Originally posted by omegaman7:

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A review on newegg says it had the latest firmware. Not sure how they figured that out. Perhaps during boot, the firmware is listed. No software has yielded it for me yet.

The drive has dropped $50USD since I bought it :( Ah well. Perhaps my purchase influenced them :)

Perhaps some windows tweaks are in order ;)

Speedfan reports 1.4 FW. (apparently 1.5 exists). Never updated a HDD before. I see no reason to do it at this time.

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Regarding LCD touch panel.
The Ebayer responded, and said that it lays over the old LCD, giving the touch function. So one COULD lay it on their desk, and simply guess what they're touching. He didn't speak very good english, but that's what I got from it :) 80USD is too much at this point, for updating an old 15" dell monitor. If I want to play Bejeweled better, I'll have to get an ipad! :(

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Originally posted by omegaman7:

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I disabled Paging for the SSD, and indexing. Thanks for the tips. I'm pretty sure I've heard those before, in my research ;)

In my opinion, the drives should not be sold, if the firmware they're sold with can't hack it ;) If there's a critical update, I'll strongly consider it. But since the process will erase my drive, you can understand why I'm reluctant ;)

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Originally posted by Deadrum33:

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OM7---Agreed you should clone your partition and update firmware.

Everyone else---After piecing machines together from last generation parts, a friend wants to build a new machine with current hardware.

Whats a good CPU+mobo combo these days? A quick look at things and it seems like budget is i7 2600Sandy or 3770Ivy territory.

Any downfalls to the CPU's i just listed? Are there AMD alternatives that are equally powerful? I haven't checked a lot of benchmarks recently, so I'm not sure what a strong build for the right price would be.

Thanks for the help in advance.

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Originally posted by Blazorthon:

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Originally posted by Deadrum33:

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OM7---Agreed you should clone your partition and update firmware.

Everyone else---After piecing machines together from last generation parts, a friend wants to build a new machine with current hardware.

Whats a good CPU+mobo combo these days? A quick look at things and it seems like budget is i7 2600Sandy or 3770Ivy territory.

Any downfalls to the CPU's i just listed? Are there AMD alternatives that are equally powerful? I haven't checked a lot of benchmarks recently, so I'm not sure what a strong build for the right price would be.

Thanks for the help in advance.

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Like sammoris said, the i7s are generally faster than AMD's best CPUs and don't compare except in a few situations or under special and fairly impractical circumstances. AMD can fight with the i3s and even the i5s, but the i7s are a little different. Depending on the situation, AMD's CPUs can be able to come close or even pass through overclocking, but the K editions of the i7s and i5s are still untouchable (AMD's upcoming Vishera might be able to change that, but it will likely be too little- too late for this, granted it's not a highly important goal anyway) because they can simply be pushed farther in performance without using too much power and generating too much heat.

If you were truly dedicated, then you could make do with an AMD CPU for almost all situations without really sacrificing performance compared to the non K edition i7s... However, it would be impractical. What you could do is disable one core per module and give it a high overclock to almost 5GHz or thereabouts. This is not unreasonable and it would be able to fight with the non K edition i7s even if they were overclocked through their BLCK and manipulation of the Turbo settings.

However, it would only work for single through quad threaded performance because it would essentially be a quad core CPU using four modules instead of two like the far inferior FX-4100 and FX-4170. For highly threaded performance, you would leave it untouched except for a little overclocking. Depending on the application, you could switch between these two profiles and have the proper performance. There are two downsides to this, one of which is the main cause of this being impractical.

You'd need to keep switching profiles depending on the application. The second downside is that you'd have higher power consumption in both profiles, granted the high difference in cost between the FX-8120 that you'd do this with and even the cheapest LGA 1155 i7 is probably high enough to negate the cost of the higher power consumption until four to six years after purchase. The problem here is that if you're this dedicated, then you'd be more likely to just pay for a K edition i7 and have better performance than the less practical AMD setup.

I like AMD more than Intel, but I don't think that it's worth the impracticality. I'd say go ahead with an i7. However, if this machine is just a gaming machine, then my answer would be totally different. i7s are no better than i5s for gaming performance and AMD can be practical there except in the most highest end gaming computers. Except in the more extreme gaming computers such as more than even a single Radeon 7970's GTX 670's worth of graphics performance, AMD or Intel can become more of a personal preference sort of choice and whether or not the computer is supposed to do other things that one company might have an advantage over the other in.

For example, if quick sync is important, then the Intel K edition i5s or i7s are the obvious choice and AMD isn't even practical at all. However, yet again, the AMD setup would take a little more work to get running and the process of getting it running with proper performance is somewhat more complex. If I really wanted a high end gaming computer with an AMD CPU, then I'd be more than willing to do the extra work. I enjoy messing around with settings and such. However, it can be difficult to recommend such to other people. Once again, using an i5 might be the better choice simply because it's a little easier and there's still the occasional incompatibility with Steam that would make me shy away from recommending FX to any of the many Steam users.

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Originally posted by Blazorthon:

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Originally posted by Deadrum33:

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OM7---Agreed you should clone your partition and update firmware.

Everyone else---After piecing machines together from last generation parts, a friend wants to build a new machine with current hardware.

Whats a good CPU+mobo combo these days? A quick look at things and it seems like budget is i7 2600Sandy or 3770Ivy territory.

Any downfalls to the CPU's i just listed? Are there AMD alternatives that are equally powerful? I haven't checked a lot of benchmarks recently, so I'm not sure what a strong build for the right price would be.

Thanks for the help in advance.

---

Like sammoris said, the i7s are generally faster than AMD's best CPUs and don't compare except in a few situations or under special and fairly impractical circumstances. AMD can fight with the i3s and even the i5s, but the i7s are a little different. Depending on the situation, AMD's CPUs can be able to come close or even pass through overclocking, but the K editions of the i7s and i5s are still untouchable (AMD's upcoming Vishera might be able to change that, but it will likely be too little- too late for this, granted it's not a highly important goal anyway) because they can simply be pushed farther in performance without using too much power and generating too much heat.

If you were truly dedicated, then you could make do with an AMD CPU for almost all situations without really sacrificing performance compared to the non K edition i7s... However, it would be impractical. What you could do is disable one core per module and give it a high overclock to almost 5GHz or thereabouts. This is not unreasonable and it would be able to fight with the non K edition i7s even if they were overclocked through their BLCK and manipulation of the Turbo settings.

However, it would only work for single through quad threaded performance because it would essentially be a quad core CPU using four modules instead of two like the far inferior FX-4100 and FX-4170. For highly threaded performance, you would leave it untouched except for a little overclocking. Depending on the application, you could switch between these two profiles and have the proper performance. There are two downsides to this, one of which is the main cause of this being impractical.

You'd need to keep switching profiles depending on the application. The second downside is that you'd have higher power consumption in both profiles, granted the high difference in cost between the FX-8120 that you'd do this with and even the cheapest LGA 1155 i7 is probably high enough to negate the cost of the higher power consumption until four to six years after purchase. The problem here is that if you're this dedicated, then you'd be more likely to just pay for a K edition i7 and have better performance than the less practical AMD setup.

I like AMD more than Intel, but I don't think that it's worth the impracticality. I'd say go ahead with an i7. However, if this machine is just a gaming machine, then my answer would be totally different. i7s are no better than i5s for gaming performance and AMD can be practical there except in the most highest end gaming computers. Except in the more extreme gaming computers such as more than even a single Radeon 7970's GTX 670's worth of graphics performance, AMD or Intel can become more of a personal preference sort of choice and whether or not the computer is supposed to do other things that one company might have an advantage over the other in.

For example, if quick sync is important, then the Intel K edition i5s or i7s are the obvious choice and AMD isn't even practical at all. However, yet again, the AMD setup would take a little more work to get running and the process of getting it running with proper performance is somewhat more complex. If I really wanted a high end gaming computer with an AMD CPU, then I'd be more than willing to do the extra work. I enjoy messing around with settings and such. However, it can be difficult to recommend such to other people. Once again, using an i5 might be the better choice simply because it's a little easier and there's still the occasional incompatibility with Steam that would make me shy away from recommending FX to any of the many Steam users.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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I agree with the vast majority of this. However, I don't consider the FX CPUS really up to par for gaming, because the per-thread performance is so low, and that is what matters in games. Very few titles can make use of more than 2 or 3 threads, and there are plenty of games out there that need more processing power than the FX series CPUs can offer within the confines of those two or three threads, hence the qualifier - if it's games, Intel all the way (I perhaps should have said, i5 will be a better buy than i7 for games exclusively, but if there's a mixture of games and encoding/processing then the i7 is the best compromise).

The debate on value of performance per dollar can and has run on for months, but ultimately, even if it's paying double the cost for a CPU that offers nowhere near double the performance, for many the extra cost really isn't a big deal on what is the most important part of a non-games machine for performance - spending that bit extra will be worth it.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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This is not necessarily AMD's fault, but nobody buys the non-K versions of the i5s/i7s because the price is so similar. If you're competing against the major CPUs, you're competing against a K-type. I'm well aware the FX CPUs are far cheaper than the i5/i7s but even with a 20-30% improvement, the FX per-core performance is far behind that of even the first generation i5s, let alone Sandy or Ivy Bridge.
Typically speaking a 3.6Ghz FX-8150 is about even to a 3.4Ghz i7 2600K, which leaves the standard Bulldozer 'core' around 47% of the performance of the i7. Even with the 30% upper threshold of the gains from disabling the second module, you're looking at around 60% of the performance per core per mhz. If you're going to disable one module of the CPU you're likely also to be looking at overclocking given how easy it is on modern CPUs - even entry-level overclockers can get the modern i5/i7s to the 4.4Ghz or so mark. Achieving beyond 4.2Ghz on an FX can be difficult (or at least, difficult below the c.300W TDP limitation of air coolers). That really places them further behind.

If you're on a tight budget or if gaming really isn't much of an issue for you then the plus points of Bulldozer are valid, but if adding 100-200USD to the cost of a complete upgrade/new system is palatable for a considerable gain, or you're a mainstream gamer, the FX series CPUs are just wholly inappropriate.

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Originally posted by Blazorthon:

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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I agree with the vast majority of this. However, I don't consider the FX CPUS really up to par for gaming, because the per-thread performance is so low, and that is what matters in games. Very few titles can make use of more than 2 or 3 threads, and there are plenty of games out there that need more processing power than the FX series CPUs can offer within the confines of those two or three threads, hence the qualifier - if it's games, Intel all the way (I perhaps should have said, i5 will be a better buy than i7 for games exclusively, but if there's a mixture of games and encoding/processing then the i7 is the best compromise).

The debate on value of performance per dollar can and has run on for months, but ultimately, even if it's paying double the cost for a CPU that offers nowhere near double the performance, for many the extra cost really isn't a big deal on what is the most important part of a non-games machine for performance - spending that bit extra will be worth it.

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Disabling one core per module equates to an up to 20%-30% performance per Hz boost to the remaining core in each module due to the module's resources not being shared between two integer cores while decreasing power consumption significantly, meaning more thermal headroom for overclocking. These two factors combine for the six and eight core FX CPUs being very capable gaming processors in the right hands.

They can then compete with the non K edition i5s and i7s in gaming performance even when those Intel CPUs are overclocked through the BLCK and manipulation of Turbo settings for an up to ~25% overclock. They can't fight with the K edition i5s and i7s in gaming performance, but they can compete with the non K editions very well in gaming performance. The quad core FX CPUs are not so good with this because doing it leaves them with only two active cores and that's just not enough without something such as Hyper-Threading, but we all know that AMD doesn't use Hyper-Threading right now and probably won't any time soon, if ever.

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Originally posted by theonejrs:

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For me it's a "No Brainer", I buy an FX-8150 drop it in my socket AM3+ 990XA MB, and smile a whole hell of a lot! Total cost for me? $214.49 delivered, and I can do SLI or Crossfire, if I still want to play some more!

Best Regards,
Russ

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Originally posted by theonejrs:

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Blazorthon,

For me it's a "No Brainer", I buy an FX-8150 drop it in my socket AM3+ 990XA MB, and smile a whole hell of a lot! Total cost for me? $214.49 delivered, and I can do SLI or Crossfire, if I still want to play some more!

Best Regards,
Russ

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Originally posted by Deadrum33:

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Good discussion.

I choose i7 because he wanted "whatever's best" and is like the old saying "jack of all trades, master at none" which means some graphic design, some CAD rendering, some audio/video production/encoding, tester of all Linux versions etc. etc. and so and and so forth.... He's a huge console gamer who makes spare cash hacking XBOX and PS3 but only plays minecraft on PC. he wants the system to be good enough for anything modern as he wants to dig deeper into PC gaming territory.

Once I spec a CPU+mobo, i will probably tell him to save money in the GPU area since most of his usage of this machine will be using 42"HDTV as monitor. Buy a better GPU when you decide to use a monitor better than 1080p. Any faults with this line of thinking?

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Originally posted by Blazorthon:

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Originally posted by theonejrs:

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Blazorthon,

For me it's a "No Brainer", I buy an FX-8150 drop it in my socket AM3+ 990XA MB, and smile a whole hell of a lot! Total cost for me? $214.49 delivered, and I can do SLI or Crossfire, if I still want to play some more!

Best Regards,
Russ

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Problem is that with fairly high end graphics, the 8150 can be a severe bottle-neck for CPU limited games.

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Originally posted by Mr-Movies:

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Nope, I don't think you'll see the difference unless you are a Benchmark boy.

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