What's the weak point on my computer? (What to upgrade next)

[btimbit]

R9 380 was exactly what I was looking at.^

Specifically this one
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX57920

I've had luck with HIS Radeon GPUs, why change

[cDnStealth]

I would warn you against getting anything AMD. I used to be a big supporter of ATI but their support sucks big time. Games seem way better optimized for Nvidia setups and they constantly release new drivers. They'd have to release a really good card for me to consider switching at this point especially since most games tend to run worse on AMD cards.

[btimbit]

My last NVidia cars have been brutal. 10 years ago I loved them, but they sure took a nosedive. Having to hunt for drivers manually drove me nuts. Maybe they climbed out of their hole recently but I like AMD's support programs

[cDnStealth]

My issue with AMD is they never release driver updates and their cards are poorly optimized. If you install Nvidia Experience it will auto search for new drivers. Pretty simple. Since I switched to Nvidia with my 670 I've had far less issues with my games and it's been a much smoother experience than any of my 4 previous Radeon cards.

[btimbit]

I find AMD releases drivers often enough, I'd hate for them to be like Windows and have to download an update every few hours.

I think we've just had the opposite experiences. To be fair my experience with Nvidia was in their crappy years circa 2010

[FlameOn]

Newegg is selling 500GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD for $189. It's the best deal for this I've seen.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/SAMSUNG-850-E...b0aee66ad5c585

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by btimbit

My last NVidia cars have been brutal.

Try premium fuel.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Regulator75

Try premium fuel.

[Jimmy Stang]

I'm thinking of upgrading my HD at home to an SSD, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it.

In particular, how easy is it to transfer the operating system (Windows 7) over? Obviously, a clean install would be better, but I'd rather avoid all of that fuss if it if possible.

Is it as simple as copying everything over to the new drive (Windows and applications, not media) and then making the new SSD the primary boot drive? Or are there other implications to worry about?

[Flash Walken]

when adding more ram, is it best practice to get the same type/brand as the existing set or is it standardized across manufacturers?

Going from 2x4gb DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) to 4x4gb unless there are arguments to the contrary.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I'm thinking of upgrading my HD at home to an SSD, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it.

In particular, how easy is it to transfer the operating system (Windows 7) over? Obviously, a clean install would be better, but I'd rather avoid all of that fuss if it if possible.

Is it as simple as copying everything over to the new drive (Windows and applications, not media) and then making the new SSD the primary boot drive? Or are there other implications to worry about?

Haven't done it yet, but I've started researching it and so far this seems like the easiest

http://www.paragon-software.com/tech...ate-OS-to-SSD/

Lots of good reviews out there

[DoubleF]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TflMQccerbY

I used this one. It's based on Acronis which was my go to until I realized that disc wizard (seagate) was a tiny bit easier than Acronis. Pretty sure it's not Seagate only.

Nutshell...

plug in new drive, clone old to new, pull out old, use new as primary.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

when adding more ram, is it best practice to get the same type/brand as the existing set or is it standardized across manufacturers?

Going from 2x4gb DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) to 4x4gb unless there are arguments to the contrary.

It doesn't have to be the same brand, but it should be the same speed, and as close to the same timings & voltage as possible, otherwise you could have a bad time.

[Hugh Jahrmes]

This thread reminded me of a major gear grinder.. Anyone else notice how hard it can be to find internal HDs anymore? Maybe just a Red Deer thing, but I was basically met with "????" at least a half dozen times I'd been at BB, FS, Walmart or wherever and thought about the fact the 2gb on my HTPC was full and needed replacing. Never made trip specifically for it, and eventually some kid found a 4tb in the back at BB for me. External drives? Right over there in aisles 3 through 8.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Hugh Jahrmes

This thread reminded me of a major gear grinder.. Anyone else notice how hard it can be to find internal HDs anymore? Maybe just a Red Deer thing, but I was basically met with "????" at least a half dozen times I'd been at BB, FS, Walmart or wherever and thought about the fact the 2gb on my HTPC was full and needed replacing. Never made trip specifically for it, and eventually some kid found a 4tb in the back at BB for me. External drives? Right over there in aisles 3 through 8.

MemEx makes this a non-issue, they have dozens of different internal HDD models. They ship too.

Check out www.memoryexpress.com, www.newegg.ca, www.ncix.com, www.tigerdirect.ca, www.canadacomputers.com, and www.amazon.ca. All are good options for hunting down PC parts, and all have free or reasonable shipping.

[FanIn80]

SSD. Always SSD. Single biggest performance increase you can do on any computer is going from HDD to SSD. It doesn't even matter which SSD you get, just the switch from physical (HDD) to electronic (SSD) will be an incredible improvement.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Hugh Jahrmes

This thread reminded me of a major gear grinder.. Anyone else notice how hard it can be to find internal HDs anymore? Maybe just a Red Deer thing, but I was basically met with "????" at least a half dozen times I'd been at BB, FS, Walmart or wherever and thought about the fact the 2gb on my HTPC was full and needed replacing. Never made trip specifically for it, and eventually some kid found a 4tb in the back at BB for me. External drives? Right over there in aisles 3 through 8.

Agreed. Working a lot in the Red Deer/Ponoka area this year, drove up to Edmonton to go Memory Express for this exact reason

[kirant]

I figure I'd use this topic to ask CP hardware experts (well, those who know the hardware far better than I do) as oppose to bumping old topics.

Background: I asked CP to help put together a gaming laptop last time and ended up getting a Sager. Never regretted the decision and am looking to get another Sager in the near future (the old one runs great but I figure I might look to build one instead of going with mostly default options in the customizing phase) to use for a long, long time (probably 6-10 year region).

Anyways:
- 15" vs 17"? I feel that 17" is starting into the range of "just buy a desktop"...and Sager makes that even worse by already making pretty bulky laptops.
- Is there an appreciable difference between the NVIDIA 970M and 980M graphics cards from personal experience? I find Sager tends to keep the components fairly cool but the reviews on 980M mention it sometimes does create problems for slim laptops (though Sager is anything but...)
- Similarly, is an i7-4790K worth the 50 dollar upgrade over an i7-4790? It seems like it would be given a nice performance boost but I wouldn't mind double checking my mental thoughts on all this.
- I'm hopelessly out of my league on the memory and hard drive reviews...anybody know the difference between these (besides the obvious more memory = better and multiple channels helps comments and that I should be using an SSD here)?:

Memory

Spoiler!

8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 1 X 8GB
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 8GB
16GB Kingston HyperX CL11 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1866MHz - 2 X 8GB
24GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 X 8GB
24GB Kingston HyperX CL11 DDR3 SDRAM at 1866MHz - 3 X 8GB
32GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 4 X 8GB
32GB Kingston HyperX CL11 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1866MHz - 4 X 8GB

Hard Drive

Spoiler!

I've kind of cut off the Hard Drives I wouldn't be looking at...500+ MB is the range I'm interested in since my current laptop uses 480 MB and I probably can't use much less than that given the amount of games I keep at a time.

My basic research informs me that these are effectively layered from "worst" to "best" in terms of performance...but that might be a little wrong.

Intel SSD Drives
480GB Intel 730 Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive

Crucial / Micron SSD Drives
500GB Crucial BX100 Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive
1TB Crucial BX100 Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive

Samsung SSD Drives (It sounds like the EVO is better in most regards given benchmark tests)
500GB Samsung 850 EVO Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive
1TB Samsung 850 EVO Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive
512GB Samsung 850 Pro Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive
1TB Samsung 850 Pro Series SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive

- Finally, given the kind of specs I'm looking at (given the above graphics card and processor I'm looking at), are there any obvious deficiencies or points where I'd lag behind?

[btimbit]

Hm. Turns out my motherboard doesn't support SATA III. Guess my upgrade list just got a lot, lot larger