Hi everyone,
Just finished a new build, and I'm wondering whether I should upgrade the storage. Here's what I've done, partly driven by whim, and partly driven by what was on sale at Fry's (All prices are after rebates, and reflect sales from 2 weeks ago; I'm using the Amazon site for spec links because it's easier):
AMD Phenom II Black 1055 six core:
http://www.amazon.com/AMD-Phenom-Thuban-Six-Core-Proces...
Biostar TA890FXE motherboard:
http://www.amazon.com/Biostar-890FX-Based-Motherboard-T...
I got the combo for $249
Cooler Master USP 100 case
Cooler Master 550-Watt Power Supply
http://www.amazon.com/USP-100-Gamming-Case-M-AT/dp/B003...
I got the combo for $99
Diamond ATI Radeon 5770 1 gig DDR5
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002UOPRZC/ref=s9_k2as...
Got it for $129
4 gigs Patriot 1333 mhz DDR3
http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Signature-PC3-8500-DDR3-1...
On sale for $69
I was worried the case would get too hot with just the one fan in the front, so I added an Enermax Apollish 12CM fan, for $9.99 (Yes, it was A Very Good Day at Fry's!)
Stuff I had around that I used on the build: Viewsonic VA2323wm 23" 1080p monitor; Logitech Illuminated keyboard; Logitech G9x mouse; some old DVD player.
Couldn't make up my mind on storage. The Biostar TA890FXE supports 6GPS SATA 3, but the SATA 3 drives were crazy expensive; the build so far has run me $555.99, so it seemed nuts to put in a $200+ Seagate Barracuda XT, especially when I just wasn't sure how much extra performance I was buying. Same went for blowing $300 for a VelociRaptor.
I ended up buying a Samsung 1TB Spinpoint from Amazon for $69.99.
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Spinpoint-Cache-Desktop-H...
Thanks for reading through all that mess. Here -- finally -- is my question. Would I pick up any appreciable performance pushing the Samsung back to a storage drive, and using a high-performance drive for my boot disk? The system seems terrifically snappy -- Plays Crysis at 1900 x 1080 on full everything...Woot! -- but ratings like Windows Experience are showing the storage subsystems as much slower than the rest of the system, and I'm worried I've built myself a choke point.
Any one have any experience with the new Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drives?
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momentus-7200RPM-Hybrid-S...
Is a Raptor really worth that kind of money? What about an SSD?
I'd really appreciate the communities thoughts on this.
Thanks!
Chris Feola