fildien

I currently have an i7 920 with 6GB of RAM and an nvidia 560Ti (both are overclocked) and a RAID0 of 2 SATA drives. When I run the windows performance index it tells me that my HDD is the bottleneck coming in around 6.1 whereas everything else is 7.4+ with most being 7.9.

Would I benefit more from going to faster and more memory or from an SSD?

This would be for BF3 and Elders Scrolls etc.

My assumption is that going SSD would only help booting and loading apps and not so much online operations.

I am pretty out of date with desktop PC stuff anymore b/c I realized I just can't keep up with it. I know what SSDs do for my apps on enterprise storage but have never had one for home use.

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Nurta <Shark Baby>
Mind Trick - Empire

Elemak the Enchanter

maybe try some Raptors in a raid? if you get an SSD make sure it has trim support

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Akom of Cazic Thule

You're correct on the boot and loading times. Don't forget though, that includes loading anything within the game as well (zoning, etc), so it can be a benefit for sure. However, you will see little (if any) visual performance gains.

If your MoBo supports SLI and your Power Supply has the juice, that is probably the best option for getting more performance out of it.

As to RAM, I currently have 16 GB of RAM in my gaming rig but that's only because it was so cheap when I got it. I would say 6 *should* be good, but you can never go wrong with more RAM IMO. With RAM pricing as low as it is, you almost can't go wrong throwing more in.

Beyond that, your system seems fine for both games. You won't be able to play with everything turned up, but I would say at medium to medium / high you should be fine.

Malse

Motherboard RAID chips are fucking terrible. Software RAID is faster, by a lot. If it doesn't have a write cache, it's not worth using.

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I saw innumerable hosts, foredoomed to darkness, dirt, pestilence, obscenity, misery and early death.
Dickens, ‘A December Vision’, 1850

Sanchek

An SSD for boot/programs is worth every penny. My aging Intel X-25M gets a 7.2 WEI. I'm sure newer ones are even faster.

More importantly, the WEI score doesn't even adequately speak to how absurdly awesome the random seek/burst reads on an SSD are, which is what you really notice in daily use. Since you aren't storing HD video on it or anything, who cares about long, sustained sequential reads.

Kelraz Bladesinger

One thing I did notice about SSDs though, they seem to fail faster than their older cousins with moving parts. Maybe the shit I do is more intense than designed, or Apple doesn't interface well with them or something, but I've already had to replace 2 at work.

That being said, stuff loads up really fast. Which is especially great if you have a client sitting over your shoulder.

Trikki

I wish I could comprehend this shit.

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Quit Bitching Start a Revolution.

Sanchek

SSDs have failed more often under OS X because there was no TRIM support until Lion, whereas Windows 7 does support it. Without TRIM, you end up with more focused spots of write-wear, which is what kills SSDs (they can only write each block a certain number of times).

For the cautious, there are tools to monitor that sort of thing. For example, here's the health of the X-25M in my development machine that gets used pretty heavily when I use it (and is generally on and doing something 24/7 regardless):

Attached Images

ssdlife.jpg (44.8 KB, 29 views)

Kelraz Bladesinger

Ah, well I guess I should upgrade to Lion. Bleh.

fildien

Ok so here is what I discovered. First I noticed my RAM was only running at 1066 and not the 1600MHz it should be running at. This is b/c my 920 i7 BLCK wasn't running fast enough to support faster speeds. So since I am using an aftermarket cooler and felt comfortable OCing I bumped my 920 to a 940 which allowed me to tweak memory speeds I am running 1200MHz now and my temps all seem fine while running games.

Additionally I bought this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211551 and installed win7 yesterday my WEI is 7.5 now (CPU is the limiting factor) and I have noticed major gains in almost everything I do. I may still buy more memory though b/c as others have said it's cheap.

Thanks for the input guys I feel so out of date with this stuff b/c I just don't stay on top of it anymore. Out of curiosity what would I need to run things at full settings?

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Nurta <Shark Baby>
Mind Trick - Empire