New PC Build
NAM #0001
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 4,050
Likes: 0
From: Cornelius, NC
I'm doing it now : o
I'm on an i7 Sandy Bridge 17in laptop. The primary C: drive is a 120GB Intel SATA III. The D: drive (used for storage) is whatevs*.
*the laptop shipped with a 640GB 7200RPM HDD, I moved it to the D: slot when I upgraded the C: ... then I upgraded the D: with another SSD. : o
My desktop (older Intel Quad) has a 120GB OCZ SATAII SSD. No secondary drives on it. I have one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Antec-EASYSATA.../dp/B00292BT8O
No fancy RAID. Just a bunch of dedicated (mp3, images, tv shows, movies, 360 games, etc) 1 & 2 TB drives for storage. Plug and play. Use as needed. No constant power to the drives too.
I'm on an i7 Sandy Bridge 17in laptop. The primary C: drive is a 120GB Intel SATA III. The D: drive (used for storage) is whatevs*.
*the laptop shipped with a 640GB 7200RPM HDD, I moved it to the D: slot when I upgraded the C: ... then I upgraded the D: with another SSD. : o
My desktop (older Intel Quad) has a 120GB OCZ SATAII SSD. No secondary drives on it. I have one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Antec-EASYSATA.../dp/B00292BT8O
No fancy RAID. Just a bunch of dedicated (mp3, images, tv shows, movies, 360 games, etc) 1 & 2 TB drives for storage. Plug and play. Use as needed. No constant power to the drives too.
I have almost an identical setup to you, I just have a Crucial SSD instead.
h:
Member
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 1,780
Likes: 0
From: Eagle Mountain, UT
I think you have a pretty good build there. I used the Phenom 965 for a couple of years. Had it overcloced to 3.8Ghz solid and it served me very well in a gaming rig. I've since upgraded to the Phenom X6 but frankly, haven't noticed a huge difference from the 965 3.4Ghz that I had before. And for the price, you can't beat it. Intel's Sandy Bridge i5's and i7's are sweet but just don't crank out the performance to value ratio I like in AMD. I haven't been able to justify the upgrade.
I like the 880G AMD chipset as well. And GIGABYTE makes good boards. Plently of upgradeability there and features for the mild power user.
That's a ton of hard drive space, they must have cost a pretty penny with the current pricing on mechanical hard drives. I'd also recommend upgrading the capacity of the SSD and scrapping the 1TB, but that setup should work fine if you stick with it. I had a 60GB SSD but upgraded to a 128GB since 60GB was just a bit too small for the OS and a few games/programs. It's like night and day.
But if you already picked it up just remember to keep about 15% of it freed up (about 8-10GB would probably be good) as a swap area for the drive. Like mechanical hard drives, it's good to have a bit of free space on an SSD. It has some built in memory that's not accessible for swapping, but it's still best not to fill it completely full.
I like the 880G AMD chipset as well. And GIGABYTE makes good boards. Plently of upgradeability there and features for the mild power user.
That's a ton of hard drive space, they must have cost a pretty penny with the current pricing on mechanical hard drives. I'd also recommend upgrading the capacity of the SSD and scrapping the 1TB, but that setup should work fine if you stick with it. I had a 60GB SSD but upgraded to a 128GB since 60GB was just a bit too small for the OS and a few games/programs. It's like night and day.
But if you already picked it up just remember to keep about 15% of it freed up (about 8-10GB would probably be good) as a swap area for the drive. Like mechanical hard drives, it's good to have a bit of free space on an SSD. It has some built in memory that's not accessible for swapping, but it's still best not to fill it completely full.
Last edited by losiglow; Jan 5, 2012 at 09:05 AM.
Thread Starter
aka Heywoodjablowme
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 4,562
Likes: 0
From: Nashville, TN
I think you have a pretty good build there. I used the Phenom 965 for a couple of years. Had it overcloced to 3.8Ghz solid and it served me very well in a gaming rig. I've since upgraded to the Phenom X6 but frankly, haven't noticed a huge difference from the 965 3.4Ghz that I had before. And for the price, you can't beat it. Intel's Sandy Bridge i5's and i7's are sweet but just don't crank out the performance to value ratio I like in AMD. I haven't been able to justify the upgrade.
I like the 880G AMD chipset as well. And GIGABYTE makes good boards. Plently of upgradeability there and features for the mild power user.
That's a ton of hard drive space, they must have cost a pretty penny with the current pricing on mechanical hard drives. I'd also recommend upgrading the capacity of the SSD and scrapping the 1TB, but that setup should work fine if you stick with it. I had a 60GB SSD but upgraded to a 128GB since 60GB was just a bit too small for the OS and a few games/programs. It's like night and day. But if you already picked it up just remember to keep about 15% of it freed up (about 8-10GB would probably be good) as a swap area for the drive. Like mechanical hard drives, it's good to have a bit of free space on an SSD. It has some built in memory that's not accessible for swapping, but it's still best not to fill it completely full.
I like the 880G AMD chipset as well. And GIGABYTE makes good boards. Plently of upgradeability there and features for the mild power user.
That's a ton of hard drive space, they must have cost a pretty penny with the current pricing on mechanical hard drives. I'd also recommend upgrading the capacity of the SSD and scrapping the 1TB, but that setup should work fine if you stick with it. I had a 60GB SSD but upgraded to a 128GB since 60GB was just a bit too small for the OS and a few games/programs. It's like night and day.
But if you already picked it up just remember to keep about 15% of it freed up (about 8-10GB would probably be good) as a swap area for the drive. Like mechanical hard drives, it's good to have a bit of free space on an SSD. It has some built in memory that's not accessible for swapping, but it's still best not to fill it completely full.
