Post your computer specs!~

[dougms3]

I know I said I like nvme, but in practicality, in terms of gaming usage, there really isn't much benefit from me over even SATA SSD for gaming. However, nvme prices are just getting slashed and price gaps are narrowing between SSD interface types, it's just that the newest gen is going to be higher. gen3 and sata ssds are probably close enough that it makes sense for me to go gen3 nvme for my usage (don't needs the highest pcie speeds). I don't do a lot of w/r (I don't see doing much rewrites), but just mainly read for gaming, so gen3 is more that enough speed for my usage, even SATA is sufficient. I was considering Samsung QVO due to it's availability in 8TB and the cheapest price for 8TB, and I will only be concerned about read speed, and want the 8TB capacity, but still not sure if the performance is not much difference from it and other SATA SSDs for gaming (for reads only). Anybody have insights on this, let me know.

There is a benefit to using 2.5 ssds over nmve even though they are much slower.

In terms of speeds, I believe they cap out about 500 mb/s but the main benefit of the 2.5 ssds is for storing music files.

You can place them away from the motherboard and reduce amount of noise injection somewhat from the mobo and other pc components.

While its still going to be exposed to some level of noise injection, it will be much less than something like an nvme drive where its attached to the motherboard.

 

[SilverEars]

There is a benefit to using 2.5 ssds over nmve even though they are much slower.

In terms of speeds, I believe they cap out about 500 mb/s but the main benefit of the 2.5 ssds is for storing music files.

You can place them away from the motherboard and reduce amount of noise injection somewhat from the mobo and other pc components.

While its still going to be exposed to some level of noise injection, it will be much less than something like an nvme drive where its attached to the motherboard.

The files will still get loaded up in the components in the motherboard. The files aren't played through the external drive, it's retrieved from the external drive for playback. I wouldn't be concerned about the noise unless you notice it causing group loop that you can hear. If you don't notice something, it's fine. If you try hard to notice something, not worth it.

For example, I use Tidal, and no issues. The music is buffered for playback, and music through Tidal just sounds better to me for some reason. Youtube doesn't sound good at all. Those are the difference I really notice, and I don't notice any difference for files I have on my computer vs a CD playback or something.

But, I will say there are times it seems like the pc is playing the song in fast forward mode, and I don't know why this happens. Speed is what I've noticed the difference in.

I'm concern with stuff that matters to me like 4k uhd video vs 1080p. Sometimes it's noticeable, other times it's not. Even in gaming fidelity, 1440p vs 2160p may not be noticeable on a big OLED. Same for 60 vs 100fps.

 

[dougms3]

The files will still get loaded up in the components in the motherboard. The files aren't played through the external drive, it's retrieved from the external drive for playback. I wouldn't be concerned about the noise unless you notice it causing group loop that you can hear. If you don't notice something, it's fine. If you try hard to notice something, not worth it.

Yes but any level of reduced exposure to EMI is beneficial.

Like throwing a log in the middle of a firepit vs being on the edge of it.

This is an easy test, you can play a music file off the nvme drive vs the 2.5 ssd drive. I've also compared vs playing the same file off a NAS drive.

I recently bought the ifi lan isilencer to test it out and it surprisingly improved audio quality for my setup.

 

[SilverEars]

Yes but any level of reduced exposure to EMI is beneficial.

Like throwing a log in the middle of a firepit vs being on the edge of it.

This is an easy test, you can play a music file off the nvme drive vs the 2.5 ssd drive. I've also compared vs playing the same file off a NAS drive.

I recently bought the ifi lan isilencer to test it out and it surprisingly improved audio quality for my setup.

This conversation is heading into a rabbit hole not worth going into. If you find that the difference is worth it, sure.

 

[UntilThen]

Still good after 2 years.

 

[monf3307]

I was not aware of this hidden gem due to the Nvidia hype, but if anybody looking for a sweetspot in price per performance, I highly recommend 6800XT for a video card. 16GB of vram, and it just performs superbly for what you pay. It's for those that like something optimal in terms of value per price. If I were to do my system over again, I would build around this card since the budget would be so reasonable. I get that some of yall got the 4080 or 4090, yada yada (yawn), but I find that it's more impressive if you can find something by research that performs like 6800XT, when it's not spoon fed to you or obvious.

I am kinda fascinated by how good AMD GPUs are for gaming.

Unfortunately they are basically useless for any of the non-graphical uses like big data and AI/ML work. I realize that does not matter to the vast majority of end-users but it is big for me and my job.

 

[monf3307]

I know I said I like nvme, but in practicality, in terms of gaming usage, there really isn't much benefit from me over even SATA SSD for gaming. However, nvme prices are just getting slashed and price gaps are narrowing between SSD interface types, it's just that the newest gen is going to be higher. gen3 and sata ssds are probably close enough that it makes sense for me to go gen3 nvme for my usage (don't needs the highest pcie speeds). I don't do a lot of w/r (I don't see doing much rewrites), but just mainly read for gaming, so gen3 is more that enough speed for my usage, even SATA is sufficient. I was considering Samsung QVO due to it's availability in 8TB and the cheapest price for 8TB, and I will only be concerned about read speed, and want the 8TB capacity, but still not sure if the performance is not much difference from it and other SATA SSDs for gaming (for reads only). Anybody have insights on this, let me know.

IMO and my experience completely agree that SATA is enough for gaming. Compute farms, high-end data processing, etc totally different story and gimme whatever the latest NVME is, but gaming you are good to go.

 

[SilverEars]

IMO and my experience completely agree that SATA is enough for gaming. Compute farms, high-end data processing, etc totally different story and gimme whatever the latest NVME is, but gaming you are good to go.

Main benefit I saw with gaming was when I launch Hogwart's Legacy. HDD just stutters badly unless I use my SSD drive. It maybe due to my system ram capacity. I wonder if it's the 16GB of system ram I use? Maybe I should upgrade to 32GB?

Also, there really is no benefit beyond DDR4 3000 for gaming right? I'm currently trying to research that.

 

[monf3307]

Main benefit I saw with gaming was when I launch Hogwart's Legacy. HDD just stutters badly unless I use my SSD drive. It maybe due to my system ram capacity. I wonder if it's the 16GB of system ram I use? Maybe I should upgrade to 32GB?

Also, there really is no benefit beyond DDR4 3000 for gaming right? I'm currently trying to research that.

Ah, HDD vs SSD is a media difference. SATA vs NVME is an interface difference. I was saying that SATA is plenty fast for gaming, but obviously the interface can only shuttle data as quickly as the device on the other end can feed it.

I cannot comment much on enhanced RAM speeds. For my work nothing above 2000mhz has ever made much difference. Maybe 15-30 seconds on a two+ hour job. It might matter to you, or for gaming in general, but for my tasks the money is better spent elsewhere.

 

[iFi audio]

I recently bought the ifi lan isilencer to test it out and it surprisingly improved audio quality for my setup.

That's good to know, thank you and enjoy

And to stay on the subject of this thread, you folks thing that GPUs will go up because of AI? I'm thinking about replacing my RXT 3060Ti to something better and am wondering whether I should wait or pull the trigger...

 

[SilverEars]

Ah, HDD vs SSD is a media difference. SATA vs NVME is an interface difference. I was saying that SATA is plenty fast for gaming, but obviously the interface can only shuttle data as quickly as the device on the other end can feed it.

I cannot comment much on enhanced RAM speeds. For my work nothing above 2000mhz has ever made much difference. Maybe 15-30 seconds on a two+ hour job. It might matter to you, or for gaming in general, but for my tasks the money is better spent elsewhere.

My thoughts is that Hogwart's Legacy is not optimized well, and during the game, it's retrieving information from storage. It's not a common occurance, but this one is notible, and I'm trying to avoid such issues. Any other games, SDD only helps with loading speed, they do not seem to have such issues while the game is running after load. I was thinking in the future there will be games optimized poorly like Hogwart's and trying to avoid such issues. It would be an interesting test to see with increased ram, if Hogwart's doesn't stutter if playing off the HDD. Games these days are coming out for consoles with nvme ssd in them, so the pc ports will start to expect that I believe.

I understand that modern games releasing these days are poorly optimized for PC, and I suspect it has to do with video ram capacity and system ram interactions. Stuttering is related to ram usage optimzations. Games that utilize too much video ram will use system ram to retrieve, and it will stutter. I believe Hogwart's is relying on system ram during the gameplay, in which I think my NVME SSD is helping reduce the intensity of the stuttering.

These days gaming enthusiast place heavy importance on video ram since the game are so poorly optimized and using more and more video ram. It's part of the reason why people dislike the new Nvidia releases. Ram as inexpensive relative to their video card pricing tiers, and they are not providing sufficient ram for future proofing the upgrades. Ram cost is not the issue.

 

[SilverEars]

I need to rant about my mobo and memory XMP profile instability. What's up with instability and mobos?! Mobo should support a slow ddr4 ram. This is why I hate building custom PCs.

 

[BrokeAudiophileMan]

I need to rant about my mobo and memory XMP profile instability. What's up with instability and mobos?! Mobo should support a slow ddr4 ram. This is why I hate building custom PCs.

That's you. That's not your computer. If you don't pay attention to the memory speed preferences/limitations of your platform/mobo/cpu and also don't buy RAM off the QVL list you're just screwing yourself. I never have problems like this and I've been building computers for over 2 decades with about 500 builds under my belt. All in the field rock solid nobody's ever come back. You can't just decide to build a computer with no knowledge it doesn't work like that, and most of the "experts" on the internet giving advice are teenagers high on the smell of their own farts who built one PC with their dad 2 years ago and think they know things. I worked in shops doing computer repair then ran my own repair business for a year very successfully and did a lot of builds as well as finishing builds people had screwed up or given up on. I had to give it up when my schizophrenia got out of control and I'm on disability. The schizophrenia is worse than the being on disability, but both make getting respect from people difficult.

Look up your motherboard model, find the manufacturer website for it, check the RAM QVL list and also find out what the specific speed limits/sweet spots are for dual stick, single rank, dual slot, dual rank, and quad slot single and dual rank. Motherboards don't just take "up to DDR4 4000" that number will be best-case-scenario low load memory controller numbers, ie, max dual stick, max single rank. The more stress you put on the IMC the lower the speeds it can handle. Stressing different areas of the CPU such as high core or cache overclocks will also put additional stress on the IMC.
Also you can't just say "This board takes DDR 4 3200 so I will buy this random DDR 4 3200 kit" because it doesn't work like that- ESPECIALLY on AMD. With Intel you can sort of get away with it unless you're really stressing the memory controller.
I've seen boards so finnicky with RAM that they'd bluescreen repeatedly with anything they didn't like even at chipset defaults (2666Mhz on an i5 8500 for example in a Dell Optiplex) and after much hair pulling and anger at lacking documentation I determined that the board only liked memory with Hynix IC's.

 

[BrokeAudiophileMan]

Main benefit I saw with gaming was when I launch Hogwart's Legacy. HDD just stutters badly unless I use my SSD drive. It maybe due to my system ram capacity. I wonder if it's the 16GB of system ram I use? Maybe I should upgrade to 32GB?

Also, there really is no benefit beyond DDR4 3000 for gaming right? I'm currently trying to research that.

You shouldn't be running an HDD for games period in 2023. a 1TB SSD starts at less than $55 USD. Come on.
You definitely should have 32GB of RAM. Lots of games want more than 16. Even at medium settings The Last Of Us (which runs fine now and is fixed IMO) draws over 20GB. Microsoft Flight simulator wants 12-16GB, etc etc.
As for the 3000Mhz thing I don't know where you heard that but it's not true. Ryzen 2000 topped out around 3000Mhz but going faster would have been beneficial. Basically for gaming you want the fastest RAM with the lowest latency that you can afford while staying in budget, and as always, you want dual channel quad rank (2 sticks of dual rank RAM OR 4 sticks single rank but 4 sticks puts more stress on the memory controller)
Some platforms will take faster RAM than others. On Intel 13th gen DDR5 6000+ is possible while on Ryzen 5000 you're likely to have problems trying to exceed DDR4 3600.

 

[monf3307]

I need to rant about my mobo and memory XMP profile instability. What's up with instability and mobos?! Mobo should support a slow ddr4 ram. This is why I hate building custom PCs.

Ryzen? IME Intel memory support is basically bombproof.