Weekend Gaming Hardware Sales: $90 H100i CLC, $205 Board/CPU Combo

GamersNexus: "PAX generally introduces a couple of decent hardware sales from key on-site vendors. This year, Kingston posted a PAX discount code for memory, ASUS has a laptop up with a $50 MIR, and there's an AMD A10-6800K + board combo for $205."

[hollabox]

Good sales but I'm waiting until winter for GPU upgrade, and April next year for my CPU. My I7 970 is still a beast but the platform is getting long in the tooth. I hate using this God awful Marvel Sata 3.0 controller on my Asus Sabertooth TUF motherboard. Takes 42 seconds to boot using Samsung 830 SSD in Windows 7 and about 31 in Windows 8. My GTX 670 is still holding steady for now, can't wait to see what AMD next GPU can do.

[ATi_Elite]

42 seconds to boot?

I had a Western Digital HDD boot Windows 7 in under 30

check your Bios settings, defrag your SSD! something is not right

[Dasteru]

Never defrag an SSD. It doesn't make a difference in performance and will only decrease the SSDs life span.

http://www.dpreview.com/for...

[GameSpawn]

Dastru is correct. In fact, you want to minimize how much you write to SSDs as there lifespan is measured in number of writes to "blocks". This is why OS's enable "TRIM" when SSDs are detected.

When data is written to an SSD an entire "block" must be written/rewritten to regardless of how much data is written to the block. TRIM holds off all write commands until an entire block can be filled so that you minimize rewrites to the same block. This greatly extends the lifespan of the drive by reducing the overall lifetime "writes".

Now down to boot performance...

Boot times have a lot of factors to consider. One major boost to boot time is "Legacy-BIOS" versus "(U)EFI-Bios". If your motherboard and operating system support it (Windows 7 and Windows 8 support UEFI - Windows 7 takes some tricks to setup) UEFI booting can GREATLY increase boot speeds and shorten boot time by passing control to the OS immediately after PrePOST tests complete (essentially bypassing traditional POST tests).

Another thing to consider is how many background processes you have starting when your OS boots. Minimizing what opens when the OS boots helps anywhere from a little to a lot depending on what gets into your startup. I myself minimize background processes only to those that are directly connected to hardware such as the video card or motherboard, if it is optional to run in the background I don't run it at startup.

All of this is a moot point however depending on your SSD of choice and motherboard. All SSDs differ in read and write speeds based off their memory controller chip (the "brain" off the SSD that directs the data where and when to write), but that is not the only potential bottleneck. Your choice of motherboard can create a bottleneck on via the SATA controller and interface. If you are using a SATAII (6Gbps) SSD and SATAII compatible motherboard this should be a non-issue.

http://www.tomshardware.com...

Looking at this chart the Samsung 830 is nothing to scoff at, so my conclusion is the same as hollabox's that the motherboard is the bottleneck.

Personally, I'm using the Crucial M4 (256GB) and the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 and my boot times are about 15 seconds (UEFI support and quick-boot enabled; without UEFI and quick-boot my times were more in the 30-40 second range).

[hollabox]

Cmon man of course all of that is done. The Marvel controller adds to the boot time because it takes awhile to display information. And yes my bios is set to quick boot with splash screen disabled. My MSI motherboard before it failed booted in 26 seconds. I've built 3 AMD systems this year with hybrid SSD/HDs and they all boot in 25 seconds. So I know its my Marvel controller causing the issue. And yes Marvel has been updated and no you don't defrag SSDs, just turn on trim support.

[Bolts]

My three years old i5 2500k CPU is still kicking all kind of ass when paired with a 670 GTX. I can easily play BF 3, Farcry 3 and Rome 2 in 1440p 30 FPS. To think that the consoles can't even match this dated PC until the next 5-10 years is freaking depressing.

Makes me wonder if industry will survive the constant march of progress the tablets are making.

[starchild]

Yeah, my i5 2500k works perfectly in all the games I play. Paired with an HD 7950 I get 60fps at max settings in pretty much every game.

[AiirJordann23]

Specs

Case: thermaltake commander ms-i snow edition

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 650ti GDDR5 2GB

RAM: GB

Processor: Intel Core I5-2500k 3.30 Ghz

Power Supply: Ultra Ls Lifetime Series 600W

OS: Windows 7

My GDDR5 GPU Is Holding Steady takes about 25 seconds to boot

[Rhaigun]

For anyone looking for a capable Steam Box for cheap, the APU motherboard combo is an awesome deal. You can crossfire that APU with the $149 HD 7550 to pull off BioShock Infinite on high settings at 720p.

[The_Truth_24_7]

Save your money for the superior PS4.

[ExCest]

okay boss.

[ATi_Elite]

Yeh and miss out on PC Exclusives like

League of Legends
DotA2
Arma 3
Amnesia A Machine for Pigs
Total War Rome 2
DayZ
Firefall
Black Desert
Guild Wars 2
Darkwood
StarCitizen
Command & Conquer
Company of heroes 2
STALKER Series
Path of Exile
Torchlight 2
Marvel Heroes
Sim City
Survarium
World of Warplanes
Tracmania 2 Valley
Warface
X-Rebirth
etc.

Before you can say "superior PS4" it needs to be able to run BF4 on Ultra, 60fps, at 1440p or 1600p fist.

Remember a PC was used to Demo BF4 and several other PS4 games at E3/Gamescon NOT the other way around!

http://n4g.com/news/1338847...

[The_Truth_24_7]

All pieces of shit.
Love getting you pc fangirls pissed with facts.

[Rhaigun]

That's not facts. Just your opinion. Torchlight was one of the best selling XBLA games. Torchlight 2 is even better. That is fact.

[RedDevils]

look like I won't be missing much then :p

[Dasteru]

@The_Truth_24_7:

Pissed? na, on the contrary, I actually find you to be quite amusing. The sheer stupidity of someone to honestly believe their own opinion to be "Fact"

Someone pass the popcorn.