Building a gaming PC

[GuyNwah]

The main reason for partitioning is to have filesystems with different characteristics. For example, defragmenters will let you choose different schedules for partitions, so you can defragment the Windows system partition (which Windows scribbles all over continually) more often than a partition that holds only installed applications and large downloads.

If you dual boot with Linux, Linux is traditionally set up with multiple partitions, and partitioning is more useful. In this case, it's also handy to have a secondary NTFS partition that both Windows and Linux can write to; this avoids potentially troublesome configurations like mounting your Windows system partition read-write from Linux.

 

[Sana_mia]

The reasons I use partitions and will probably never stop:

1 As guy says de-fragmenting. smaller windows partitions instead of huge hard-drves
2 Nuking and re-installing is so much faster when the windows partition is <100GB and holds no data. A backup from my C: drive takes 4 minutes (copy appdata), formating and re-installing less than an hour. Where if someone with a 2TB windows partition needs to re-install...It takes hours to back-up that data. and you need an extra hard-drive to do it.
3. I'm too lazy to keep folders structured, easier to just drop everything on E: or F: Instead of painstakingly moving through the folders in windows.

However partitions are becoming obsolete in light of dual SSD systems. My old 120GB SSD's for example will be replaced soon with >240GB for games. Might as well use the 120GB SSD as the windows hard-drive.

 

[Kassandrian]

Ok Boys and girls...

I have quite lost tough with the current and to come generations of GPU's etc (mainly due to work, studies and me travelling quite a bit recently).
Only thing I know is, I'll likely have to really upgrade my GPU to be able to really play TW3 decently...
specs so far:

RAM: 16Gig (was also used as our/my studio/music PC for mixing)
Processor: I5 3450 (not overclocked YET)
Currently no SSD (debating on that) and some 2*500Gig HDD
Radeon HD 6800 (Gaming wasn't the core of the construct for quite some time)
Mainboard is an Asrock Z77 Pro4
Power supply is a Be quet 450W (Straight Power E9)


So, the question would be:
With the pseudonew Radeon and the pseudonew NVidia gen coming out around the release of the game, what type of Upgrade should I go for?
I feel that Radeon is getting left behind a lot, partially due to NVidias more aggressive strategy but also partially because they just have not been able to pull the tides recently - so I'd tend towards an NVidia card.
That combined with an "System plus X" SSD (So, the Windows partition plus the 5-6 currently most used programs), this should get me going again - what size of an SSD does make sense?


Hope U can help me

Cheers

 

[Sana_mia]

If you want to do windows + games go at least for 240GB.

Witcher 3 says requirements 40GB hard-drive, add in windows and a 120GB SSD is almost full.

 

[sidspyker]

I would say an SSD less than 256 is just not worth it, quite a few sacrifices have to be made to cut it down to that. Sequential write speed gets cut to ~160-170MB/s in a few 128G drives for example, that's not very far from HDD. Meanwhile a 256G drive usually does between 300-500MB/s. In the end it depends on your workload I guess.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Agree. These days partitioning is only useful if you want to dual boot different operating systems (I maintain XP partition for compatibility with older games, for example).

Partitions are useful if you want to use different filesystems.

 

[GuyNwah]

Partitions are useful if you want to use different filesystems.

In the Windows world, there is only NTFS. Variations of FAT have some specialized uses, but not enough to be screwing around with making partitions for them. And your ability to do anything useful with a second partition like put your account on it is limited by application-breaking bugs.

Mac OS X has features like case-sensitive vs. case-insensitive that you may want different partitions for. And Linux has a number of reasons for having distinct filesystems. But WIndows? Nah, Windows has NTFS and not much reason for anything else.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

On Windows yes, many filesystems are usually not an option (or not a good one). MS didn't support many filesystems as a way to hinder interoperability. In reverse, OS X also doesn't have proper (rw) NTFS support out of the box, and enabling it there is kind of quirky.

On Linux however you can use a whole range, from BTRFS to ZFS even. But if someone makes a home fileserver (for backups and etc.) they don't need to use Windows there (and I'd say shouldn't use), even if their primary computer has Windows. So in such cases different filesysems like ZFS can be very useful.

 

[sidspyker]

I have 1 partition using ReFS and the rest NTFS... does that make me a filesystem hipster?

 

[GuyNwah]

Well, it does put you out on the bleeding edge. I don't trust unbreakable filesystems any more than I trust unsinkable ships and uncrashable airplanes.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

@sidspyker, did you ever try that thing in Flotsam?

 

[sidspyker]

Not yet, I don't have a Flotsam save nor an SSD to err 'counter test' at present.

 

[Manpants]

So my new rig arrived today.i5 4460,gigabyte g1 gaming 970,8gb ram etc(standard pretty much).I ran Unigine benchmark and got surprisingly low score of 583 on extreme hd.Any idea what might be causing that result?http://postimg.org/image/5m70v0luf/. Here is the actual result.

 

[dragonbird]

Any idea what might be causing that result? file:///E:/Unigine_Valley_Benchmark_1.0_20150408_0556.html is the actual screenshot of the result

I think you need to re-do that image upload...

 

[Manpants]

Link should be working as intended now sorry about that.

---------- Updated at 06:32 AM ----------

Alright i figured out what the issue was.Apparently in my tired zombie state i forgot to restart the pc after updating the drivers which in turn caused my problem.U can delete my posts as they serve no purpose anymore

 

[CostinRaz]

So I was at the mall recently while browsing the electronics store I saw The Witcher 3 sword of destiny being played on three TVs, one thing that stuck with me was the image clarity and sharpness. It's something that's bugged me for a while with regards to TVs vs Monitors.

I wonder is there a gaming monitor out there able to reproduce that kind of quality? What exactly should I look for?

 

[Mow2345]

Hi there. After hearing your advice on the pc requirements thread I've decided not to buy a gaming laptop and instead build a mini ITX gaming laptop. Iam starting to figure it out but I still need some help ( please ) with the CPU and the motherboard. What's the difference between Intel Core i5 4690 and 4690K? Which one would you recommend? What motherboard would you get with it ? Thank you for your help

 

[eskiMoe]

So I was at the mall recently while browsing the electronics store I saw The Witcher 3 sword of destiny being played on three TVs, one thing that stuck with me was the image clarity and sharpness. It's something that's bugged me for a while with regards to TVs vs Monitors.

You've probably only used TN panel monitors.
Watch this:

I wonder is there a gaming monitor out there able to reproduce that kind of quality? What exactly should I look for?

 

[GuyNwah]

Hi there. After hearing your advice on the pc requirements thread I've decided not to buy a gaming laptop and instead build a mini ITX gaming laptop. Iam starting to figure it out but I still need some help ( please ) with the CPU and the motherboard. What's the difference between Intel Core i5 4690 and 4690K? Which one would you recommend? What motherboard would you get with it ? Thank you for your help

"K" is unlocked multiplier. These are for overclocking. You won't be overclocking in a mini-ITX or micro-ATX setup.

I dislike mini-ITX. It is more expensive and has less selection of components and less capacity than micro-ATX. Mini-ITX cases capable of handling a large graphics card are large and expensive, larger than micro-ATX cases.

To keep cost down, get a Core i5 4690, with an H97-based motherboard that has the features you want, for example better than standard audio, and Intel (not Realtek, Qualcomm, or Atheros) network interface.

Mini-ITX: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI, ASUS H97I Plus
Micro-ATX: ASRock H97M Pro 4, ASUS H97M Plus

 

[Mow2345]

That's exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for so thank you a lot @GuyNwah
Like I said Iam new at this so I will listen to you carefully. I went with a mini itx because I will move it a lot, but if you say that micro atx is not that much bigger that mini itx and cheaper then I will take a look at it and compare. I was wondering if H97 was enough for my setup considering that a lot of people are saying the nvidia 970 is better with a Z97. But you cleared it again. No overclocking with mini itx or micro atx ( I didn't know that ) so H97 it is. I will not hesitate to ask you again if Iam hesitant about a component. In conclusion : THANK YOU !

Edit :
With the H97, will I have to replace the motherboard when I will upgrade my graphic card in a few years ? Sorry if this is a silly question.
Do you know if with the ASUS H97I Plus and ASUS H97 Plus I can connect to internet wireless? Couldn't find informations about it. Thanks.