This is a mistake. I bought a 160gb SSD for my first build with the same idea but ended up forking out for a 250gb one about a year afterward. Trust me, the difference is huge and noticeable. Especially for gaming. Maybe go from a 1080-1070, and use the cash there to upgrade the SSD.

As Giller says, DirectX 12 is work getting Win 10 for, especially if you are shelling out for a 1080. The anniversary update just came out, so nothing huge which change for a while, and you'll have time to get used to it. There will no doubt be many programs out there that you can use to disable the privacy nightmare it can be, I can't tell you what I use right now as I'm not at my computer, unfortunately.

 

Wait . . . is that literally the 1366 socket 950?

I dumped my i7 940 that I ran OC'd at 3.7 for years (it was a very solid chip) two years ago for a i7-4790k, and was very happy with the improvement. Better thermal monitoring technology (actually, the 9XXs didn't have it), AVX2 instruction set (handles floating point calcs very well, which falls in the multi-media end of computing, among other things), a much faster processor at a much lower TDP, among other things.

Honestly, I was surprised at how much of a difference it made for me. If you just doing straight ahead computer work - word processing and a few games that your intended Graphics card can do the work in, then don't worry about it, but if you're doing anything else, I'd give it some thought.

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There are plenty of webpages that will give you clear, in depth instruction as to what you should turn off and what you should keep on. The only thing I'd suggest, if you do buy Win 10, is to buy the pro version so you can control the upgrades.

 

I'm pretty sure the ability to stop updates is restricted to the enterprise edition. The reason being they want as many people as possible up to date to reduce fragmentation (easier to service if everyone is on the same version) and improve overall security (fewer people get hacked). I think the main consumer feature of the pro edition is bitlocker (hard disk encryption). Unless security is a big deal for you I don't think pro is really worth the money for a gaming rig unless you want to run virtual machines on it as well (hyper-v).

The whole Microsoft spying thing is in my opinion a lot of FUD. I'm not saying they don't snoop on you, but all the other online companies already have more of the same data that Microsoft is collecting anyway. Do you really trust Microsoft any more or less than Google or Facebook with your location, what programs you're running, what websites you're visiting, what you're buying, who your contacts are, what's in your email, your phone number, birthday, social security number, and so forth? All of them have the ability to siphon that data away from you if you use their services or programs and we're all reduced to trusting what they claim they collect and how they claim they use it. If you believe big tech's promises then Microsoft is actually more believable in their data collection promises/policies since their main product is not selling you (it is a minor business for them). They also are more transparent about it and say they give you the option to turn off virtually all of their snooping sans crash reports in their settings. I wish Apple, Facebook, and Google would follow their lead and let you turn off more of their spyware too. If you want to complain about Microsoft it should be that their services are often inferior to the competition and complain when stuff doesn't work. Spying is the least of their evils.

 

Nope.

I have the pro edition. It only updates when I allow it. There might be a six or nine month limit on how long I put it off, iirc, but the key, for me, is not having it update when I'm in the middle of something important.

 

huh you're right... and I'm technically right too . I looked it up, and the setting is not very intuitively placed but you can delay feature updates for 180 days in windows 10 pro but security updates can't be delayed. With the pro edition you will have to eventually install them, with enterprise you can say no. That said who wants to pay for an enterprise license? not me.

 

I disagree with anyone who is talking shit about amd in general. My experience is that you can't tell the difference at all from a users perspective. AMD processors under achieve in performance if you compare it to a high end intel, but if you talk about value, than it gives you the most performance to your buk. It has been said that they generate a lots of hear. Who cares, its a PC! Get a proper cooling and it wont be loud. Don't worry about it heating up your rome tough, we talk about a couple of more watts only.

Also I would consider buying a Dell xps 15! Those little machines have become a power house recent days + they are still portable!

 

I have no idea how you use that much... I've had my 850 pro 128gb for 2 years, I've only installed the essentials on it (Windows+updates, Firefox, benchmarking tools, an internet security program, Steam [only the client, I put my games' library on my HDD] and various drivers) and I'm using less than 40 Gb... Sometimes I'll install one of the few games on it that needs an SSD to make it snappy, and I'll remove it when I'm done playing it.

That entirely depends what games @Invictus is playing, tbh. If he plays RTS games like Total War games, he'll need a good CPU, and clock for clock, the new Skylake chips outperform those old Intels -a lower TDP as well-. But that old i7 is still pretty good for its age... A new i5 could be a future update he's interested in, but right now, I don't think it'll choke on 9 games out of 10.

Stop right there, criminal scum. You can delay updates on Win10 Home if you use a Wifi connection. Just set it to metered, and download your Win updates when you want it.

Invictus uses an Intel i7. Not sure how he'll put an AMD CPU on his motherboard, what with the whole 'different socket' thing.

 

I mainly play RPGs like The Witcher, Skyrim and DAs, and RTS games of the TW series. Regarding other stuff, I only use it to write and see docs and some movies. No movie editing, no CAD or anything similar.

My budget is good, but not that good. I'm going to buy the Samsung EVO 250GB and a new PSU, the Corsair CX750M 750W and obviously the new Nvidia 1080. Any more additions are for later on the year, maybe November.

 

Overall faster speed'll always make a difference to some degree, even if it's minute, not to mention the instruction set for the floating point processing, but in general, yeah, that's why I included:

You can . . . but I prefer to run with a hard connection for faster speeds, don't know Invictus's situation though, but if he's building a computer, I'd guess it's a desk top and very possibly, wired. On top of that, there's a few potential drawbacks to using the metered setting. None of them seem significant, but still worth giving a little thought to.

Not to mention, it's an AMD. Who'd want one of those?

 

No. Don't do this. A consumer PC that's not running SLI/Crossfire does not need more than a 500W PSU. So unless you plan to put another GPU in your system in the near future, go with a 500W PSU. Some recommendations would be the Cooler Master G550M, be quiet! Straight Power 10 500W, Superflower Leadex Gold 550W, Silverstone Strider Platinum 550W, EVGA G2 550W or the Corsair RM550X. The CX-series isn't really recommended, due to lower quality parts.

And yeah, the CPU shouldn't really be a problem for now, especially if you're able to overclock it. Though some games do profit from a higher single-core performance, like Arma 3 for example, you can always upgrade the CPU later.

 

Honestly, it's because I'm lazy and don't want to have to keep uninstalling stuff from my SSD when I'm done with it. I keep all my games on my SSD, because of those sweet sweet loading times.

I guess 250gb should be sufficient, but if/when I build a new PC I'll most likely go for a 500gb SSD. They should be cheaper by then. I keep all my long term storage on a 3tb HDD, but I rarely need to use it. I have a green drive from WD and the spin up time makes it a pain to use with regularity.

 

After a quick search almost of these are more expensive than the CX750M, so I have to ask. What are the downsides to a higher wattage than the necessary?

Also, the low quality parts really worry me, since I live in a city where energy shortages are common, thanks to electrical problems. Lightnings, explosion of transformers...

 

Always buy blue or black if you're buying WD drives.

Higher wattage than necessary only means slightly lower efficiency on good PSUs, it won't burn your house down or anything.
PSUs with low quality parts though... Well, they'll shorten the lifespan of your components. You might get random BSODs as well. Meh, you probably shouldn't pinch pennies on the PSU, it's a vital part of your computer.

If you have trouble with power shortages, buy a quality power strip. My Belkin came with a 25,000 USD warranty, ergo, if my PC is damaged while connected to my surge protector they'll pay the bill for it.

 

Greens are ok as a "data grave" for things you don't need often. But yeah, I'd go with a blue for things like games and stuff that are accessed regularly.

Yeah, though especially on single-rail PSUs like the CX750M it also means that the protections (OCP, UVP etc.) will activate later than on a lower wattage PSU. Personally, I'd buy a PSU with a multi-rail design and fitting wattage.

This. The PSU is actually THE most important part in a computer - it powers the rest of the components, and if you have a bad one it could take all the other hardware with it when it dies. Never be greedy when buying a PSU, especially not if you plan to get a $650-700 GPU. This is actually something many people get wrong when building a PC.

Another alternative would be a UPS, although maybe somewhat overkill.

 

Not true.


According to this handy little calculator, he's going to need a 600w PSU, which makes sense. I think you may have forgot he's running a generation 1 I7, which eats up more power, especially if he's running it hard using the full 130W.

Of course, this one puts him at a 500w PSU as you said, but that's literally 23 W over the recommended settings. I always like to have a cushion of at least 50-100 watts in case I want to upgrade or add parts in the future.

So, personally, I'd go ahead and settle around the 600w range. Which, interestingly enough, the second calculature says I should have for my system (and no, I'm not running SLI either).

 

Those calculators, while somewhat useful sometimes, are not that accurate. I just looked at an old test of the GTX 570. The test system for that had an i7 965 Extreme Edition (that was overclocked to 3.87GHz), so a CPU that eats more power than the 950, and the whole system with a 570 was pulling 387W under load. Hell, even with a GTX 480, a card that was famous for its high power consumption, the system only pulled 448W. And that's why you look at tests and not those calculators.

So, I stand by 500W being more than enough - which would hold especially true if he does change his CPU later. Tests with a 1080 and an i7 6700K overclocked to 4.5GHz have the system only pulling 285W under load. Oh and one last thing: TDP ≠ power consumption.

 

No, it's not (tdp) but comparing two chips will give you a general idea of possibility... which was my point, those first gens loved the electrical socket. As for the rest, I can tell you I've had 850 watt PSU not able to run everything, and I wasn't running sli. I was using two cards, but only one needed the extra molex. (Was using the other for multiscreen back when you could only drive two screens off a card.)

With efficiency of parts nowadays, maybe your right, but for the extra few bucks, I still think it's worth having the headroom.

 

Sounds like you had one of those cheap ones then. Brands like LC-Power, and some others, still sell 600-1000W PSUs that can't even deliver half of the wattage they're advertised with. PSUs from good brands, on the other hand, can actually often deliver more wattage than advertised.

Sure, you could go for the 50W more that a 600W PSU would give above the 550W models I mentioned above, but having a headroom? I don't think that's really necessary anymore nowadays, since new parts are now all about lower power consumption (Intel even put that as their focus above better performance). So, chances are that future components will use even less power than current ones, which makes having a headroom rather pointless.

 

Actually, it was a Corsair.

As to headroom, I get what you're saying, but for the little bit of extra money, it makes sense to me.