Desktop Computers

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Rickshaw Potatoes>
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Have prices gone up on SSD's or something? I got a 1 TB 840 EVO for $425 back in November.
The 1TB drives have been the best bargain per gigabyte for a while. But that's still a really good price for a brand new high end 250gb drive.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Rickshaw Potatoes>
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Supposedly when you try to install Windows 10 to a phone or a <8 inch tablet, it will install a version with the Desktop disabled, regardless of whether it's an x86 or ARM device. But I think you could get around that by deploying it to the device with imagex or something, and selecting the package you want to install manually.
 

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
AMD slashing prices on 4GB 290x cards to capitalize on the 970 snafu

PowerColor Radeon R9 290X 4GB GDDR5 Video Card + $20 Gift Card $233 After $30 Rebate + Shipping (New Customers Only) - NCIX (US) Deals, Coupons and Promos

That's a great card for $230, a full $100 cheaper than most 970s

I probably would have chosen a 290x over a 970 for $100 savings 2 months ago when I bought my 970. At that time, they were virtually the same price though, so the 970 was a no-brainer. Heck, at that price you could go dual 290x cards for only $100-ish more than a single 970.
 

Ichu

Molten Core Raider
853
292
The same site offers the card for $270 Canadian, which is super cheap for us. Looks like free shipping as well.

It's so damn tempting to jump on that since they still cost $440+ up here, but my 7870 still runs everything at 1080p :\
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
Time to look up benchmarks and see how the price cut lines up on the bang per buck scale.
smile.png


Very tempting, considering I'm still rocking a single 6950 2gb.
 

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
15,397
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AMD slashing prices on 4GB 290x cards to capitalize on the 970 snafu

PowerColor Radeon R9 290X 4GB GDDR5 Video Card + $20 Gift Card $233 After $30 Rebate + Shipping (New Customers Only) - NCIX (US) Deals, Coupons and Promos

That's a great card for $230, a full $100 cheaper than most 970s

I probably would have chosen a 290x over a 970 for $100 savings 2 months ago when I bought my 970. At that time, they were virtually the same price though, so the 970 was a no-brainer. Heck, at that price you could go dual 290x cards for only $100-ish more than a single 970.
Wish I could switch off of nvidia but not being able to stream games to my shield tablet would kill me at this point. Seriously addicted to that tablet and gaming with it.
 

Aaron

Goonsquad Officer
<Silver Donator>
9,331
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I've been thinking it's time for a clean install of Windows, and in relation to that I've been thinking of jumping on the SSD bandwagon, so I have a few questions:

1. What models/makes of SSDs are the best and which should I stay the hell away from?
2. I've usually had the entire disk drive as C: but I know many people partition it so the OS is on a small C: partition but most of the programs on another. If I do that, how large should the C: partition be, and what would go there appart from the OS? (Office, certain games, Browsers?)?
3. ???
4. Profit!
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Rickshaw Potatoes>
31,800
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Best SSD dollar for dollar is the Samsung 850 EVO period. Especially when you get them for 10% off or whatever every few days on Newegg or some other site. Aside from the price and performance, 5 year, 150TB warranty is nuts.

Do not partition an SSD like that. Just keep it one solid drive. There is no benefit to partitioning it, and there's a whole lot of potential drawback of wasted space.

Use your standard mechanical drive for your torrents and porn and overly large, underused games (looking at you, Titanfall.)
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
27,007
41,319
I've been thinking it's time for a clean install of Windows, and in relation to that I've been thinking of jumping on the SSD bandwagon, so I have a few questions:

1. What models/makes of SSDs are the best and which should I stay the hell away from?
2. I've usually had the entire disk drive as C: but I know many people partition it so the OS is on a small C: partition but most of the programs on another. If I do that, how large should the C: partition be, and what would go there appart from the OS? (Office, certain games, Browsers?)?
3. ???
4. Profit!
Samsung and Intel are good ones, there are others, but opinions vary. You dont need partitions for your OS, at least I have never done it for my 2 systems with SSDs. Although I have the 128 GB versions because they were the economical ones back then. This gives me about 70 spare gigs after the OS installed and updated. But today the 256Gb models are the same price as the 100 gb ones I bought so I guess they are the price vs performance leaders now? Also the bigger they are the faster they are in read and write speeds.

There is no reason to have anything other than your OS and your most used programs on the SSD, for example if you use office a lot, install it on the ssd. Or some game you play every day, like WoW or some other game, by all means install it on ssd. It will not improve performance, but the game/zones/levels will load faster. All the other shit I put on my platter storage drives. Also its smart to move all of your storage folders over to platter drives, like downloads, my documents, music, shit like that to keep them clean as possible. Because the fuller they get the more slow they run. Or so Ive read. So I just keep the OS on them and leave all the ther shit on storage drives, including games.
 

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
isthisworth $750?
I'd say no. A $200+ premium just for a version of a card that overclocks a bit better? No way. As an alternative, I'd either wait for the inevitable 980Ti that'll probably launch around the $700-$800 price point, or buy a ~$500 980 now, and add a second one next year when they drop the price on them because the next gen of cards is out.

A single 980 is going to play any game just fine on ultra settings up through 1440p/1600p resolutions. It wont do 4K that well, but neither will the one you linked, you're going to need 2 cards for that.
 

Jysin

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,780
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They supposdly have a Titan version of the 980 version coming out. That would have a lot better performance per buck, but you are talking about a card pretty much geared for 4K. Complete waste on 1080p.
 

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Rickshaw Potatoes>
31,800
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4k gaming is officially a joke right now. You'd need 6gb or 8gb cards for that to be a thing. Otherwise you're turning settings down to get it running right on 4gb and then you might as well be playing at a lower resolution with higher settings.
 

Jysin

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
6,780
4,907
No shit. Considering the 700 series Titan cards were 6GB and aimed for the upper resolution market, I stand by my point.