Author Topic: CPU Question: More Mhz per core or more cores? (Read 44,551 times)

f0dder · « **Reply #25 on:** February 16, 2011, 09:49 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 16, 2011, 09:41 AM

Quote from: f0dder on February 16, 2011, 09:23 AM
Also, for the PSU: I've never heard of Rosewill. But one thing about PSUs: stable voltages are craploads more important than wattage. Even my quadcore/8gig/GF460/2x10k-rpm-raptor drives doesn't go above ~275W under full CPU+GPU load.
How can you tell what PSUs will have stable voltages and which ones don't?

Read zillions of reviews - alternatively, go for a reputable brand name and cross your fingers

If you have the choice between <some_good_brand> 500W and <something_unknown> 700W, the safest bet would be the 500W IMHO. As far as I can tell, the GPU you've chosen is relatively low-end... The GTX460 in my system is mid-end, but even that doesn't have über high power requirements. I don't see how you'll need a 700W PSU if you're not running multiple GPUs in SLI and a zillion harddrives

f0dder · « **Reply #26 on:** February 16, 2011, 10:19 AM »

I managed to find a review of the a-data drive, and given that I'd definitely stay away from it - it's random-write performance sucks.

Also, a thing to keep in mind with SSDs is that larger capacity (given the same model) tends to mean faster speed, especially with regards to linear reads/writes. This is because flash chips are relatively slow, and to get decent speeds multiple flash chips are striped together. Larger capacity = more chips

40hz · « **Reply #27 on:** February 16, 2011, 03:54 PM »

re: PC power supplies.

I've been very pleased with supplies from PC Power&Cooling. I've been using various models for years in new builds as well as for replacements. Never had a single problem or failure.

Website: www.pcpower.com

4wd · « **Reply #28 on:** February 17, 2011, 12:28 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 16, 2011, 05:29 AM

Okay, so I finally got some specs to compare to. I ended up building my sister a better machine for about $300 less than what the other person was trying to sell her.

You do realise you've now lumbered yourself with the maintenance contract?

re: PSUs

I've never had a problem with CoolerMaster, (using two of them in the machines here, both >4 y.o.), ThermalTake or Antec.

40hz · « **Reply #29 on:** February 17, 2011, 01:36 AM »

+1 for Antec PSUs.

Also very good choice. Especially if you can get it in a combo deal with one of their cases. Newegg runs those every so often.

Deozaan · « **Reply #30 on:** February 17, 2011, 05:57 AM »

Quote from: 4wd on February 17, 2011, 12:28 AM

You do realise you've now lumbered yourself with the maintenance contract?

Yeah, but the truth is I had it anyway. $:-\$

Okay, all the parts arrived today, so if I made some poor choices with the PSU and the SSD, then too bad, so sad, my bad.

Next question:

What are some good tips for extending the life of the SSD? Should I disable the Windows Swapfile/Pagefile? Or move them to the HDD?

I'd appreciate some good Windows 7 tweaks for this specific setup. Also some suggestions on how to partition that massive 2 TB HDD would be appreciated.

I don't want to overwhelm her with a bunch of different drive letters, but if there's a good reason for having 4 partitions (the max for a mechanical drive AFAIK) then I'd love to hear your reasons why and your suggested partition sizes.

4wd · « **Reply #31 on:** February 17, 2011, 08:48 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:57 AM

What are some good tips for extending the life of the SSD? Should I disable the Windows Swapfile/Pagefile? Or move them to the HDD?

Disable the pagefile, you don't need it with 8GB, (unless you do some *really* heavy Photoshopping, etc), I run 8GB Win7x64 and never had a pagefile. I've run out of memory exactly once over the past year and that was a beta build of Firefox suddenly deciding to gobble up the free memory, don't know why, hasn't happened since.

I don't think you can specify where the Hibernate file ends up, so that'll probably be on the SSD - which shouldn't be a problem since it's not a never-ending write operation like the pagefile.

Other than that, Win7 will disable the background defrag on the SSD and do other things to prolong it's life AFAIK.

As for partitioning, think about this: What is the backup strategy going to be, (file/folder/partition/drive level), and where/what type of medium are backups going to performed to/on?

f0dder · « **Reply #32 on:** February 17, 2011, 10:03 AM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:57 AM

Okay, all the parts arrived today, so if I made some poor choices with the PSU and the SSD, then too bad, so sad, my bad.

Meh, does that include the A-DATA SSD? Did you read the review I posted a link to? You'd do yourself a favor to get that SSD swapped for a Vertex2.

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:57 AM

but if there's a good reason for having 4 partitions (the max for a mechanical drive AFAIK)

There can only be 4 MBR partition slots per drive, but that's why "logical" partitions were invented - long story short, you can have a lot more than 4. Not much reason to go crazy, though. You might want to do a partition on the SSD for OS+Apps and the rest for "my documents", but that's only to make windows reinstalls a bit easier - if you want to make your sister's life easier, go with a single partition

I agree with disabling the pagefile, although if you want to be really safe, just move it to the 2TB HDD instead. And you'll want to make sure automatic defrag is disabled for the SSD - Win7 should do that automatically, but check to be sure. Don't turn off SuperFetch or the indexing service.

steeladept · « **Reply #33 on:** February 17, 2011, 10:50 AM »

IF it helps any, the Rosewill PSU appears to be a rebranded SeaSonic PSU, not any different then CoolMaster (I think), Corsair, and a handful of other makers who actually buy their PSU's and rebrand them. I can tell you from experience (if it is just a rebranded SeaSonic) that it is a VERY good PSU. They are very quiet, and very stable. My search (when I was looking) kept pointing to SeaSonic as one of the best brands, and continued research led me to learn how many companies rebrand their power supplies so I went with an actual manufacturer. I figured they would be cheaper and I would know who manufactured my PSU then. All I know is I have not regretted it since and it has been over 5 years with the same PSU in less than ideal power situations (I get lots of brownouts and I haven't refurbished my APC power conditioner yet). Unless SeaSonic went the way of Seagate (from the hard drive space), then they should still be a top contender.

4wd · « **Reply #34 on:** February 17, 2011, 11:30 AM »

Quote from: steeladept on February 17, 2011, 10:50 AM

IF it helps any, the Rosewill PSU appears to be a rebranded SeaSonic PSU, ....

Here's a couple of rebranding lists, first from 2007, second updated to 2009:

PSU Rebranding Guide
Who made your power supply
How to Discover Your Power Supply Real Manufacturer

Whatever you do, don't get a Hairong, (if they even sell them there).

EDIT: My CoolerMaster iGreen 600W is really a Acbel PolyTech RS-620-ASAA-A1...who'd a thunk it

Deozaan · « **Reply #35 on:** February 17, 2011, 05:22 PM »

Okay, so disable/move the pagefile, double check to make sure defrag is disabled on the SSD. Any other Windows 7 tweaks I can/should do?

Quote from: f0dder on February 17, 2011, 10:03 AM

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:57 AM
Okay, all the parts arrived today, so if I made some poor choices with the PSU and the SSD, then too bad, so sad, my bad.
Meh, does that include the A-DATA SSD? Did you read the review I posted a link to? You'd do yourself a favor to get that SSD swapped for a Vertex2.

Yes, I read the review. The Vertex2 did worse than the A-DATA on many of the tests. The A-DATA did very well on many tests but also did very poorly on some of the others. But it was a 32GB SSD and this one is a 64GB SSD, so I'm hoping this one will run better. Also, to swap it out would mean dealing with RMA, paying return shipping, and waiting longer for the other drive to arrive.

It's a bit disappointing that I made this choice in SSDs, but I'm not sure my sister will notice and she's been without a computer for a couple weeks now waiting on this build, so she's getting antsy to have it up and running, especially now that all the parts have arrived.

Quote from: 4wd on February 17, 2011, 08:48 AM

As for partitioning, think about this: What is the backup strategy going to be, (file/folder/partition/drive level), and where/what type of medium are backups going to performed to/on?

I'm not sure how she backs her things up. I think she has a 500GB or maybe 1 TB external drive she copies everything to when she wants to make a backup. I really don't see her using the full 2TB anytime soon, so maybe I'll do something like a 750GB partition for stuff and the rest for internal "backup."

I'll talk to her to see what she wants, but she'll likely have no ~~clue~~ preference and defer to my judgement. That's why I'm asking you folks for tips on it.

40hz · « **Reply #36 on:** February 17, 2011, 05:58 PM »

re: partitioning

I'd suggest you make a separate partition for system recovery and a separate partition for her personal data.

Once you're completely set up, create a disk image of your system drive and store it on the recovery partition. That way, if she ever roaches her OS, she can quickly recover it by writing back the image. You'd still need to reinstall some apps and updates. But that's still a much better way than to go hunting down drivers plus downloading ALL the initial OS updates a second time.

If you move all her personal stuff over to a separate partition, it makes her data backups a complete no-brainer. No need to fiddle with folder or subfolder selections. Just backup or sync the entire partition to an external drive (or cloud service) and be done with it.

iDrive works well for web-based backups. It's very secure, fast, and reliable. Also cheap if you need more than the free 2Gb space they'll give you just for signing up. I recently began using iDrive as a secondary backup for all my personal machines. I picked it after testing several competing products. Highly recommended. (Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with iDrive. However, this is one product I actually might consider getting involved with for my business clients.)

After system, system recovery, and user data partitions it's up to you how complex you want to get.

Like f0dder, I'd suggest the fewer partitions the better. Especially if it's your sister's machine and she's not geeky like us.

Luck!

Deozaan · « **Reply #37 on:** February 17, 2011, 06:06 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on February 17, 2011, 05:58 PM

Once you're completely set up, create a disk image of your system drive and store it on the recovery partition.

Is there any good freeware (or inexpensiveware?) that does a good job creating drive images and restoring them?

Quote from: 40hz on February 17, 2011, 05:58 PM

If you move all her personal stuff over to a separate partition, it makes her data backups a complete no-brainer. No need to fiddle with folder or subfolder selections. Just backup or sync the entire partition to an external drive (or cloud service) and be done with it.

I still haven't figured out a way to safely move the User directory to another drive, and that's the directory that a lot of stuff is stored in these days.

I have moved her Documents, Music, Videos, Downloads, etc. to a separate partition, which should reduce the storage requirements for the OS drive, but that User (AppData) directory is a problem all in its own.

f0dder · « **Reply #38 on:** February 17, 2011, 07:06 PM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:22 PM

Okay, so disable/move the pagefile, double check to make sure defrag is disabled on the SSD. Any other Windows 7 tweaks I can/should do?

None I can remember off top of my head - Win7 disables the "last access time" timestamp by default, otherwise that would've been important to turn off.

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:22 PM

Yes, I read the review. The Vertex2 did worse than the A-DATA on many of the tests. The A-DATA did very well on many tests but also did very poorly on some of the others.

It might've done a bit better in some of the sequential tests, but those aren't all that relevant for SSDs; OTOH, it drops to ~10mb/s in the tests that matter... while this is still a lot faster than the ~100kb/s you'll get from a HDD in the same tests, it's a lot worse than all the decent SSDs on the market. Also, this could mean the drive isn't very good at combining it's writes, resulting in eating up it's limited amount of erase-cycles faster than other drives.

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 05:22 PM

Also, to swap it out would mean dealing with RMA, paying return shipping, and waiting longer for the other drive to arrive.

I sometimes forget just how nice legislation we have here in .dk (or perhaps it's .eu?) - when ordering online, we have full 14-day money-back no-questions-asked because we when shopping online, one "isn't able to inspect the product before buying"

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 06:06 PM

I still haven't figured out a way to safely move the User directory to another drive, and that's the directory that a lot of stuff is stored in these days.

You'll want to keep the main Users folder on the SSD, since that's where stuff like the registry hive files are located - they benefit from the fast random I/O.

40hz · « **Reply #39 on:** February 17, 2011, 07:11 PM »

Quote from: Deozaan on February 17, 2011, 06:06 PM

Is there any good freeware (or inexpensiveware?) that does a good job creating drive images and restoring them?

It's now built right into Windows 7.

Quote

You can create a system image, which contains a copy of Windows and copies of your programs, system settings, and files. The system image is then stored in a separate location from the original programs, settings, and files. You can use this image to restore the contents of your computer if your hard disk or entire computer ever stops working.

Link to full info with video here.

Other good free 3rd-party choices are:

------

re: Moving user data directory look here.

Quote

How to move user data folder to non-system partition in windows 7/vista
May 16th, 2009

As you know,windows 7/vista put all system data and user data on the same partition,normally it’s drive C.Under this condition we must backup our user data every time we re-install our windows 7/vista. From windows vista, Microsoft supply us a tool mklink which can create a symbolic link under windows 7 or vista just as the command ln under unix/linux. Below is an example about how to put user data on non-system using mklink in windows 7.

This step-by-step article might be easier to follow.

Quote

Move Windows 7 user data folder to non-system partition and re-use after reinstalling
By Belmile | November 21, 2010

When planning to reinstall Windows 7 and re-use the previous user data and configuration, you don’t need to backup and restore the user data folder everytime. Just move the normal user data folder to a non-system partition and create a hardlink, then re-use it after the fresh operating system’s been set up.

f0dder · « **Reply #40 on:** February 17, 2011, 07:34 PM »

For disk imaging, I use Paragon's Virtualization Manager 2010 - it was cheap, and even handles converting between virtual machine disk images and The Real Deal, it can be v2p OS fixups, it can defragment disk images, partition resizing et cetera. Really nice piece of software

4wd · « **Reply #41 on:** February 17, 2011, 10:58 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 17, 2011, 07:34 PM

For disk imaging, I use Paragon's Virtualization Manager 2010 - it was cheap, and even handles converting between virtual machine disk images and The Real Deal, it can be v2p OS fixups, it can defragment disk images, partition resizing et cetera. Really nice piece of software

Plus if Deo's handiwork dies she'll be able to run her system in a VM on a more reliable machine.

Deozaan · « **Reply #42 on:** February 18, 2011, 12:54 AM »

Quote from: 4wd on February 17, 2011, 10:58 PM

Plus if Deo's handiwork dies she'll be able to run her system in a VM on a more reliable machine.

I'm not sure I like the implications of that statement.

Deozaan · « **Reply #43 on:** February 18, 2011, 01:15 AM »

Quote from: f0dder on February 17, 2011, 07:34 PM

For disk imaging, I use Paragon's Virtualization Manager 2010 - it was cheap, and even handles converting between virtual machine disk images and The Real Deal, it can be v2p OS fixups, it can defragment disk images, partition resizing et cetera. Really nice piece of software

I found the thread on Virtualization Manager 2010 here but it seems that there is no longer a Personal edition, and the Professional edition is $100.

I was getting ready to buy it at $30 but $100 is too much.

f0dder · « **Reply #44 on:** February 18, 2011, 01:27 AM »

Awww, that's a shame

I went there to look for updates last week or so, and figured out my el-cheapo Personal edition had been updated to the Pro version for free

4wd · « **Reply #45 on:** February 18, 2011, 03:23 AM »

Could try this: Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010 FREE License Key

The registration page is still there.

Deozaan · « **Reply #46 on:** February 18, 2011, 08:06 AM »

Quote from: 4wd on February 18, 2011, 03:23 AM

Could try this: Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010 FREE License Key

The registration page is still there.

Thanks. Yeah, it still works, but it actually leads to the free offer listed in the other DC thread for v9.5 of the software, rather than v10. And f0dder said that makes it useless for V2P and P2P.

I did install it and run it, and it seems to have P2P (OS Adjust) and P2V, but not V2P.

Drat!

Thanks for trying though.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #47 on:** June 02, 2011, 02:01 AM »

FWIW (coming to this thread late) I have been using Corsair PSUs recently in builds and have been very happy with the quality and the price.