Official Building/Upgrading thread

[tarobbt]

Originally Posted by Traum

OCZ is no Intel though, and their reliability track record is spotty, to put it mildly. Mind you, their latest (Agility / Vertex 4) drives seem to be significantly more reliable than before, but they are still not without flaws. Intel, on the other hand, is practically the most reliable SSD option out there, and hence their generally higher prices.

Additionally, I am fairly sure the Agility 3 is slower than the Intel 330. Then again, all SSD seem super fast compared to your regular spindle-platter HDD.

sums it up, it seems like they were using the consumer base as a test bed, the ssds crapping out wasn't an isolated incident either, OCZ was brushing everything under the carpet if anyone posted something negative on their forums.

yep the 330 is faster for sure

AnandTech - Bench - SSD

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by Traum

OCZ is no Intel though, and their reliability track record is spotty, to put it mildly. Mind you, their latest (Agility / Vertex 4) drives seem to be significantly more reliable than before, but they are still not without flaws. Intel, on the other hand, is practically the most reliable SSD option out there, and hence their generally higher prices.

Additionally, I am fairly sure the Agility 3 is slower than the Intel 330. Then again, all SSD seem super fast compared to your regular spindle-platter HDD.

The difference is marginal. They both use the same sandforce chipset but different firmwares. Yes OCZ was plaugued by bad firmware but that's not OCZ's fault really.

For the record I've actually never had a bad OCZ drive after going through 3 of them. I'm on the agility 3 and haven't experienced any issues with the latest firmware.

[belaud]

Just an FYI, the only SSD I will recommend above all else right now is the Vertex 4, the indilinx controller is absolutely brilliant and unstoppable. Get it!

[!MiKrofT]

Maybe I'll upgrade during Xmas to the 240gb. The 3 is more than enough for me for now.

[Purely]

I'm looking into getting a cache SSD, but I don't have Intel SRT. Are my only choices Crucial Adrenaline and OCZ Synapse? They are so pricey.. would I be better off just getting a regular ssd?

[belaud]

Originally Posted by !MiKrofT

Maybe I'll upgrade during Xmas to the 240gb. The 3 is more than enough for me for now.

The 3 is about $10 less, just get the 4, its a better controller, MUCH better controller!

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by belaud

The 3 is about $10 less, just get the 4, its a better controller, MUCH better controller!

Whoops. I mean I've got the 3 now.. but I'll wait till xmas to upgrade to the 4. I agree the price difference is negligible

[twitchyzero]

intel 330 >> agility 3
both speed and reliability
isn't the 330 more comparable to vertex 3 max iops

[SkinnyPupp]

Originally Posted by gYU

I'm looking into getting a cache SSD, but I don't have Intel SRT. Are my only choices Crucial Adrenaline and OCZ Synapse? They are so pricey.. would I be better off just getting a regular ssd?

A Crucial Adrenaline is about $15 more than an equivalent m4.

An OCZ Synapse 32GB (32 usable, it actually has 64GB onboard) is the same price as an equivalent Agility 3 64 GB. In this case, if you could use a 64GB I would suggest that, but since you don't have SRT you don't have that option. In that case, is 64GB enough as an installation drive? It wouldn't be for me, but that's just me...

[!MiKrofT]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

intel 330 >> agility 3
both speed and reliability
isn't the 330 more comparable to vertex 3 max iops

Like I said speed difference is marginal. Yes the Intel is a bit faster but I don't think you'd notice between the 2 in real world usage. I don't think there should be as much reliability issues any more now that the sandforce firmware has been fixed. Ocz stands out the most due to the number if drives the sell. I don't have anything against Intel and I'd gladly use em if their pricing was more in line with others. Ultimately I think either choice would be fine.

[Cman333]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

A Crucial Adrenaline is about $15 more than an equivalent m4.

An OCZ Synapse 32GB (32 usable, it actually has 64GB onboard) is the same price as an equivalent Agility 3 64 GB. In this case, if you could use a 64GB I would suggest that, but since you don't have SRT you don't have that option. In that case, is 64GB enough as an installation drive? It wouldn't be for me, but that's just me...

I thought for SRT it had to be specific brand/model SSD? Or anything under 64GB will work?

And man, the small SSD's cost way more per GB. Wusup with that...

[belaud]

SRT can work with 1024GB SSD"s if you so wished for it, you can only allocate up to 64GB's to a drive at a time though. Essentially, you would waste 950GB's of space to cache

[G-spec]

hey guys is there any way to hook up my dvd drive externally via usb or into the back of my motherboard somehow ?
I didn't install one when I put my PC together, haven't used one in years figured I wouldn't need it.
But NBA 2K13 is coming out next week, need to install it wondering if I can hook up the drive the same way I hook in my external HD ?

Orrrr shit now that I think about it, couldn't I just pop the 2K13 disk on my laptop and make an image file of it using Magic Iso, then transferring via usb stick to my PC and then mounting that image using Magic Iso's Magic Disc, installing the game that way ?

[Speed2K]

^ do you have an old external drive? I threw an old DVD drive in to an external CD-R burner that I had lying around and hook that up via USB if I need to install stuff on my laptop.

[SkinnyPupp]

Originally Posted by Cman333

I thought for SRT it had to be specific brand/model SSD? Or anything under 64GB will work?

And man, the small SSD's cost way more per GB. Wusup with that...

SRT will work with anything. You could take a 512GB drive, and use 32GB of it as a cache, and the rest as a normal partition. I wouldn't recommend this though, as if you ever decide to delete the cache, the partition will go too.

But you can use anything you want. Even an old generation SSD.. anything will be better than using a straight mechanical drive.

[G-spec]

Originally Posted by Speed2K

^ do you have an old external drive? I threw an old DVD drive in to an external CD-R burner that I had lying around and hook that up via USB if I need to install stuff on my laptop.

pretty good suggestion, matter a fact I do have an external HD with my old Sata drive inside, I will try plugging the DVD drive in the external see if that works

[twitchyzero]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

SRT will work with anything. You could take a 512GB drive, and use 32GB of it as a cache, and the rest as a normal partition. I wouldn't recommend this though, as if you ever decide to delete the cache, the partition will go too.

But you can use anything you want. Even an old generation SSD.. anything will be better than using a straight mechanical drive.

but if you already have a full-sized ssd and can open/access apps/games fast..there's no need to use SRT unless you want to open up your videos/photos faster

derp i guess if you still install stuff on your HDD this makes sense.

edit: if you have more than 6-8gb of ram..you can try this out for games...no personal exp with ram disks but i'll give it a try when i have time

http://www.wsgf.org/forum/forums/gam...ent-pre-loader

[G-spec]

well it worked, thanks Speed, although I had to take the circuit board off the external closure completely and plug it directly into the DVD drive, as the drive couldn't fit into the enclosure, but ya it works bro, reads as a drive everything cool, thanks a lot dude !

but is it safe for me to just leave this on the table like this as it works, I know the drive itself will vibrate noticeably, should I put something heavy on it to hold it down or is it ok just like this ?

[belaud]

Put rubber stoppers on the bottom of the drive so it doesn't vibrate off your desk...very innovative though.

[lilaznviper]

planning to get the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SLI model.

Anyone know if this is reference or non reference card? and any water block that will fit on this card?

[Speed2K]

Originally Posted by G-spec

well it worked, thanks Speed, although I had to take the circuit board off the external closure completely and plug it directly into the DVD drive, as the drive couldn't fit into the enclosure, but ya it works bro, reads as a drive everything cool, thanks a lot dude !

but is it safe for me to just leave this on the table like this as it works, I know the drive itself will vibrate noticeably, should I put something heavy on it to hold it down or is it ok just like this ?

Good stuff! Whatever works right? This setup would be similar to using an adapter cable, similar to something that Vantec sells, except without the cover.

[G-spec]

Originally Posted by belaud

Put rubber stoppers on the bottom of the drive so it doesn't vibrate off your desk...very innovative though.

k i'll do that, and yea all credit goes to Speed lol, I wouldn't have thought of it myself

Originally Posted by Speed2K

Good stuff! Whatever works right? This setup would be similar to using an adapter cable, similar to something that Vantec sells, except without the cover.

yea thanks again works perfect, will come in handy for the very rare times I will actually use a dvd drive, + it doesnt have to be inside the case blocking airflow either this way

[twitchyzero]

Originally Posted by lilaznviper

planning to get the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SLI model.

Anyone know if this is reference or non reference card? and any water block that will fit on this card?

if you are talking about the one on sale this week for $330ish AR it's reference

anyways i do believe they make blocks for reference 670s now EK Water Blocks | GTX 670 Water Blocks | Page 1 | Sort By: Product Title A-Z - FrozenCPU.com

[Cman333]

Anyone help me out with setting up the stupid Intel SRT or RST (whatever they call it). I'm under the impression I don't need to reinstall OS to add an SSD for it.

I youtubed and it basically says, go to bios, enable raid, but then the comp won't boot into windows. Says there's some sort of error and press any to boot from floppy. No other choice.

Found another video, they said to use the SRT software, so grab my mobo disc and I don't see any other software thats related to it. So fuckit, I go to the intel site and try to download the RST software, but it won't install because it says my computer doesn't meet the requirements.

WTF??!!

i7 2600k
gigbyte z68x-ud4
8gb ddr3
2x 1 tb WD Black HDD
32gb Patriot Warp SSD

Thanks again guys....this shit is driving me nuts.

[SkinnyPupp]

Your BIOS needs to be set to RAID mode to use SRT (Smart Response Technology).

The fact that you couldn't install the RST (Rapid Storage Technology) driver means you must have had it in IDE mode (~!??)

Since you have a Gigabyte board, you can use their AWESOME mode switcher. Otherwise, you would have to go through a long, annoying process to do so.

Grab it here.

Also make sure you are installing the correct RST drivers. Get the latest one here. You want RST and not RSTe (which is for the X79 chipset)