem to have that) and plan to put a decent quantity of hardware (3xHDDs, 2xSSD, 1 RX480) inside. Although I could probably cram all that in a microATX, I don't see an obvious benefit in doing so. The case will end up on the floor next to my legs, so for all practical purposes anything other than the biggest full ATX is not noticeable.

Anyway, you mention Fractal Design. I have never seen a Fractal Design case from close but I've had great experience with a Corsair Carbide 200R and 300R. Do you have any experience with Fractal Design? The Define R5 specifically?

I've got an R4 and a corsair 450R. R4/R5 is an awesome case for the price, but it's air-optimized, IMO. Build quality between my two cases is similar. 750D is nicer, from what I've heard.

If you plan on a 280 rad, I'd say Define S is a better case than the R5, as it's designed for radiators, and sticks 3.5s behind mobo tray. You lose a 5.25 bay in order to fit that rad in. you can take all the HDD racks out of an R5, but it it doesn't have as much space for HDDs behind the mobo. Mastercase would also work, as you can put the HDD bay in the PSU compartment. That grille is more open, too.

air 540 also fits in big rads and quite a few HDDs, if you dig the form factor. 4x3.5 and 4x2.5 if you use the 5.25 bays for hotswap docks, and an unobstructed air path for the rad.

edit:typo

ptsant wrote:

I really need the 4 memory slots (many mATX don't seem to have that).

Only the cheapest bottom-of-the-barrel micro-ATX motherboards have fewer than four DIMM slots. I agree that you should not settle for a motherboard that can't hold four DIMMs, even if you start out just populating two of them. Unfortunately, the recent price run-up means that you're looking at $370 for 64 GiB of PC4-25600 memory.

Hello, just another update.

Already bought 2x16GB Corsair DDR4 3000.
Bought the Fractal Define R5 case, without window.
Pre-booked the Ryzen 1700X based on the rumors but waiting for the reviews (not yet paid).
Confirmed the Corsair H80 works with Ryzen AM4 (but not the H80 v2!)

Need help with the motherboard. I can afford up to $300 and really don't mind spending up to that amount, if it's worth it. I want maximum stability/reliability and expandability for the future (storage, RAM, USB etc).

The ROG Crosshair is at $279 local price, which is a bit pricey compared with the Prime Pro ($179). The Crosshair has the following minor issues:
1. No second M.2 (I still don't own an M.2 drive, but that could become a limitation down the road).
2. No video output (I like handing over old hardware to friends, this means that you will always need a GPU to make it work).
3. No ECC support (yet?). That would be nice if I turn the machine into a server, 2-3 years later.

The Prime seems overall a much more budget product, especially when you look at power delivery (10 vs 12 phases) and number of USB ports. However, it does have a video output, the same Intel Ethernet (nice), one M.2 and a very similar audio chip (1220, supposedly the Crosshair is slightly better).

I also noticed AsRock boards which have 2xM.2, 2xLAN (including a 5GBps LAN, currently not useful to me but nice) but only support 2666 DDR4, which sort of sucks in my case.

Never bought MSI or Gigabyte recently. Had an MSI fail a long time ago (exploding capacitor).

What do you think?

From the limited number of motherboards available for pre-order now, it looks like the Asus Prime X370-Pro or Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370-Gaming 5 are your choices.

Hello all

I thought I'd give you an update. You may remember that I was perplexed by the fact that my FX8350 would not wake from sleep, requiring a complex ritual every time (hard off, CMOS clear etc). I thought it was approaching end of life and decided to upgrade to a Ryzen 1700X before the appearance of the magic smoke. I got the 1700X, an Asus Crosshair VI, cheap Corsair DDR4 2x16GB 3000CL15 which is dual-rank and runs at 2667MHz and a nice Fractal R5 case.

Unfortunately, I got the exact same problem with the Ryzen system. It wasn't a software issue because the problem existed on both Linux and Windows. Given the fact that I only kept specific pieces from the previous system (PSU, HD, SSD, GPU), I thought that it had to come from these pieces. To make a long story short, after a series of tests, I finally discovered that the PSU was the culprit: even though the sense voltage was correct at 3.3V, it somehow failed to detect the change (or some protection mechanism stopped it from turning on) when it should have. I inspected the PSU capacitors visually and couldn't find an obvious cause but the problem went away when I bought a new Seasonic Prime 750 Titanium, a product that delivers, according to Anandtech, a near mythical performance (http://www.anandtech.com/show/11252/the ... ply-review ).

The old PSU was also a Seasonic unit, a 7-year old X-750 Gold. I expected it to last a little more, but since the guarantee was for 5 years, I suppose I got my money's worth out of it.

What struck me immediately with the Ryzen system was (a) this was the least painful system upgrade I've ever done,(b) sound quality was noticeably better (the Crosshair VI has some nice audio circuitry) and (c) it is really cool and quiet.

The Ryzen system is noticeably faster in almost anything multithreaded, especially for code that runs using the AMD math libraries (multithreaded) and compilation. Games are probably slightly faster than with the FX8350, but I couldn't say. It already was plenty fast for me so I didn't notice a big difference (I'm currently playing Witcher 3). Win 10 startup is probably a bit faster, maybe because the SATA is also better (SSD speeds have improved under Samsung Magician). I will post a series of bioinformatics benchmarks at some point but I'm still optimizing some parameters for the new architecture (number of threads, recompiling the tools--btw Ryzen lacks some of the FX8350 instructions and code that was specifically compiled for the 8350 does not run, it has to be recompiled with different flags).

Anyway, if your system fails to wake up from sleep, you should consider testing with another PSU.

I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts.

I went from an i7-2600K @ 4.0 GHz/16GB DDR3 2133/Z77M to a Ryzen 1700 @ 3.6 GHz/MSI Mortar Arctic/16GB DDR4 3200. Carried over a 1 TB 850 EVO

I only play older games so there is not a lot to tell.
The Ryzen feels *slightly* slower opening apps. Not sure though. At first, Ryzen felt like a giant leap sideways.

I'm not sure what all the memory fuss is. I went with recommended single rank DDR4 and went straight to 2933 MHz. Haven't pushed it further yet. Likewise, 3.6 GHz was a doddle and voltage only crept up slightly from stock - maybe from 1.1x to 1.2x.

The winner for me though is encoding. A Bluray encode went from a couple of hours +, to mid-40 minutes using the same settings. I would gladly give up a few FPS for that sort of speed up.

Would I upgrade from Sandy/Ivy/Haswell? If gaming was all you cared about and you had a good overclock. No. If you run anything multi-threaded, ab-so-damn-lutely