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Upgrade advice
Hello dear mmorpg.com-ers 
I have a set up I'm currently quite happy with (thanks to Quizzical, obviously) but am about to choose a birthday present soon and am trying to decide which part would I benefit from the most.
My current setup is:
i5-2500k
ati 5850
8gb ddr (don't remember the clocks but the memory is good)
wd caviar black 1tb (and another old 500gb wd for additional storage)
Everything else doesn't matter.
My current "upgrade" options are either an ssd or gpu. GPU is something I'm quite unsure about. First of all, the games I'm currently playing (Skyrim hd mostly, other bethesda games, some gw2, some d3 once a week and older games which don't matter) all run quite smooth without any major performance issues, so upgrading GPU is something I plan to to wait with for ati 8000 series and nvidia 700 series and upgrade to something good then. Will most probably pick nvidia this time, just for a change
Now to SSDs... I've been considering buying one for quite some time but could never tell how much would it actualy improve my gaming and out-of-gaming experience. Sadly, I haven't had the chance to use a pc with ssd on it so I wouldn't know what all those comments about "everything being more responsive" and such mean. My only other activities but gaming on this pc are coding and browsing. What made me consider an SSD lately is reading some posts about Skyrim hd and other open-world-games (almost all other bethesda games, for example, Oblivion, Fallout:NV and such) running better with SSD because they have to constantly load the world from the hard drive while you are moving, thus, causing minor hiccups sometimes, if hdd doesn't manage to load the textures fast enough. If this is somewhat true, this sounds like a reason good enough to upgrade to an SSD for now.
Anyways! My two choices so far are either Intel 335 240GB (254$ in my country) or Corsair Force GS 360GB (445$ dollars in my country). Please don't recommend Samsung drives to me, they aren't available here. The only other popular drive available is Crusial m4 256mb for 266$, but I was reading some bad reviews about it failing on buyers lately, so am afraid to consider it.
Would love to hear your opinions on the matter Please note that I intend to upgrade my gpu later this year, but if you think that upgrading the gpu right now is a smarter move and I should leave the SSD idea aside alltogether, I'll accept that too Would love to hear GPU upgrade suggestions then!
Sorry for the wall of text, guys...
TL:DR: Should I buy a new SSD (mainly for gaming) or upgrade my 5850 right now, instead of waiting for the summer (for nvidia 700 series and ati 8000 series)?
Thanks!
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Comments
The heads on a hard drive are on an arm that physically moves the head from one track to another. It's not quite like a phonograph record where there is one track in a spiral. Hard drive tracks are full circle on the drive.
Anytime the HD needs data from another track the head has to move. That tikes time. SSD is fully solid state with no moving parts with access that is fully random so if it needs data there is no delay of head movement.
From what I understand (I don't happen to own any SSDs) the system performance increase is remarkable, especially in environments like MMOs where the HD can be thrashing loading models and textures from large asset archives.
You probably already knew all this, but posted in case it's helpful.
Never upgrade graphic card before you actually, really need to (like experience notable performance issues with the games you actively play and really need to crank full graphics). Even then, it's good to look at used graphic card. SSD is one of the better ideas to get into your PC, if you need to have something. I'm also wondering whether that large SSD is necessary, when you have HDD's for storage, at least you don't need the more expensive one. Better yet, travel somewhere nicer for a week, and forget about the number crunching hardware.
Thanks for the advice, guys
Our used gpu market is really bad, I would rather not take the risk, there's no sure way to not get f****d and no money-back in that case. If not, I'd probably buy another 5850 a long time ago
The idea behind big SSD is being able to put my os (win 8 64-bit) and all the games (mmorps + steam folder) on it. My os partition currently weights 200gb with all of them. I just don't want to spend any time managing the main drive, trying to free up those 30% for the ssd productivity. This is the only reason why 360gb is considered, even though it's quite expensive
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
For the price go with the intel 240gb one.
You wont be sorry you upgraded to an SSD.
SSD - no question.
5850 is getting a bit long in the tooth, but even upgrading to a 680GTX or 7970Ghz won't have the same impact as going from Caviar Black to pretty much any modern-generation SSD. Any of those choices are not bad - just a matter of how much your comfortable spending, and how you plan on using the capacity. For most people, 120G is enough to work with (the more the better obviously), and you keep your current Caviar Black to store bulk data on (as your
drive or whatnot).
I have several Crucial M4 drives installed at work, out of a dozen or so installs, I've had no issues with them as long as they have updated firmware. SO I wouldn't let all those reviews necessarily scare you off.
Thanks
Well, Crucial M4 seems to have good reputation and it also provides better size (256 > 240) than the intel drive, but I also understand that it's almost twise as slow as intel 335 series...
I am indeed unsure about 240gb or 360gb, especially since 360gb actually costs more per gb for me, due to stupid prices of my country but I am just a bit worried that 240gb might not be enough for os + mmorpg I currently play + steam games.
Has anybody got any idea how much free space would I need to keep on my 240gb drive to make sure it's working at maximum speed? Around 40gb free at all times?
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
The only possible gains from a video card are higher frame rates at higher settings. If you're not having problems there, then a new video card doesn't do you any good.
The SSD, on the other hand, will make a huge and obvious difference in a lot of things. I wouldn't be scared off by some bad reviews of the Crucial M4; all parts have a chance of failing, and Crucial's reliability record is pretty good. The M4 did have a firmware bug that would cause a blue screen about once per hour or so after the SSD had been used for over 5000 hours, but that firmware bug was fixed about a year ago. The advantage of a part that has been on the market for two years is that such bugs have been found and fixed before you buy it.
Among good SSDs, speed differences don't matter for consumer use. The only things that can tell the difference between them are synthetic benchmarks and copying very large amounts of data from one SSD to another. You'll never see the latter if you only have one SSD; copying from an SSD to a hard drive or vice versa will just mean that it goes as fast as the hard drive can go, regardless of the SSD.
There's also no rule that a system can only have one SSD. If you buy a 256 GB SSD now and then in a few years discover that you need more SSD capacity for real games, you can buy another SSD then. They'll probably be a lot cheaper then in $/GB than they are today.
Besides, the Crucial M4 isn't unilaterally faster or slower than the Intel SSD 335 or Corsair Force. It will win at some benchmarks and lose at others, but they'll all be so fast in all of the benchmarks that the speed difference doesn't matter.
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Little update:
I've decide to change my mind about the "upgrade" and go for the GPU instead... Lately installed LA Noire and found out that it's not running as fast as I'd like it to. Found out that my gpu might not be fast enough for it *sigh*
My current gpu of choice is Gigabyte GTX660 Ti OC (GV-N66TOC-2GD). Why this one and not the 7950 as everybody recommend? It's faster in all benchmarks and it actually costs less (or just as much) than 7950 does in my country...
Please let me know if I shouldn't buy this specific card for some reason (about to buy it tomorrow).
Thanks!
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
I'd like to see both the prices that you're looking at, and also the benchmarks. A Radeon HD 7950 tends to be faster than a GeForce GTX 660 Ti. Even the launch version of the 7950 was faster than the GTX 660 Ti, and AMD has gotten more gains from video drivers since then, as well as increasing the stock clock speed from 800 MHz to 900 MHz. If the limiting factor is the GPU, then the Radeon HD 7950 typically beats a GTX 660 Ti.
And if the limiting factor is memory (whether capacity or bandwidth), then it's a complete slaughter. It's a difference of 6 GDDR5 memory channels versus three. While the 7950 does have more memory capacity and bandwidth than it can put to good use in a lot of games, the GTX 660 Ti is rather harshly constrained by memory bandwidth. They do clock their memory a little higher, but that's not enough to overcome only having half of the memory bus width.
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is usually way overpriced for what you get. It's a low volume part, as it's a second salvage bin of a GK104 die. If you don't have very many cards to get rid of, then you don't have to price them all that competitively to clear your inventory. The nearby cards that Nvidia actually needs to sell a lot more of and thus needs to price more competitively are the GeForce GTX 670 and the GeForce GTX 660.
Hey, Quizzical
Well, I can get both, Sapphire 7950 (original clocks and all) and Gigabyte GTX660 TI OC for 478 dollars. I know it's super overpriced but these are the prices in the s***hole I live in....
Truth be told, my main reason for going Nvidia is the fact that I'm a bit tired of ATI. Had some problems in games lately specifically because of ATI. Now, I know that those games are to blame and not ATI, because of lazy coding, but still... Good examples are LA Noire and Rage.
Some GPU benchmarks I was looking at are:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_660_ti_windforce_oc_review,19.html
Moreover, there's this issue as well, and I really can relate:
http://www.techpowerup.com/177173/HD-7950-May-Give-Higher-Framerates-but-GTX-660-Ti-Still-Smoother-Report.html?cp=1
I know many will call this a bull but I remember upgrading from 8600GT (I think...) to my current ati 5850 and suddenly noticing stutter in LotRO (with and without vsync).
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Synthetic benchmarks should not be assumed to be representative of anything other than synthetic benchmarks. Unless your primary use for the card is to run 3D Mark 11 and brag about your benchmark scores, there's no reason to care what you'd get in that benchmark.
Guru 3D is comparing the GTX 660 Ti to the old 7950 with lower clock speeds, not the one you'd likely buy today if you got a 7950. And the 7950 still usually wins in games where either card is below 60 frames per second--and often wins by a lot.
The slight stuttering issue that Tech Report finds is a real issue, but it varies wildly from game to game and card to card.
I'd like to see the prices you're looking at, too. It's possible that you found a very rare GTX 660 Ti at a good price. It's more likely that they simply don't have a reasonably priced 7950, either, and you should be looking at some other card.
Those prices are form different shops and my other options are only other 660-s for 50$ more or less
This is the place I'm shopping at:
http://en.ksp.co.il/?select=.1044..35.&list=1&sort=2&glist=0&uin=0&txt_search=&buy=&minprice=1289&maxprice=3065
7950 is from another shop and it costs 1790, exactly like the Gigabyte gtx 660 ti oc.
If you want to know the price just type "1790 shekels to dollars" in google ^^
As you can see, there aren't many options...
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
It's just as I suspected: you're looking at a GeForce GTX 660 Ti that is way overpriced, but there simply isn't a competitively priced 7950 option, either.
At those prices, saving some money to get a GeForce GTX 660 is probably your best option:
http://en.ksp.co.il/?uin=17134
You're looking at paying 54% more than that for a card that isn't that much faster. They have the same memory bandwidth, and they're both substantially constrained by memory bandwidth.
If you really want to pay more for a higher end card, then you might as well do it right and get a card that actually is a lot faster.
http://en.ksp.co.il/?uin=15704
But that doesn't seem like a terribly good deal, either. Maybe another site would have a better deal toward the high end.
Actually, let's back up a bit. If you already have a Radeon HD 5850, you're upgrading from a fairly capable card. If you don't have the budget to get at least a GeForce GTX 670, then I wouldn't bother to upgrade the video card. Too many small upgrades is a waste of money.
Tbqh, getting 670 isn't much of a difference, money-wise,I can get it as well... But it seems like the difference between those cards isn't that big. I wasn't talking about normal 660, btw, I was going the get the gigabyte overclocked one, the one that costs 1790...
Edit: btw, getting either of them seems to be a x2 performance increase from my 5850. Or at least it seems like it:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+5850
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
There you go again, citing another synthetic benchmark. Shouldn't a GeForce GTX 580 beating a Radeon HD 7970 tell you something about the benchmark being wildly unrepresentative of real games?
A GeForce GTX 670 is substantially constrained by memory bandwidth (or ROPs or something like that). Then a GeForce GTX 660 Ti takes the same GPU chip and chips off 1/4 of the memory bandwidth and ROPs. In shader-intensive programs that don't need that much memory bandwidth, that won't make much of a difference. But if you want to have a ton of stuff going on at once, then you can lose nearly 1/4 of your performance as compared to a GTX 670. The situations where a GTX 660 Ti is most likely to perform poorly relative to the competition tend to be the situations where that loss of performance matters the most.
I'm totally lost now
Which GPU are you suggesting then? It seems like all of them are bad choices?
edit: Just re-read your post. Looks like I'll be buying 670 tomorrow after all
Thanks.
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Bought 670. Plays all of my games at highest possible settings with high fps and it's smoother than ever...
Thank you everybody for the help, especially Quizzical!
Topic can be closed
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Israel.
The question is no longer relevant, though.
Thanks anyways
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius