System Upgrade Suggestions

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wakytime

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With input from this forum, I built my first computer 5 years ago. It's time for me to upgrade and I'm looking for any experiences and suggestions anyone might have to help out once again. I'm not a gamer, but I do watch some streaming video, and use my computer extensively for business type activities. Thinking of bigger monitors in the future.

My computer today: XP Media Center, E8400 processor, Asus P5Q-E P775 motherboard, 4G of ram, Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 video card, 250G HDD, with a 20" and 22" LED monitors

My upgrade thoughts, are the following:
> Replace XP with Windows 7 Pro
> Install a SSD Samsung 60 or 120 G drive that will house a clean install of the operating system, system files and programs.
> The existing HHD will be retained and used/delegated to general data storage. I'm not sure how to delete XP and all associated system files for smooth integration.
> Upgrade/install USB 3.0 board. ( any vendor/model?)

Make logical technical and cost effective sense? Thanks for any and all suggestions.
 
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wakytime

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Thanks for the inquiry!! The specs say: Serial ATA 3 Gb/s. Is that the same as SATA3?
 
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wakytime

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That's really good up front information to know...which I missed. Since you said "not fully utilize" and based on the numbers, is it safe to assume a SSD with SATA2 would only deliver half as fast as a SATA3? If not what would you expect? Would a SSD still offer a worthy speed up?
 
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menetlaus

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Ignore this idiot. The primary advantage of ANY SSD over ANY HDD for a boot drive is latency as a SSD can access ~100 (small) files for every one on a rotating HDD (0.01ms vs ~7.4ms average seek time *before* the file starts to send).

The main benefit to sata3 is the increased maximum data rate from ~300MB/s to ~600MB/s which is irrelevant for an OS drive as consumer SSD's can "only" provide ~50MB/s when using small files (for reference - HDD's are <1MB/s for 4kb random reads).

Don't get me wrong, if you want to edit video/whatever and need something that can write to drive at 400+ MB/s you need SATA3, but for an OS drive SATA2 is more than enough (though can at times be bottlenecked, unnoticeably, by the lack of SATA3)

As for your plan, makes good sense especially if there is a need for Win 7. Just be sure to get the 64bit version as it will allow you to use (or later upgrade) above 4GB of ram.
 
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menetlaus

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No!

Think speed limit on the road. SATA2 is a 50kph/30mph limit - on this road a car (SSD) can go up to that speed and no faster.

Put the same car on a SATA3 (100kph/60mph limited road) and the horsepower in the car doesn't magically double. If the car could only manage 20kph on the SATA 2 road - it would still only go 20kph on the SATA 3 road.

The only way SATA3 does better is on large sequential file transfers (which are not on booting or loading most business applications) and then ONLY if the drive is actually able to read/write the file(s) at >300MB/s.
 
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wakytime

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More good info, thanks! Sounds like a SATA 2 wouldn't be to much of a compromise. Thanks for bringing up 32bit versus 64bit. My present system is 32 bit, and I'd for the most part convinced myself from my research that the (potential) problems of going to 64bit wouldn't make it worth the risk, especially since I'm not a power user....... but I'm really open to reconsidering. What you're thought on the issues of changing from 32 bit to 64 bit in terms of system, program and driver compatibility?

32 bit vs 64 bit won't have any effect on the proposed upgrade will it? This is a common issue, maybe it's best if I do some more research on this so we can keep the focus of this posting from getting off track.

 
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menetlaus

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Without knowing all the programs you are currently running, hardware in the office, phase of the moon when you do the upgrade, etc... the switch from 32 to 64bit *shouldn't* be a problem.

There are programs/hardware that were written for XP but they weren't re-done and don't run in Win 7. That said Win 7 PRO (and above versions) have a built in win xp mode so all software that ran in xp you should be able to run using this if nothing else.

Adding in a USB3 PCI(e) board - if you have a need for it, go for it! If you don't have any USB3 devices/drives and never write more than a ~20MB powerpoint to a thumb drive... I don't see much advantage in the upgrade.
 
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