My upgrades have shipped!

A

Ancalagon

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hey guys,

I'm excited because tomorrow I'll be upgrading my PC! Just got word from wootware and prophecy that my upgrades have shipped.

What upgrades, you ask?
1 x 240GB OCZ Agility 3
1 x AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8Ghz
1 x pack of 2 x 2GB Corsair Vengeance LP LV DDR3 1600

Regarding the CPU - it was R1275. For that price, its unbeatable. Bulldozer CPUs at that price are much slower, and while Phenom II X4's would be nice for overclocking and thus single threaded performance, they are more expensive. An X6 was just the right price. Plus it will turbo up to 3.3 anyway.

Main reasons for upgrading? SPEED!

That and, I'm developing a game, and I want to shorten the amount of time I spend waiting for it to compile or startup.

So tonight I'm going to backup my stuff and shrink my main drive down to about 200GB, so that tomorrow I can image it across to the new drive. Then I'll remove the 2TB WD Caviar green from my external, put that into my case, and put my current 750GB Seagate into the external case.

EDIT: I will have 8GB of RAM. Upgrading from an Athlon II X4 630, OC'd to about 2.9. Will give it to my friend, who has an Athlon X2 5600+
 
Awesome!!! I'm also getting the 1055t and a mobo tomorrow. Here's what I managed to upgrade in total over the past month (birthday month so I had a bit of money to play with):

1055t X6 - reckon i'll get this to 4ghz this weekend on water.
msi 890fxa-gd70 (5xpci-e, 2xusb3, 6xSata3)
128gb Apacer SSD
2x4gb G.Skill Snipers 1600mhz r571 @ Woot - ordered and picked up same day
Sapphire HD5850 - r1200 from mybb forums.

non-PC:
iPad2 16gb Wifi w/case - r3500
 
that ssd is a beast!!

my bulldozer is also shipped , mobo at home, cpu should come today, or fastway couriers will burn!!
 
I was actually tempted to also buy a 60GB OCZ Agility 3, so that I could have OS, swap file and programs on that drive, and then games and the rest of the programs on the 240. But the 240 will have to do for now.
 
Why not? they last long enough - heck is the point of an SSD, to boost speed.

One... problem. I ordered this new CPU, and I want to use my old CPU cooler, which is an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64. Not amazing but pretty sure it will be better than the stock cooler. However, I dont have any coolant paste or whatever you call it. Anyone know of a place to get some around Fourways in Joburg?

Or can I scrape the stuff applied to the new stock heatsink and transfer it to my old heatsink? I bought rubbing alcohol to clean off the old stuff - works pretty well and evaporates easily.
 
Ancalagon said:
Why not? they last long enough - heck is the point of an SSD, to boost speed.

One... problem. I ordered this new CPU, and I want to use my old CPU cooler, which is an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64. Not amazing but pretty sure it will be better than the stock cooler. However, I dont have any coolant paste or whatever you call it. Anyone know of a place to get some around Fourways in Joburg?

Or can I scrape the stuff applied to the new stock heatsink and transfer it to my old heatsink? I bought rubbing alcohol to clean off the old stuff - works pretty well and evaporates easily.
Click to expand...

Just use the stock cooler. It's really not bad.
 
Ancalagon said:
Why not? they last long enough - heck is the point of an SSD, to boost speed.
Click to expand...

It will shorten it's lifespan. I assume this will be your first SSD? Maybe go read up on SSD Tweaking.

One... problem. I ordered this new CPU, and I want to use my old CPU cooler, which is an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64. Not amazing but pretty sure it will be better than the stock cooler. However, I dont have any coolant paste or whatever you call it. Anyone know of a place to get some around Fourways in Joburg?

Or can I scrape the stuff applied to the new stock heatsink and transfer it to my old heatsink? I bought rubbing alcohol to clean off the old stuff - works pretty well and evaporates easily.
Click to expand...

Run into a pc shop and ask if they have. If you want to take the drive to Randburg, go to PCint.co.za, I know they have stock.
 
There is a PC shop in Fourways mall, hoping they will have. Its very small though. Incredible connection?

EDIT:

SharkBait said:
It will shorten it's lifespan. I assume this will be your first SSD? Maybe go read up on SSD Tweaking.
Click to expand...

From what I've heard, people under estimate the lifespan of SSDs.
 
Okay got all my stuff. The stock cooler doesnt look too bad, but I think my cooler is better. Will take a drive over to that little shop in fourways and see if they have - there is a small chance!

EDIT: @SharkBait

I'll do a bit more research before deciding. Luckily I now have 8GB of RAM, which should mean I dont really need much of a swap file.
 
Thanks!

From a bit of reading... its apparently not advisable to turn the swap file off. What I might do is just have it on the mechanical drive and see how that goes. I can always change it later. having 8GB of RAM means apps should seldom be forced to page out.

That being said... from reading up on it again, it seems an app's address space lives in the swap file by default. its only loaded into RAM as needed - thats why, if Windows needs to page out quickly, it can free up RAM without worrying about paging it to disk first, because it knows it is paged anyway. So using a mechanical drive as a swap file, means your typical program usage is:
Read from SSD -> store in swap file on slow ass old mechanical drive -> load into RAM as needed.

Seems to me it might negate much of the benefits of SSds.

EDIT: Fourways Computers, against all odds, has some Thermaltake TG-2 going for R120. I'll stop by on the way home. Problem solved!
 
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