Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[{XG}Gijs007]

Okay, well I swapped out my old SATA cable for a new SATA III cable that came with the motherboard and proceeded to reinstall windows on the V200 again. This time it worked flawlessly and much quicker, but I have a feeling it's not because of the cable switch. My mechanical hard drive needs to run in IDE mode to even boot windows for some reason, even though it's a SATA drive. So I forgot to switch my motherboard to AHCI mode before doing the installation on the SSD. So I'm using the SSD right now, but it's probably suffering from decreased performance due to it being installed and running in IDE mode rather than AHCI. I've also noticed that Windows 7 doesn't recognize that I'm using an SSD since the sleep, hibernate, and all those other unnecessary features are still active. I've read online that you can change the mode by changing some entries in the Registry. I think I'll try that before reinstalling and seeing if the speeds are where they should be.

This is the guide that I'm going to use: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/05/25/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7/

Do you guys think this will still cause my performance to be less than if I was to just clean install?

Edit: WTF is this shit?

Native IDE:



AHCI:




How the hell did I lose performance by switching the AHCI? I've also noticed that my boot up time is about 3 seconds slower in AHCI mode instead of IDE, too.

Did you install your chipset drivers, and are you using the latest bios?
if so this is weird.

[Amit]

BIOS, yes. Chipset, nope, I forgot. Thanks for reminding me!

Edit: Where do I even get AMD chipset drivers? Amd.com doesn't have chipset drivers for Phenom II CPUs.

[Cortexian]

Yeah that's weird. Chipset drivers are usually provided on mobo makers site if not on AMD's site directly. AHCI should definately be providing a performance boost.

[Amit]

Thanks, it was on Gigabyte's website. I forgot chipsets go by motherboard and not by CPU.

EDIT: Steaming pile of WTF?

I downloaded the chipset driver from Gigabyte and extracted the files. I run the installer and guess what happens? An installer for Catalyst Control Center pops up. WTF? somebody fucked up on the chipset driver package. I continued with the menus just to see what it wanted to install and it wanted to upgrade my latest driver set to some outdated one from April 2010. Jesus Christ. The description on the site says it includes SATA drivers, which are probably the ones that would fix my problem. Maybe I'll try a European mirror and see if that gives me the same bullshit.

EDIT 2: Nvm, the extra drivers are in the packages folder. Why the hell would they put it within an outdated CCC install though? It seems retarded since not all AMD users have AMD GPUs.

EDIT 3: Wow this installer was cryptic as hell. I finally found the AHCI driver installer, but then it told me it needed to use the CCC installer to do it. So I clicked yes and it went through.

Really AMD? You have to make installing drivers that complicated for the end user?

EDIT 4: Well here's all my tests lined up side by side. The order is this: IDE>>AHCI>>AHCI Updated Driver

Note that I installed BF3 after the first two tests, so the SSD is 31% more full than it was when I did the first two tests.



I don't really know what to make of the most recent one. It has the best Sequential Read rating so far, but by far the worst Sequential Write. Random Read is the best yet, but writes are still abysmally low.

EDIT 5:

So I did the test one more time using a single pass and got this, so what I have here is really a mixed bag:



EDIT 6: Turns out I didn't use the correct AHCI driver. I got the real latest one from the Catalyst 11.12 package and got slightly better results:

The one to the left used 5 passes and the one on the right used 9 passes.



Looks like my Sequential speeds are finally where they need to be, but the Random reads/writes seem to be a lot slower than they were advertised. Oh well, that's a known issue for this drive and Kingston is probably working on a fix now.

[Cortexian]

Update your CrystalDiskMark version.

What my M4 gets:

[Amit]

Update your CrystalDiskMark version.

Look at my screen shots. I'm using the same version as you.

[Cortexian]

Oh nvm I was confusing it with CrystalDiskInfo which is version 4.1.4.

[Warsaw]

Alright, check it. Two potential builds I'm considering for purchase at the end of this month. Primary usage:
-Games
-Video Encoding
-Rendering
-pr0n
-lasting six years with marginal (if any) upgrades.

And by marginal, I mean nothing more than adding another 16GB of RAM and/or more hard drives (SSD!).

Mmmk, first up, X79:

Mobo - ASUS PX79

CPU - Core i7-3930K

RAM - 16 GB (4x4 GB)Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 1600 (1.5v)

GPU - 1x Radeon HD 7970 (brand agnostic, but Sapphire, XFX, and HIS are front-runners)

HDD - 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F3

Case - Fractal Design XL (Black)

Total: $1820 (sans S&H)

And now, Z68:

Mobo - ASRock Z68 Professional Gen3

CPU - i7-2600K

RAM - 16 GB (4x4 GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (1.5v)

GPU - 2x Radeon HD 7970

SSD - 120 GB SanDisk Ultra

Case - Fractal Design XL (Black)

Total: $2050

On the one hand, I get better future-proofing and I can always grab that second HD 7970 later. On the other hand, the Z68 platform is more immediately powerful than the X79, but that's as good as it will ever get.

What do you guys think? Slow and steady or bumrush? Swap out that HDD above for the SSD? I do have a 750GB Caviar Green I have lying around that I can scrounge, but it's a Caviar Green. I already have a 1080W PSU and DVD-burner, so those are not issues to consider. I'm also thinking about this fan for both systems, as I intend to OC. Not ready to jump into a full-on water cooled solution, but I am willing to consider closed-loop systems as long as they are price/performance competitive with the best air solutions.

Also, the GTX 580 is looking attractive, as it is competitive with the 7970 for $50 less. However, it will be harder to get a hold of one later down the line should I go with the X79, relative to the 7970 (which just came out).

[Amit]

Are you sure you want to throw down $600 for a single video card? I'd say if there was anything to replace further down the line, it would be the video card. If you go for some lower end cards that are significantly cheaper, you can get newer technology in those cards more often. I'm not doubting that the 7970 can get a lot of mileage, though.

[Cortexian]

Well the 7970 is a top-end card, so the mileage should be AT LEAST 6 years of new releases on Ultra/Very High GPU settings. Maybe knock it down to High/Medium with less AA (or no AA) in the later portion of that time frame. Two would easily last 6 years on Very High settings with no AA.

For CPU cooling I'd recommend the Noctua NH-D14 or the Corsair H80. The H100 isn't THAT much better than the H80, however the H80 is price/performance competitive with the NH-D14 without taking up as much space. Not to mention it puts less physical stress on your motherboard since it weighs a lot less.

GTX 580's should be available NIB for at least 3 years, conservatively. You may have to look a little harder after two years though. If you'd plan on getting a second card within 3 years I would recommend going for the GTX 580 instead of the HD 7970, especially if you use Adobe Premiere. Premiere uses the Mercury Playback Engine to render video effects in scrubbing and playback live if you have an Nvidia card newer than the GeForce GTX 8800. If you don't use Premiere it's really up to you on that front. AMD Eyefinity is still the best multi-monitor solution out there for gaming since Nvidia Surround is limited to, and requires three monitors.


I would actually go for the Z68 setup with two GTX 580's and a Crucial M4 120GB instead of the SanDisk. All I hear is good about the M4 and my personal experience since getting it has been great. They're all coming with the latest firmware available right now and getting greater than advertised speeds with Intel-level reliability.

Just note that the i7-2600k isn't as good for overclocking as the i5-2500k. I'm sure you already know this, it basically boils down to the fact that there's more components and "stuff" going on in the 2600k. That means more heat and less stability at higher-than-recommended speeds. Lots of people have to disable the hyper-threading or entire cores to get a stable overclock. Some 2600k chips get luck-of-the-draw advantage though and overclock great with everything enabled and low voltage. As with any chip it comes down to the individual chip and inconsistency with the manufacturing process. I would seriously weigh your usage and determine if you really need the 2600k for rendering work, the 2500k will still be fast.

Also, post pics.