The computer and electronics super geek thread

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

the hottest deal i saw on black friday was this: (it's sold out)

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro G-1666 17.3" 980M 4GB 5700HQ G-Sync $1,199 after rebate and comes with a free backpack and NVIDIA Bullets or Blades bundle

i7-5700HQ 2.7 GHz
980M 4GB
1 TB HDD + 128 GB SSD
IPS panel, 17.3" g-sync ready
8.4 lbs, 16.85" x 11.57" x 1.89"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?sdtid=8316705&SID=3d168314979611e5ae3756d6c50073a00000&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16834152899&cm_re=msi_980m-_-34-152-899-_-Product&cm_sp=

if i didn't have a lappy, i would've grabbed it in a heartbeat

Edited November 30, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[azrael]

Questions: why is it that a lot of machines no longer have an optical drive?...

Cloud-based services, USB sticks, streaming. You name it. Optical drives have lost their luster. I have an external DVD and Blu-Ray burner for my MBP. Haven't used either one except when I couldn't read a disc.

How about memory? Everyone's trying to cram memory down my throat but I don't see the need for anything more than 16 G's of RAM; do I really need 24+?

Minimum 8 GB. 16 is enough for most intensive stuff. Anymore and it starts getting ridiculous.

Finally, I'm expecting a dual HDD setup with an SSD for the OS and the usual TB sized drive for everything else.

Since it is Cyber Monday at the time of this post, I would be hunting around for deals than posting here if you're looking for a new laptop.

[myk]

Because optical drives aren't cool anymore. You're supposed to be living in the streamed cloud now, or something.

Eh, just call me "that 90's guy." I even BUY and WATCH pornography on DVD's and blu-ray's, rather than downloading/streaming.

Cloud-based services, USB sticks, streaming. You name it. Optical drives have lost their luster. I have an external DVD and Blu-Ray burner for my MBP. Haven't used either one except when I couldn't read a disc.Minimum 8 GB. 16 is enough for most intensive stuff. Anymore and it starts getting ridiculous.Since it is Cyber Monday at the time of this post, I would be hunting around for deals than posting here if you're looking for a new laptop.

Oh believe me I checked for deals; didn't find any on the laptops I was targeting. Well, I guess I could just buy an external drive...

[azrael]

Oh believe me I checked for deals; didn't find any on the laptops I was targeting. Well, I guess I could just buy an external drive...

A common topic I'm hearing today about retailers regarding low sales expectations today is retailers will be having fire sales from now until Christmas (i.e., every day is Black Friday/Cyber Monday). So keep an eye out. They may have the laptop you are looking for or a similar model on sale.

[JB0]

Eh, just call me "that 90's guy." I even BUY and WATCH pornography on DVD's and blu-ray's, rather than downloading/streaming.

Yeah, I'm oldschool in that optical driveyness too.

And BluRay is a matter of quality over convenience. No one streams BR-quality audio and video, or even close.

[myk]

A common topic I'm hearing today about retailers regarding low sales expectations today is retailers will be having fire sales from now until Christmas (i.e., every day is Black Friday/Cyber Monday). So keep an eye out. They may have the laptop you are looking for or a similar model on sale.

Good idea, I'll keep an eye out.

Yeah, I'm oldschool in that optical driveyness too.

And BluRay is a matter of quality over convenience. No one streams BR-quality audio and video, or even close.

Really? I thought that both formats were on par with one another, and I was just choosing to be anachronistic. To hell with streaming then; OPTICAL DRIVES FOREVER!!!111

[JB0]

Naw, there's still major bandwidth issues that make streaming full BR-quality files unfeasable in a lot of places, especially as ISPs try to place caps on anyone who dares use their connection for more than the occasional plain text file.

[CrusherJ]

Hey guys, I'm considering saving my bluray and dvd collection digitally with the aim of watching it from my computer and stream it to watch on my tv. Any recommendations for great burners and programs I would need to do that? I have 100+ blurays and 500+ DVDs so I'm guessing I would need between 4-6tb to store it all. Is that too much or not enough? Thanks!

[azrael]

Hey guys, I'm considering saving my bluray and dvd collection digitally with the aim of watching it from my computer and stream it to watch on my tv. Any recommendations for great burners and programs I would need to do that? I have 100+ blurays and 500+ DVDs so I'm guessing I would need between 4-6tb to store it all. Is that too much or not enough? Thanks!

Considering you already have it on Blu-Ray and DVD, you won't need a burner. You'll need a blu-ray disc drive to read all those discs, but you're not burning anything. I would probably shoot for 6TBs of storage as a starting point. With that many discs, we're looking at around 7TB of unconverted data. You can stream with Serviio, Plex or Windows Media Player as a server. A Roku or Chromecast could also work. Another thing you may want to consider is removing the computer from the equation and building a NAS to house all the media. This would mean you could have your files ready at anytime without having to use your primary computer, i.e., you could multiplay on your computer and stream to another device without congesting your computer's NIC.

[CrusherJ]

Considering you already have it on Blu-Ray and DVD, you won't need a burner. You'll need a blu-ray disc drive to read all those discs, but you're not burning anything. I would probably shoot for 6TBs of storage as a starting point. With that many discs, we're looking at around 7TB of unconverted data. You can stream with Serviio, Plex or Windows Media Player as a server. A Roku or Chromecast could also work. Another thing you may want to consider is removing the computer from the equation and building a NAS to house all the media. This would mean you could have your files ready at anytime without having to use your primary computer, i.e., you could multiplay on your computer and stream to another device without congesting your computer's NIC.

Thanks azrael! So I could use the NAS to stream to my tv instead of the computer? Sounds like a good option especially considering how much storage I'd need. Any recommendations for a NAS? Thanks again!

[SchizophrenicMC]

Thanks azrael! So I could use the NAS to stream to my tv instead of the computer? Sounds like a good option especially considering how much storage I'd need. Any recommendations for a NAS? Thanks again!

You could definitely use the NAS in that way. My uncle does, but I'm not exactly sure what his specific setup is. I'll have to get with him on that.

That's probably what I'd do if I had stacks of cash and more than 4TB of media. Of course, I have a spare rig lying around with more than enough power and space for drives to be a NAS. Maybe I don't need stacks of cash.

In other news, my Sapphire R9 390 OC finally showed up. The thing is massive.

Edited December 4, 2015 by SchizophrenicMC

[azrael]

Thanks azrael! So I could use the NAS to stream to my tv instead of the computer? Sounds like a good option especially considering how much storage I'd need. Any recommendations for a NAS? Thanks again!

Sorry I don't have any recommendations for a NAS. Alternatively, you could build your own or use a spare computer. If you go the DIY route, you'll want to focus the money on good storage. You don't need a powerful computer to run a NAS, but you need lots of good reliable storage. Western Digital Red or Seagate NAS drives are suppose to have better error-correction making them ideal for RAID in a NAS.

[CrusherJ]

Thanks guys, you've helped me get started! That's great about the R9 Schizo! How's it working for you?

[Major Focker]

i've been happy with my Synology NAS for 5 years now. got 12TB on it.

[Major Focker]

Western Digital Red or Seagate NAS drives are suppose to have better error-correction making them ideal for RAID in a NAS.

get these. one of the normal drives in my NAS gave up a little under 2 years. the workload must've been too punishing as it was running 24/7

the RED replacement is still going after 3 years.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Thanks guys, you've helped me get started! That's great about the R9 Schizo! How's it working for you?

No idea. I keep having to go do things like work and fixing my cousin's car. Haven't had a chance to try shoehorning the massive thing into my rig.

[grss1982]

Unlike some of you folks here, my upgrade might sound more like a sidegrade.

i5-3470

Gigabyte B75-based Mobo

8GB of RAM

Radeon 7770 to Radeon 7950

2x1TB drives

Samsung 223GW LCD to LG 23EA63 LED IPS

Antec 300 Case

SilverStone 600W Modular PSU

Af the two upgrades, it's the LCD to LED move that has me awed. The difference between the two is like night and day!

By the way, I don't play a lot of demanding games...probably my most demanding will be Far Cry 4 and XCOM 2......so I just wanted to throw this out to our techy folks here:

1) Do I need a 16GB upgrade for RAM?

2) I'm skipping Haswell and Sky Lake. I'd like to wait for the day that DDR4 RAM becomes cheap and mainstream. Sounds like a good idea?

3) Any reason to go for an i7 if I can find them real cheap?

[SchizophrenicMC]

Yeah that's a pretty sideways move.

For your RAM, 8GB is often plenty, 16GB is usually tons. What clock speed is the RAM and what CAS latency, do you know? Even high performing DDR4 today isn't as good as modestly high-performance DDR3 for the same amount of cash. Not to mention, it can be a cheap upgrade that lets you keep most of your current setup.

Unfortunately for us both, we just missed the train on good deals on 4790ks. (I saw them as cheap as $200) Otherwise I'd suggest nabbing a $150-ish Z97 chipset LGA 1150 board and a Devil's Canyon, just for the bit of cheap additional performance for the next year and a half or two. Though, at this rate, your best bet might be waiting on Skylake to get cheap. Broadwell performance with half the power consumption is mighty tempting, and the fact that it is just Broadwell performance will force the price down when the next architecture comes out, I'd bet. Most tasks aren't CPU intensive enough, or aren't programmed well enough to use multi-threading by a great enough extent, that the CPU is the bottleneck these days. For gaming, spend the extra cash on a GPU with a ton of VRAM (mine has 8GB) for maximum frame buffer capabilities, and an SSD for your main drive. Samsung 850 EVOs are getting cheaper all the time. I just bought a 120GB for $60, though that was a holiday special. Being able to shuffle large amounts of data from the drive to RAM in short time (especially if your board supports SATA III), and hold a bunch more data in the frame buffer, will do a lot more for your gaming experience than just about anything else.

As for my recent GPU shenanigans, I did end up having to upgrade my power supply to install it, and I got a cheap SSD while I was out. The performance is pretty good - sometimes too good, as my monitor doesn't support framerate synchronization - but the irony is, I spent all that money to improve performance in Space Engineers, and that game crashes my whole system when I click any option from within the main menu now. Even "Exit to Windows". It's not a new bug (though it is for me) but the cause is unknown because there aren't any similarities between the setups people are running that cause this bug. Even my buddy, who has an R9 290X (ie the same GPU with different RAM), has no problems. On the upside, at least Skyrim looks nice. 8GB frame buffer. So many textures.

Edited December 15, 2015 by SchizophrenicMC

[azrael]

...

1) Do I need a 16GB upgrade for RAM?

2) I'm skipping Haswell and Sky Lake. I'd like to wait for the day that DDR4 RAM becomes cheap and mainstream. Sounds like a good idea?

3) Any reason to go for an i7 if I can find them real cheap?

1) If you're not gaming 24/7, doing insane work in Photoshop, or editing and rendering video, then no, you don't need 16GB of RAM.

2) The i5-3470 will last you for a couple more years. More so if your usage decreases.

3) If you can find it cheap, sure. It never hurts to get a more powerful CPU if you can get it cheaper. Provided that it is compatible with your current system and of the same generation.

[mikeszekely]

Unlike some of you folks here, my upgrade might sound more like a sidegrade.

i5-3470

Gigabyte B75-based Mobo

8GB of RAM

Radeon 7770 to Radeon 7950

2x1TB drives

Samsung 223GW LCD to LG 23EA63 LED IPS

Antec 300 Case

SilverStone 600W Modular PSU

Af the two upgrades, it's the LCD to LED move that has me awed. The difference between the two is like night and day!

By the way, I don't play a lot of demanding games...probably my most demanding will be Far Cry 4 and XCOM 2......so I just wanted to throw this out to our techy folks here:

1) Do I need a 16GB upgrade for RAM?

2) I'm skipping Haswell and Sky Lake. I'd like to wait for the day that DDR4 RAM becomes cheap and mainstream. Sounds like a good idea?

3) Any reason to go for an i7 if I can find them real cheap?

Az covered this pretty well, but I'll toss in my two cents.

1) You're probably ok with 8. My Razer Blade only has 8GB of RAM, and it's plenty fast enough. I think my Surface Pro 3 might even have less. 16GB is nice, sure. But anything more than 16GB is just overkill right now.

2) You're fine. My gaming desktop is still running a third-gen. The upgrades in the Core i family are nice, but maybe not as huge a shift as the the Core 2 to Core i shift was.

3) Depends on how cheap, I suppose, and what you're using your computer for. I mean, if you're doing CPU-heavy things, then like Az says more power never hurts. But if you're just gaming (which is more GPU-reliant) and web browsing, you may never notice the difference.

[grss1982]

Thanks for all that commented. I actually transitioned from an C2D E8500 to an i5-3470 and I was astounted by the huge performance increase. That integrated memory controller was really a big factor I guess.

An SSD upgrade is something I wanted to try as well....but something's holding me back. My prejudice against them in terms of longevity I guess.

[mikeszekely]

Thanks for all that commented. I actually transitioned from an C2D E8500 to an i5-3470 and I was astounted by the huge performance increase. That integrated memory controller was really a big factor I guess.

An SSD upgrade is something I wanted to try as well....but something's holding me back. My prejudice against them in terms of longevity I guess.

Well, like I said, the transition from Core 2 to Core i was pretty big.

For boot time and little things like opening a web browser installed on an SSD, switching from an regular HDD to an SSD is probably the biggest single performance upgrade you can do. But traditional drives are still much cheaper at the very large sizes, so (if you're like me) you'd still use them for installing games from Steam and bulk storage. However, if you're just using it for a boot device, 128GB and 256GB drives have really dropped in price, so it can be an inexpensive upgrade. And if the drive starts to go, back up your crap before it dies and tell yourself it was time to get a bigger one anyway. It's what I did.

[CrusherJ]

Is the Intel 750 series worth the premium compared to ssd's like the Samsung evo series if you're not commonly working with large files?

[azrael]

An SSD upgrade is something I wanted to try as well....but something's holding me back. My prejudice against them in terms of longevity I guess.

SSDs last no longer than most HDDs under normal conditions. There are ways to limit the amount of writes to SSDs. There are also guides to switching from HDDs to SSDs. Google it. When SSDs die, they do so very ungracefully. You just have to watch out for when they do as Mike mentioned.

[TangledThorns]

An SSD upgrade is something I wanted to try as well....but something's holding me back. My prejudice against them in terms of longevity I guess.

Once you get an SSD you'll never go back. If you're worried about longevity then make sure you get a SSD with good reviews from an established brand. The greatest difference I noticed with SSD is load times. I noticed Crysis went from a minute load time to just seconds. I do suggest a 500Gb or larger size as newer games are taking up more and more space.

[mikeszekely]

Is the Intel 750 series worth the premium compared to ssd's like the Samsung evo series if you're not commonly working with large files?

Not to me personally. Honestly, I'm content with whatever's reasonably-priced, and I just make sure I keep a semi-regular backup. I've used Kingston, Transcend, Mushkin, and Samsung, and so far only the Kingston gave me any issues. Even then, the drive still seems to work, but sometimes my mobo wouldn't detect it. I threw it in an enclosure and use it as an external.

[CrusherJ]

Not to me personally. Honestly, I'm content with whatever's reasonably-priced, and I just make sure I keep a semi-regular backup. I've used Kingston, Transcend, Mushkin, and Samsung, and so far only the Kingston gave me any issues. Even then, the drive still seems to work, but sometimes my mobo wouldn't detect it. I threw it in an enclosure and use it as an external.

Ok, been researching parts for a build for my next main computer (currently using a 5 yr old laptop) and was considering using the 750 as the boot drive. Just wondering if the performance over time (like a few years) of the 750 would be worth it compared to a sata drive.

[mikeszekely]

Any SSD will be immediately and obviously faster. I'm talking like the difference between one of those idiot kids driving way too fast and weaving in and out of lanes on the highway speeds compared to a fat woman on a Rascal at Walmart.

As far as longevity, like Az said there are better hardware controllers and modern OSes are better optimized to use them, so it's not like using an SSD means you've got a six month timer until all the data on your drive is lost forever. Plus, they're non-mechanical so they're less likely to be damaged in a roughly-handled laptop. I don't have any direct comparisons for the average number of write ops before failure in an SSD vs a mechanical, but a SSD will last long enough and give you such a speed difference that they're worth it. Heck, 128GB and 256GB drives are so cheap now there's really no reason not to use one. Just be sure to do regular backups, which you should be doing anyway because mechanical drives fail too.

[CrusherJ]

Oh, I know a ssd will be a lot faster than an hdd. I was wondering about the Intel 750 ssd (the 400gb one) vs. a Samsung evo 850 ssd. Since the Intel is a PCIe drive, I was wondering if I'd be better off getting it as my main drive.

[mikeszekely]

Oh, I know a ssd will be a lot faster than an hdd. I was wondering about the Intel 750 ssd (the 400gb one) vs. a Samsung evo 850 ssd. Since the Intel is a PCIe drive, I was wondering if I'd be better off getting it as my main drive.

Ah, ok. Well, everyone has different ideas about the value of a dollar, but personally I'd say go with the Samsung. The Intel can have significantly higher peak performance, but in both user tests and lab tests averages out to be around twice as fast as the Samsung. So why go with the Samsung? Assuming you're not finding better deals than my very quick Google search, a 500GB Samsung should be around $150. The Intel is around $375. Bottom line, I don't feel that the extra performance is worth paying over $200 more for, especially if you've never used an SSD before and are already going to be floored by how much faster they are than mechanical drives.

Besides, I couldn't tell you which is more reliable in terms of longevity or whatever, but I can tell you that should a drive fail I'd rather be out $150 than almost $400.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

agreed, go with the samsung evo pro

[barurutor]

An SSD upgrade is something I wanted to try as well....but something's holding me back. My prejudice against them in terms of longevity I guess.

Modern SSDs have been tested to exceed rated write specs several times over before encountering serious failures:

http://techreport.com/review/24841/introducing-the-ssd-endurance-experiment

http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

[CrusherJ]

Ah, ok. Well, everyone has different ideas about the value of a dollar, but personally I'd say go with the Samsung. The Intel can have significantly higher peak performance, but in both user tests and lab tests averages out to be around twice as fast as the Samsung. So why go with the Samsung? Assuming you're not finding better deals than my very quick Google search, a 500GB Samsung should be around $150. The Intel is around $375. Bottom line, I don't feel that the extra performance is worth paying over $200 more for, especially if you've never used an SSD before and are already going to be floored by how much faster they are than mechanical drives.

Besides, I couldn't tell you which is more reliable in terms of longevity or whatever, but I can tell you that should a drive fail I'd rather be out $150 than almost $400.

All very good points. I'll be blown away by the performance of the Samsung anyway and I can put that extra money else where in the build, thanks!

[Major Focker]

tried to use windows movie maker to edit videos stored on my NAS. it says i have to download it first to my local computer.

anyone know of any video editors that can directly work on files in network shares?

i plan to do just simple trimming but across a lot of videos i'd rather not download to my laptop then re-upload again post edit.

thanks

[SchizophrenicMC]

I believe Vegas and Premiere can do it. But I somehow get the feeling you don't want to spend enterprise video editing money.