I am studying the components for a new PC. My component provider tells me that he hasn't sold a WD Velociraptor since a year. He suggest a SSD HD. I want to use this HD for the windows 7 system and programs. What are yours thoughts about this ?

 

Roger

SSDs are orders of magnitude faster than the fastest HDDs, and their prices are becoming more and more reasonable. Velociraptors also aren't that fast in comparison to consumer HDDs anymore, your bog-standard 7200RPM Caviar Blue or Barracuda is a lot faster than it was four or five years ago.

 

A good 120GB SSD can be had for around US$150 these days. I have a 64GB drive and it's enough for Windows and programs, with about 15GB free space left, so 120GB is plenty.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

We should be clear.... 120GB for Win7, programs, and FSX - won't be enough. If you intend to place Win7 on an SSD Get a 120GB. Then get another one for FSX. (Or get a larger 240GB for FSX)

 

There's lots of ways to do it.

 

Here's what I do:

 

FSX on 120GB SSD generation II (sata II 3GBps)

Win7 and rest of programs on 1TB Samsung spinpoint

 

Various other smaller hard drives have other backed up data.

Thank you Mike and Ryan.

 

The FSX is on a seperate HDD and will remain there. It seems that a SSD do not really improve FSX operations except for the initial loading of FSX. The SSD would be for the OS. But does the cost justify any gain I would get with the usual stuff (mail, banking, internet browsing, photoshop) I have no other major applications on this PC nor any other game.

The improvement I searched is uniquely for FSX. In my signature you can see the present system that gives me 15 fps in loaded airports and 30 fps in flight. RC4, Active Sky and EFB are running on a seperate PC. I still have no PMDG soft.

That is why I want to increase the CPU capabilities with an I7 2700. I am not waiting for the Ivy Bridge nor want to pay the premium for it.

I am not a FPS fanatic. I just want a decent FSX. So I question the gain versus the price for an SSD. The SATA 6 is already an improvement with my old Mobo.

 

Roger

I don't have FSX on my SSD so I can't comment on SSDs in that regard, but for Windows I think it's the best upgrade you can possibly do. Your use case for it - mail, web browsing, photoshop - is perfect for an SSD. If all you did on your computer was play FSX I'd say don't worry about putting Windows on an SSD because you're not going to make use of it, but if you're like me then your PC usage is a lot more varied and you're frequently opening and closing different programs (Chrome, Office, Media Player, Photoshop, Adobe Reader etc.). That's what SSDs are great for. It's sort of hard to explain, to say everything loads fast and feels 'snappy' sounds trivial and doesn't really do it justice. Basically, it's the case that you don't realise what you're missing until you get one, and then you'll never go back to a conventional HDD.

 

Edit: And just on the i7 2700K, I would suggest a couple of things. Firstly, I think you might as well wait for Ivy Bridge, since it's only a few weeks away from release, and there shouldn't be a premium over Sandy Bridge. IVB is SNB's replacement, so the IVB chips will slot into the same price points as their SNB counterparts. Secondly, the 2700K isn't a particularly good buy because it's simply a 2600K with a higher stock multiplier. Save $20 and get a 2600K (or the IVB equivalent), and bump up the clock yourself.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

_Mike,

 

_{Thank you for your comments. It is true that when one doesn't know what he is missing (SSD) he doens't see why to upgrade. But once it is done one wonders how he missed that.}

_{Are you sure the IVY will be in the same price range than the Sandy ?}

_{My problem is that I am now out of FSX PC. I am presently using my laptop.}

 

_Roger

Does it make sense to buy a 256 GB SSD and put the Windows 7 OS plus all of the FSX files on it?

_{Are you sure the IVY will be in the same price range than the Sandy ?}

_{My problem is that I am now out of FSX PC. I am presently using my laptop.}

 

Yep. It really just comes down to if you want to wait or not. IVB is expected to be 5-15% faster than SNB depending on the application, so not a huge performance increase, but you get a few new features such as native USB 3.0 and PCI-E 3.0. It's only a few weeks away from release, 29th of April is rumoured, so it just comes down to whether you think it will be worth waiting.

 

Does it make sense to buy a 256 GB SSD and put the Windows 7 OS plus all of the FSX files on it?

 

I'm planning on upgrading to a new system in the next couple of months and that's my plan. My 64GB drive has been great, but it lacks the capacity to install games on. When FSX with a few addons can very easily exceed 50GB a 120GB SSD starts to look a little small.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

Hello everybody, i was using old pc´s during many years, and i was reviewing docs about hardware, can anybody comment this rig?

 

Mobo ASUS P9X79 PRO

Intel I7 3930K 3.2 ghz

32 GB memory 8x4

GPU NVIDIA Ge Force GTX580

COOLER MASTER 1200W

SSD 256 GB

I expect reach great performance, really i need max FPS

Thanks in advance

Hello everybody, i was using old pc´s during many years, and i was reviewing docs about hardware, can anybody comment this rig?

 

Mobo ASUS P9X79 PRO

Intel I7 3930K 3.2 ghz

Sandy Bridge-E isn't a great choice for games, they're useful if you're doing a lot of multitasking or running highly threaded applications. FSX isn't highly threaded, it likes clock speed. Get an LGA1155 system, either Sandy Bridge or wait a few weeks for Ivy Bridge. If you want to overclock, a 2500K is ideal, or if you aren't comfortable overclocking a 2700K which has the highest stock clock speed.

 

32 GB memory 8x4

32GB is too much. Unless you're running multiple VMs then 16GB is more than enough. 8GB would do the job fine too.

 

GPU NVIDIA Ge Force GTX580

GTX580 is a fine choice, though GTX680 has recently come out and is quite a bit faster.

 

COOLER MASTER 1200W

1200 W is way too much. That system of yours wouldn't pull 500W at full load, and idle is going to be much less. The problem with having a huge power supply is that they tend to have bad efficiency at low loads, typically those below 20%. You'll save money now and into the future if you go with a lower rated PSU. A PSU in the 650W-750W range will be a lot cheaper, more than capable and more efficient.

 

SSD 256 GB

That's a good choice.

 

Good luck.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

Hi,

 

Just for comparison to what's been shared in this thread in terms of actual or planned space usage devoted to Windows, FSX and 'general' storage, I'm at the point of deciding, in the context of a new build, on the number and type of drives to buy and plan on installing 3 drives. My present GB usage on my existing 2 drives will dictate the size to buy for the new build. Presently, my C drive contains 104 GB of data which is mostly devoted to Windows OS but does include my photos, videos, and obviously other stuff, otherwise the space being used wouldn't be that high. My other drive (D) contains everything else which consists of FSX & FS9 and all related addons such as REX, GEX plus other games such as Live For Speed, Condor and RailWorks. However, my FSX directory contains 120 GB of data. So based on this usage, here's what I'm planning:

 

Drive 1 - SSD 180 GB - Windows (which should provide a good cushion for additional storage requirements)

Drive 2 - SSD 240 GB - FSX Directory (see my note below)

Drive 3 - HDD 1 TB - Storage (all FSX related addons such as REX, GEX, etc.) and other games

 

Concerning the second drive which I intend to devote 100% to the FSX directory, in terms of what I would consider voluminous files I presently have 3 North American FTX scenery titles, FTX Australia and plan on adding more FTX scenery in the future. So I thought I'd go for a drive which can hold double the capacity of what I presently have inside my FSX directory.

 

Regards,

 

JJ

180GB is very large for an OS drive. Windows 7 takes up around 15GB, plus pagefile and system restore files, so you're looking at a bit over 20GB max. In my case I don't tend to store much 'data' on my SSD - a few documents and a GB or so of music. All my photos and videos are stored on a HDD. My 64GB (57GB usable) SSD has 15GB free and I'm not particularly conservative with the number of applications I've installed. I think you'll be fine loading Windows onto the 240GB drive alongside FSX, and moving your documents and photos to the storage drive. However if you decide you absolutely need an OS drive just get a 120GB and save yourself $100.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike