Please recommend a desktop system for me, a programmer, for < $1k
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From: geoff on 12 Aug 2010 05:14 It seems to me, the real issue with SSDs is TRIM support. Some handle it entirely in the drive, others don't. --g
From: DevilsPGD on 12 Aug 2010 13:45 In message <d506b0ce-40fa-412e-a4ae-39f94ad5a915(a)v8g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> RayLopez99 <raylopez88(a)gmail.com> was claimed to have wrote: >After reviewing these links, I've concluded that for me, SSDs at the >present is not worth the price: SSD drives are about 3x faster than >traditional hard drives in real-world tests, but given the price >difference and capacity limits it's not worth it for me for now. I'll >stick to traditional HDs for this new machine. The biggest difference between SSDs and traditional drives isn't the raw throughput, but the latency. Unless you're reading or writing more than a few dozen MB at once, latency is almost always more important than raw throughput. I came very close to making the same decision you did, but one of the SSDs on my shortlist happened to go on sale so I gambled and grabbed one, and at this point I don't think you could pay me to go back.
From: Loren Pechtel on 12 Aug 2010 23:52 On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:09:38 -0700 (PDT), RayLopez99 <raylopez88(a)gmail.com> wrote: >On Aug 12, 1:52�am, Paul <nos...(a)needed.com> wrote: > >> >> SSD drives still don't reduce execution times to zero, so prepare >> to be underwhelmed. Depending on how many header files you have >> or the like though, you might end up pleasantly surprised. >> >> And you really should be reading your own reviews. Compare them >> carefully, as this is "early adopter" technology still. You >> should not buy these devices "blindly", like you would with >> an ordinary hard drive. >> >> http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/corsair-ssd-roundup_... >> >> http://www.anandtech.com/show/3661/understanding-sandforces-sf1200-sf... >> >> http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899/1 >> >> � � Paul > >Excellent links, thanks Paul. > >After reviewing these links, I've concluded that for me, SSDs at the >present is not worth the price: SSD drives are about 3x faster than >traditional hard drives in real-world tests, but given the price >difference and capacity limits it's not worth it for me for now. I'll >stick to traditional HDs for this new machine. I would go for enough memory to cache the stuff you are working with before I worried about SSDs.
From: RayLopez99 on 13 Aug 2010 05:11 On Aug 13, 6:52 am, Loren Pechtel <lorenpech...(a)hotmail.invalid.com> wrote: > On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:09:38 -0700 (PDT), RayLopez99 > > > >After reviewing these links, I've concluded that for me, SSDs at the > >present is not worth the price: SSD drives are about 3x faster than > >traditional hard drives in real-world tests, but given the price > >difference and capacity limits it's not worth it for me for now. I'll > >stick to traditional HDs for this new machine. > > I would go for enough memory to cache the stuff you are working with > before I worried about SSDs. Excellent advice. Since nearly all programs I know of work from RAM only, and not the hard drive (though in theory of course the OS itself can use the hard drive instead of or in lieu of RAM, though in practice the system bogs down so much that effectively the computer often seems to hang, or does in fact hang, or so it seems to me), increasing the RAM is the practical solution, as you suggest. But faster uploads of programs in secondary memory into RAM (the latency issue) is of course solved by using SSD drives. Even on my faster Core 2 machine with traditional Sata HDs it takes 20 seconds (or so) to fully load Visual Studio, which is annoying. Not to mention the slow bootup times, often 5 to 10 minutes (I never hang around to time it, but go make coffee). RL
From: RayLopez99 on 13 Aug 2010 05:21 On Aug 11, 1:57 pm, RayLopez99 <raylope...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Also where to buy: Dell, HP? I live overseas in Athens, Greece but > will get my friends to mail me a system that can ship to the USA. > > RL I decided to go buy the lowest end Dell Precision T1500 ($600) workstation. I would have comparison shopped elsewhere, but my ADSL internet connection is so slow here it's not worth the hassle! Dell thanks Greece's bureaucratic national telecom carrier, OTE. One factor that persuaded me was the snippet below, from I think AnandTech, from a seemingly knowledgeable user. The low end Dell uses Intel's Core 2 i3 chips, released in January of this year, and they are roughly all the same as a Core 2 Quad and other modern 2009 - 2010 chips. Since Intel chips seem to be 'compressing' in relative performance, I think, like racehorses, you pay a huge premium for 10-30% more speed. I will settle for slightly less speed given my budget. RL * snippet: "I've been building systems since the late 90's, mostly for others, and I'm always the last to get a decent system so I decided it was about time for me. I'm running an e6600 on a 3 yr old Intel board w/ 2g of DDR2 RAM and was wondering about the differences between C 2 quad, i3-540, i5-750 or i7-820 [I.E--ABOUT SAME IN PERFORMANCE/PRICE]. I priced out 3 different setups with Gigabyte boards (EP45, H57 & P55 - USB3 ver.) combined with Q8400/9300/9400 on EP45, i3-540,i5-750 and i7-820 on the H57 & P55 and 4 Gb DDR3 RAM (Crucial, Geil, Kingston)so , basically, I had 9 combinations. Excluding the i7, the price range for these builds was about $429 - $487, and I could probably do better if I tried but I was amazed that they were that close (the i7 adds another $100 but not that much improvement in performance that I can see). Looking at your charts, I think I can justify going with the i5-750. I have a decent video card for the occassional gaming that works pretty good for me now (I'll apply the $100 from above to a better card later) but I do a lot of spreadsheets and some photoshop and autocad so I think I'll see a better improvement there. Thanks again for all your articles. Very well written, understandable and thorough."
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