The Nemesis - Pictures+Video+my experience with PCS

[senaiboy]

For those who have doubts that 2133MHz RAM does not make any improvements in gaming and overall PC performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3/1

"It's only when you get down to DDR3-1333 that you see a minor performance penalty. The sweet spot appears to be at DDR3-1600, where you will see a minor performance increase over DDR3-1333 with only a slight increase in cost. The performance increase gained by going up to DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2133 isn't nearly as pronounced."

Also from the Crysis and Metro 2033 benchmarks, there wasn't any significant improvement in FPS?

 

[iTzMEKKAOUI]

Beast.
!

 

[samx300]

Beast.
!

Cheers mate!!

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

Hey Sam,
Firstly, nice rig dude! looks killa!
Second, from what i gather youve recently gone between SSD to HDD back to SSD, right?
Well you see my problem is that all these benchmarks and stuff just confuse me tbh so, im debating whether to buy the 120gb vertex 3 but its a lot of money.
I know it will make my PC a lot faster but im thinking my rig (i5-2500,GTX 570,8Gb RAM,Caviar Black HDD) will be quick already and im just a bit stuck as to whether i should bother getting an SSD now or wait till the prices drop, you know?
Would you say the speed difference is worth it? will it "blow me away"? apart from OS loading speeds, in real world use, will i need it?

Sorry for so many (slighty dense) questions,

Cheers dude!

 

[Frenchy]

Hey Sam,
Firstly, nice rig dude! looks killa!
Second, from what i gather youve recently gone between SSD to HDD back to SSD, right?
Well you see my problem is that all these benchmarks and stuff just confuse me tbh so, im debating whether to buy the 120gb vertex 3 but its a lot of money.
I know it will make my PC a lot faster but im thinking my rig (i5-2500,GTX 570,8Gb RAM,Caviar Black HDD) will be quick already and im just a bit stuck as to whether i should bother getting an SSD now or wait till the prices drop, you know?
Would you say the speed difference is worth it? will it "blow me away"? apart from OS loading speeds, in real world use, will i need it?

Sorry for so many (slighty dense) questions,

Cheers dude!

I have applications installed on vertex 3 120GB and on my 1TB Cavier Black, and tbh yes SSD is quicker, by quite a bit, not to mention quieter. However it is a lot of money to spend for quite a small drive. Id suggest getting the cavier black without having an SSD and see hwo that goes,

The middle ground would be to go for SSD caching using a z68 chipset motherboard, this would use a smaller (for example 60GB) SSD to cache the most used files, increasing the speed of access to the cavier black. Basically it becomes a hybrid drive.

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

yeah i know what your saying about getting a smaller drive, im going for the Z68 MoBo anyway so ill have that option open but everytime i put the smaller SSD in to the PCS patented configeromator i just think to myself... its only another £40 for the 120Gb Intel... but then if im going for the Intel its only another £40 for the Vertex 3, which is more than twice as fast, you know what im sayin frenchy?

 

[Frenchy]

yeah i know what your saying about getting a smaller drive, im going for the Z68 MoBo anyway so ill have that option open but everytime i put the smaller SSD in to the PCS patented configeromator i just think to myself... its only another £40 for the 120Gb Intel... but then if im going for the Intel its only another £40 for the Vertex 3, which is more than twice as fast, you know what im sayin frenchy?

Yeah but you need to question if you really need it, is it actually going to help or is it just cool to have? For me doing a lot of game design etc its useful because I can be loading in files around 2 - 3 GB at times, SSD deffinately speeds up my work, however if your a gamer etc then tbh I question the need for an ssd right now, thigns run perfectly fine off my cavier black. Having the hybrid drive would increase performace enough tht ud notice but withotu the ehafty price tag of the ssd.

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

Hmm, youve given me much to think on frenchy, thank you.
Ill mostly be gaming tbh so i dont think ill need a big SSD at the minute, might just get the 60Gb to speed things up and wait till the prices drop to get a bigger storage SSD,
cheers dude
P.S any other opinions from anyone else would help me greatly (sorry to of jacked your thread sam )

 

[samx300]

Hey Sam,
Firstly, nice rig dude! looks killa!
Second, from what i gather youve recently gone between SSD to HDD back to SSD, right?
Well you see my problem is that all these benchmarks and stuff just confuse me tbh so, im debating whether to buy the 120gb vertex 3 but its a lot of money.
I know it will make my PC a lot faster but im thinking my rig (i5-2500,GTX 570,8Gb RAM,Caviar Black HDD) will be quick already and im just a bit stuck as to whether i should bother getting an SSD now or wait till the prices drop, you know?
Would you say the speed difference is worth it? will it "blow me away"? apart from OS loading speeds, in real world use, will i need it?

Sorry for so many (slighty dense) questions,

Cheers dude!

Hi there mate,

Thanks for your post and the compliment. I will try and answer your questions as clearly as possible

I have indeed switched between a SSD (Faulty Vertex 3) - then HDD (500GB Seagate ST3500413AS 7200RPM, SATA 6Gbps) - then back to SSD (Proper working Vertex 3).
Benchmarks will always test the SSD/HDD in the most complex and comprehensive manner, but from my personal experience - the difference is evident in day to day use! After my system boots up (which is super quick), and I get to the desktop, there is no delay to open Firefox, iTunes, Steam and a couple of other explorer windows - ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY! The system performs blisteringly fast and I have to say, my decision to stick with a SSD was a good one. Of course, when I got the system, those fancy Z68 chipsets were not available.

Now, coming back to when I was running my 7200RPM SATA 6Gbps HDD (during the period when my SSD went in for an RMA and got lost/stolen etc), the system still performed optimally. I did notice a drop in performance while booting and opening apps quickly and simultaneously, but it wasn't too bad. AND, if you're a gamer, then there was no difference whatsoever in gaming performance, because all my games and Steam is run off my 2TB WD Caviar Black anyways. The Caviar Black drives are good and perform well under all conditions - gaming, HD movies, music, data transfer etc.

Bottom Line - if you're a gamer - I'd suggest you go for a Z68 board along with one of the 20GB SSD (which is the max supported size for SSD caching) and opt for 2 x 1TB WD Caviar Blacks (in RAID if possible). If you've got a little more to splash, then go for a 120GB SSD as system drive, and install your favourite games on it. This should be good enough for day to day use. SSD's also have a limited read/write cycle and I wouldn't like all my savegames to be stored on there - so I make it a point to change the location to my 2TB drive instead.

And I do 100% agree with Frenchy - the Z68 performs brilliantly with the SSD caching. Let me know if you need more info.

Cheers

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

thanks for your reply sam i really appreciate it, youve answered all my concerns perfectly
Unfortunately it looks like its down to me again (DAMN!) like i said to frenchy i think ill go for a 60Gb for boot drive/caching and maybe whichever game im playing the most and leave everything else on the caviar

cheers mate!

 

[Frenchy]

thanks for your reply sam i really appreciate it, youve answered all my concerns perfectly
Unfortunately it looks like its down to me again (DAMN!) like i said to frenchy i think ill go for a 60Gb for boot drive/caching and maybe whichever game im playing the most and leave everything else on the caviar

cheers mate!

Dont think you actually get to choose what goes on the caching drive, cache is normally non persistant ie it dissapears as soon as the power is turned off, however with the hybrid cache usign the SSD the cach becomes persistant and therefore an maintain the most used files for when they are needed. It decides automatically which files you benefit most from having on the SSD but in my computer it will only appear as a single 1TB drive as far as I know.

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

Yeah i know, i wasnt very clear there sorry.
what i meant was im going to buy the 60Gb, partition off 20Gb for caching another 20Gb for Win 7 and the rest for the odd game im playing a lot at the time, you know?

 

[Frenchy]

Can you split a cache drive? I thought you had to use a single partition on a cache drive, by that I mean I dont think you can partition a 60 into 20 and 40 and leave 20 for cache, I think you have to use a single 60 partition as the cache. Not entirely sure though.

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

well i found out you can a while ago, i think it was in an old thread;

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?6700-New-SSD/page3

have a look at this thread and see what you think

 

[Petchi b]

Yeah i know, i wasnt very clear there sorry.
what i meant was im going to buy the 60Gb, partition off 20Gb for caching another 20Gb for Win 7 and the rest for the odd game im playing a lot at the time, you know?

I think you will defo need more than 20GB for Windows 7. It wont take long to fill up with updates etc..

 

[Frenchy]

I think you will defo need more than 20GB for Windows 7. It wont take long to fill up with updates etc..

Updates i doubt would get stored on it, itll be literally the most needed files to start with, updates often replace old files and therefore dont really increase the size that much.

 

[samx300]

Errr, I know its been a while, but I had to ask this:

Has ANY HAF X owner been able to connect their Front USB 3.0 ports using the Internal Mobo header? - of course, provided you have a Mobo that supports these headers.
I received the cable from CM, but the length is too short and its no good Makes me wonder if they designed this cable with some other (tiny!) case in mind?

Any useful comments/suggestions would be much appreciated and rewarded with +REP

Cheers

 

[Frenchy]

Errr, I know its been a while, but I had to ask this:

Has ANY HAF X owner been able to connect their Front USB 3.0 ports using the Internal Mobo header? - of course, provided you have a Mobo that supports these headers.
I received the cable from CM, but the length is too short and its no good Makes me wonder if they designed this cable with some other (tiny!) case in mind?

Any useful comments/suggestions would be much appreciated and rewarded with +REP

Cheers

Nope i havent gotten round to ordering my cable yet, I may email them first asking them abiut the length and if i get anythin bckl ill let u know

 

[tom_gr7]

It really is a nightmare typing to set up the SSD caching drive, my advice would be to just use the SSD for OS. I tried 4 or 5 times to set up it, and it just wouldn't work, including many calls to pcs. Followed the manual to the letter, but still wouldn't work. SO i installed OS to the drive. now i have maybe 20 gb free out the 60gb. Thats just windows and a few programs, large programs like steam itunes etc are on my 1tb HDD.

SSD might be good, but i don't fully know. lol

 

[TrustMeItsWorthIt]

Damn thats a shame tom, i was hoping to do the same on my SSD when the rig arrives. i had thought it was just a matter of making a partition and changing the BIOS settings, what actually caused your problems, do you know?