Some questions that might impact build.

I just had a few questions I thought I would also ask about. If I am wrong about something please let me know because I am not very technical.

I hear and read some articles about the dual-gpu boards coming from Nvidia and Amd/Ati and was wondering if I ever wanted to upgrade to those boards when they come out, would my 750W PSU be able to handle it? I am not looking to get into SLI anytime soon and I think SLI might require a higher PSU such as a 1000W and I am just wondering if those upcoming video cards would require the same.

My second question is regarding Solid State Drives. I know people who use them and have read many articles about them. A few people whom I personally know have had issues with them that are consistent with what is written about online. Mainly about drives slowing down or going dead. My concern is how easy are they to maintain? What I mean is I hear about drive cleaning, some recommend maintaining 20% or more free space, TRIM, limit file movement/deletion on the drive to slow degradation and having to shut down page file. I know about the huge performance boost of an SSD but just would like your guys' take on whether it is a worthwhile option for someone who likes to install and delete games or programs every few weeks. Would having an SSD as a secondary drive show improvement to gaming or does it have to be the OS drive? I think my overall mindset right now is concerns over reliability.

Finally, is there a worthwhile benefit to Windows 7 Professional over Windows 7 Home Premium? I see some of the options such as XP Mode and think they might come in useful but I am not completely sure.

Thanks for any help

Hi DST4ME,

Thank you for the response :)

Yes, I was referring to the ati 6990 and the GTX 590 from Nvidia. Any idea whether one of those cards require a 1000W power supply? Just one of them.

Hmm I understand the performance aspects of an SSD, but do you have to clean the drive often or is it as you stated that Windows 7 will do everything in the background and you dont have to do anything to maintain the drive. I dont mind pricing, just reliability. Because if write speeds slow down to the point of being slower than HDDs as some say it can happen, or if I have to always be cautious about the free drive space left and reducing the amount of writing to the drive so it degrades slower...it seems like it may become quite a hassle. I am not lazy but just having to remember everything on a day to day basis along with other things going on in my life is weighing down on it. Also, Windows has updates quite often along with browser updates and things like malware detection software updates, doesnt that constantly write to the SSD if you are using the SSD as the main drive? Even with current SSD technology that assures even wear on each cell in the SSD, the fact that it wears down in such a way still doesnt sound very reassuring. I typically like to install and delete things on a regular basis on the main drive so im wondering under my use, how many years can I expect for the life of one SSD, will it perform just about as well as it did when it was brand new say 5-10 years from time of purchase and will there be any dead cells that reduce drive space. By perform I mean read and write speeds. I am asking so many questions about SSDs because aside from the general maintenance of the drives, I have a friend who had his SSD essentially die on him, where the drive cannot be written to anymore nor altered in any way (the drive was far from full capacity) but the drive can still be read from. The other incident is with a co-worker who just had the entire drive die where he couldnt boot and he reverted back to an HDD, he installed the SSD on another computer and it was the SSD (he only had it for three weeks). I then read a lot about similar issues online from other people.

For usual use of ssd like mine and yours the wear and tear is ok, win7 does everything in the background, I'm sure before you notice any performance loss from your ssd, you have already gotten a new one (3 to 5 years) that does much better then today's drives, if you want the performance of ssds, thats the onlyh way to have it, I have my main os on a ssd and do lot of installing and deleting of apps and files and etc. Intel drives come with a 3 year warranty anyways, so you know you are good for 3 years at least, these are new drives so till we have all used them for 5 years I can't really say how the performance is gonna be, theoretically it should be better then a hdd after 5 year of medium use.

As for reading issues about drives dying, it can happen to any drive, I have had HDDs go out on me left and right, also as I said before its important to remember that not all ssds are the same, I'm talking about intel gen 2 and intel gen 3 here, even if it dies, you have the DS warranty and the Intel warranty.

You can always format the ssd after a few year, and get performance back, if I'm not mistaken.

Edited by DST4ME - 26 Dec 2010 at 6:48pm

Does having a bigger sized SSD usually mean faster speed? Once you install an SSD as your main OS drive, what are the steps to maintaining it regularly? Steps that you guys personally take. Do you guys disable page file on the SSD? How much free space must be maintained? Looking for details because I am about to bite the bullet and get an SSD in build.

Anyone have an idea what power supply can run a single 6990 or GTX 590/595? Wondering if a 750W is enough for a single card.

Hi again DST4ME,

Thanks again for your response,

I am just keeping the option open for future video cards. I am wondering whether a 1000w PSU would be enough for one of those cards if I do choose to get one.

I am pretty noob so please bear with me. I am also a single video card solution type of person. Um, another question would be what motherboard to pick between the Evga SLI 3 and the Asus Sabertooth... I know the Evga has only one PCIe x16 slot so how important would that be if I ever wanted to SLI current generation cards or use a next generation card. Since the 6990 and 590/595 are internal cf/sli like you said DST4ME, do you think they will use two PCIe slots per card and do they both have to be x16?

Do you know the specs on a generation 3 SSD and any estimated costs?

Thanks for all the help

Intel G3 specs.

Write speeds are up, small file speeds are up some, but otherwise are not too much different from G2 speeds. The biggest differences is that their write endurance will be much greater (better NAND, more spare area) and their prices are slated to be introduced at $1/GB, around half that of current SSD prices.

Intel SSDs are more about reliability, steady state performance, and price, not bleeding edge speeds.

Originally posted by DST4ME AT 4k tho they are still the fastest if I'm not mistaken.

The Crucial RealSSD C300 currently does a little better than the G2s at 4k speeds. We'll have to see how the G3s compare when they come out.

I'd still take G2 or G3s over a C300 any day though.

It's currently the only one that will manage over SATA 3Gbps speeds so far, though that's largely pointless until Intel's 6Gbps ports come out. It's had a whooole lot of nasty firmware issues in the past, but it's looking a lot more solid these days, and prices have dropped substantially, they used to go for a high premium.

I'd take one over a SandForce SSD, but I'd still take an Intel over all others. Like I said before, Intel might not do extreme bleeding edge speeds, but they do reliability, steady state performance, small file random performance, and price. Other SSDs? Not so much.

Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.