re: can you tell me if this desktop is decent

ok im sorry, getting confused.

so you're saying disregard whether its dedicated or shared or integrated?

I really like the dell you suggested. im hoping it will be fast enough for him

thanks man, appreciate the help

two dumb questions

1. what are the advantages of doing the SSD?

2. how long would It take?

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why are you all suggesting so powerful of a computer for what his dad is going to use the computer for??

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Congrats on not reading the first few statements of the thread

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1. what are the advantages of doing the SSD?

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The entire operating system will be several times more responsive. It will boot faster. Shut down faster. Install programs faster, open programs faster, etc. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, SSDs are much much more resistant to OS "slow-down" that occurs on standard hard drives when you accumulate clutter in the form of startup programs, services, and add-ons that add to the bulk of files that need to be loaded at boot. SSDs never need to be defragged.

As far as why it's faster, let's start with how a hard drive performs. Most PCs will have a traditional hard drive, which uses small magnetic platters that spin at rates up to 15,000 revolutions per minute (rpm).



A traditional desktop hard drive will have 7200-rpm platters. Other than how fast the platters spin, the performance of a hard drive depends on a few things:

Platter Density – The amount of storage space available on a single platter. Hard drives can have several platters stacked on top of each other as a means of cramming as much capacity into one unit as possible. Higher density platters (i.e., higher storage capacity) allow more data to be read per revolution.

Cache – The hard drive moves data from its platters to its cache, which is a specific amount of DRAM storage capacity. Your PC can access the cache much faster than the actual platters, so higher cache means more data available for faster access at any given time. Mainstream performance desktop hard drives today have 32 or 64MB of cache, depending on capacity.

Drive Heads – The faster the drive heads can move into position over a given point on the platter, the faster it can access data.


Here's a look at the inside of a standard 2.5" SSD:



SSDs have no moving parts (no platters, or drive heads), no noise, less power—but most importantly, SSDs are several times faster than HDDs. At everything. They have no read/write heads and don't have to seek data blocks on a moving platter, so access latency is essentially non-existent. If your operating system needs to access data on an SSD, it does not have to wait for the data to be found. The data is always there and waiting for your OS. Sequential read/write speeds are also several times faster, but much of the everyday noticeable speed increase comes from its random read/write performance with small file blocks and ability to support a queue depth. In other words, there can be dozens of read/write requests pending at any given time, so hosts can submit requests simultaneously, which the SSD can execute with very low latency, improving random read/write speeds dramatically. Individual hard drives don’t have this capability.

In my current PC, I have a Samsung 840 EVO SSD and two 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drives. I ran a performance benchmark test on all three drives using a program called CrystalDiskMark. This tests how quickly a drive can read and write a specific amount of data in different scenarios. In this test, I choose 1000MB (nearly 1GB).

In the images below, you’ll see several rows of numbers showing read and write speeds for Seq, 512K, 4K, and 4K QD32. Without getting too detailed, sequential (Seq) speeds indicate how fast a drive is able to read or write in the same location (i.e. transferring/copying large files). The other numbers show the read and write speed of the drive when it accesses 1000MB of data in smaller blocks in random locations (for example, the 4K test means the drive had to read and write 1000MB in random 4-Kilobyte blocks).

As a general rule, benchmarks should not be trusted as indicators of real-world performance. However, in this case, you can see the obvious differences across several different tests.

This is my oldest Caviar black, which had been running for 2.5 years at the time of this test and was 65% full. The test shows that it’s beginning to degrade in performance.


My second Caviar Black was just over a year old, with a bit more free space (hard drives perform better the emptier they are)


Finally, here’s the result with my Samsung 840 EVO


The differences in results are huge, especially in the random read/write tests. A hard drive’s random read/write speed is severely crippled by its access time. The hard drive’s read/write heads must seek every individual block of data. In a test like this, smaller blocks mean more seeks, and because these seeks involve mechanical performance, it takes more time. This is also one of the more important areas of performance that affects booting and program launches.

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2. how long would It take?

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I don't know how long it would take you. For me, roughly 5 min to install the SSD, then however long it takes the migration program to get the Windows image to the SSD (if it's a fresh install with no new programs, maybe 30 minutes to an hour or less for the files to transfer, maybe even quicker). Then a minute to reboot and select the SSD as the boot device. A few minutes to install "Start is Back" or Windows Classic Shell to make it more like Win 7. Another 10 minutes to wipe and reformat the HDD, create library folders and redirect libraries to the HDD. I can write pretty clear instructions for doing so, and it might even come in handy for others interested in doing the same thing.

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i'm running 2 of them as HTPCS,

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You linked to Dells here as your two HTPC

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the only reason for an i7 is if you are a gamer or do video/photo editing.

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Not even for gaming, because most games are near-fully GPU-intensive, and the ones that rely on CPU a little more are generally single-threaded, so hyper-threading doesn't matter, and the smattering of multi-threaded games entering the market mostly don't use more than 4 threads. But I digress.

You need to read the whole thread so you quit embarrassing yourself. Literally one of the 8 PCs I linked had an i7, presented as a demonstration of there being better configurations for the same price as his originally linked Lenovo. The rest had an i5 or worse. I already explained that the CPU matters less than he might think. I went over this with him in previous threads as well. But I wouldn't expect you to have read those. I do, however, expect you to read my posts thoroughly in this thread, or stop typing.

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you sound like a cars salesman always trying to give people stuff they don't need.

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And you sound like you need to go back and fricking read. Just, read. Seriously.

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i give you credit for telling him the GT card is overkill

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I don't need credit from you. I am smarter than you.

i give up. guess i'm not an internet bad arse like you. i just like helping people save a little money if possible. i was posting that as a reference for being thrifty, and i also asked why recommend him something so powerful. instead of answering you attack me. before you attack me for not being smart, i have been building and following pc tech since the early 90's. I do know a bit about them.

and i admit i made a mistake w/ my pc's. i have a dell and a hp, but they are pretty much equivalent in specs and do everything i need them do for internet video and watching mpeg2 and mpeg4 live tv. i added an external storage for storing shows. also added cheap vid cards for HDMI out.

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guess i'm not an internet bad arse like you

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:youneedabetterpc:

i am amazed at the dumassery that comes from this board.

for all who may read this, learn one thing and learn it good:
when it comes to computer hardware, ilike = motherfricking yoda. got it? good.

time to move on