General computer talk/advice

I heard you could just buy a cheap 32 or 16gb ssd (which are much cheaper than 8 or 16gb ram sticks) and connect them to your motherboard. Or are normal ram-sticks better because they have like the name says random (fast) access to their memory and don't store data in "blocks"?

 

You cant use an SSD as RAM at all.

 

SSD's are much much slower than RAM. DDR3 RAM can do 10gb a second quite happily while a top end SSD can sometime struggle to push 550mb a second. Also the latency on RAM will be much lower etc.

 

not to mention that RAM is actually required to read an SSD in the first place...

No chipset supports using a SATA device as RAM, or PCIe either. You either use real RAM or you use real RAM.
Windows has a feature where it can page file onto an external USB device, linux can be set to have its swap partition on SSD. Both still require true ram, both are slow.

 

I'll do that.
So that's the final build. I just added an optical drive and 2x 4gb instead of 18gb stick: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/QMfDFT

 

should really be using 2 sticks of 4gb for best performance not 1 stick of 8

 

I just realized 2x 4gb is even cheaper than 1x 8gb stick
And think I can even get it cheaper if I search on sites like geizhals (in the uk called skinflint) for those parts.

- - - Updated - - -

Now I changed the motherboard and the power supply. http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/QCrWCJ
I hope the psu is still good enough and capable of not having a failure right away.

 

You are really pushing it with that power supply, since there is no gtx960 on the psu calculator yet i used a 970 and came out to around 330-340w required. Granted the 960 will use less but that really is way too close for comfort, i would highly suggest going back to the 500w PSU you had selected earlier.

By the way, why exactly are you getting a 4gb 960 as opposed to the 2gb model? The 4gb model isn't official since it was created by board manufacturers such as gigabyte and not nvidia (not really an issue) but more importantly you will probably be running out of performance long before you run out of RAM on the gtx960 meaning it probably isn't worth the money. That will pay for the better GPU and allow you to save more money in doing so.

Just a few other things:

• Make sure that you have a compatible hard drive to throw in the computer (a SATA hard drive)
• Do you need a DVD drive? Some people do some people dont.
• You may need to buy an extra fan since the case only has a front intake one included. Normally in a gaming PC its fairly standard to have a front intake fan and a rear exhaust fan, since you are using the Intel cooler and an open air GPU it may be a very good idea to have a bit more airflow.
• Do you have a copy of windows? Quite often people forget about that. You could go down the Linux route too if you wanted.

 

I dunno. I think the 4GB is reasonable. It is about as fast as a 280x and my 280x can use all 3GB of it's VRAM while also keeping 45fps+.
Remember though, some of that 4GB will be slower than the rest.

 

Nope, all the vram will be the same speed. All they will have done is replace 8x 256mb chips with 8x 512mb chips or something along those lines. So reading 2GB from the vram of both cards will take the same length of time. But the 4gb model is ~50 eur more, its probably not worth that much on a card that will likely be limited by the 960 bit before it is limited by the 2gb bit. The 4gb will help if you run skyrim with hd texture packs at high resolutions.

Essentially this but with newer cards: http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

Or if you want exact numbers with the 960 2gb/4gb then just look here: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Gefor.../Tests/4-GB-Test-Vorteile-Benchmarks-1154370/

So essentially in most games it makes no difference, but in some it will make a difference. Whether it is worth the extra money is up to you.

I would suggest looking at AMD, you could get an R9 280x for less which has 3gb of vram or an r9 290 with 4gb of vram for a bit more money.

 

I got convinced to get an AMD. As you said it's a little bit cheaper and when I looked at the performance, I think I'll be more than pleased with it, compared to my current performance with my lenovo t430s.

And I don't need a new Windows licence. I'll continue to use my ssd with everything on it. I also have an external harddrive where I have a backup of my ssd.
I also have an optical drive at home.
I changed back to the 500w psu and added an extra fan: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/QYB7Hx

 

If its an OEM version of windows (ie preinstalled from factory) then yes you do need a new license. OEM versions check for a license key against the BIOS EEPROM (or essentially the motherboard itself) and will refuse to boot on other hardware.

 

No I have bought my licence on e-bay and it says I can use it 3 times, I think. I even have used my current licence on my previous laptop, so I think it'll work one more time.

 

You can try, but I'm pretty sure that means 3 times on the same PC.

If you need a cheap key try /r/microsoftsoftwareswap

 

If he's a Redditor.

 

that doesn't really matter if he is or not. if he wants a key from there, he can create an account and do so. it isn't that hard.

 

I'm not so sure about that. Seems like some pirated keys being sold for almost nothing.
It's like keyforsteam.com (which is hosted in russia) only on reddit and for windows keys. Same category like those dubious russian mods websites.

 

It is.

To me to buy from those sites is worse than piracy. Those keys are either purchased with stolen credit card details and then sold on or hacked from other users PCs (large amounts of malware exist solely to steal your windows license key and remove it from your current install - hence deregistering your product and allowing the hacker to sell the key on). Its not theft from microsoft, its theft from other people.

 

^^this^^

Its also not like normal piracy where no one makes any money. Its more the case that you are giving money to people who are either pirating it or stealing it. But the original creator still doesnt earn anything.

 

Why do I suddenly really like the Corsair 380T?
It still looks stupid in yellow, but it actually looks great in black. I love the 'start/stop' power button