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stellarshy

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Everything posted by stellarshy

  1. I've heard good things about Dashlane password manager, though I have never used it myself. It is also part of the $15 tier, one year subscription. That one is only for new users as well, and it might be more of a pain to switch over to a new account if you already use it – although you can probably export all of your current data. I'm curious about the SpiderOak backup as well. I use Backblaze and I really like it, especially because of the private encryption key feature, but that also seems like a good deal for someone looking for cloud backup. Here are a couple reviews: https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402390,00.asp
  2. Ryzen 7 1800X https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Ryzen-1800X-Processor-YD180XBCAEWOF/dp/B06W9JXK4G/ Inland Pro 120GB https://www.amazon.com/Inland-Professional-120GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B076XMH2JT/ Inland Pro 240GB https://www.amazon.com/Inland-Professional-240GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B076XXMJZH/ The SSDs use the Phison controller mentioned and seem to use Spectek (subsidiary of Micron) NAND. Not clear if they are DRAM-less or not as the controller supports both configurations. 240GB is a better deal and has improved read speed over 120GB version (understandably). They come with a 3yr warranty.
  3. Even if you just buy a $35 120gb sata SSD for the OS, it will be really worth it. It won't matter for gaming too much except for load times, but if you do Maya or UE4 or Photoshop/creative work where you need to write/swap to the disk it will definitely have a direct performance impact. Especially at this budget level I believe it's important. And I agree with @AluminiumTech that I would even switch to i5 8400 over 8600K if I had to to get a SSD. For Power Supplies I prefer EVGA, their G2 and G3 lines are both very good in my humble opinion. They recently extended the G3 warranty from 7 to 9 years, that says a lot. Lastly, the case -- this is just about aesthetics, but the NZXT S340 Elite is only about $25 more and has a larger tempered glass window, a 'puck' to hang headphones on and front-panel HDMI, etc. It's mostly the window that's cool but I recognize some people don't care at all. Regarding the cooler -- if you pass on the K variant i5, and use the stock Intel cooler instead of buying one, you are only about $25 away from an i7 8700 that @Taf the Ghost recommended. I think you chose great components overall.
  4. That's the older version of the WD Black, In that case I agree and I see I accidentally put the older version in my parts list at PC part picker so that's why you thought I was talking about that one, my fault. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12543/the-western-digital-wd-black-3d-nand-ssd-review Of course the premium for the newer version is more -- at 79 it would be a no-brainer upgrade imho, originally I thought it was the new were version on sale – and that would still be worth it to me, but it totally depends on what you do with it.
  5. Generally speaking, I agree with the other posters that it will not help you much in terms of security to have separate partitions. But to answer your original question, it is possible to resize existing partitions. I like this free tool to do the job if you're still interested in doing it: https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html Just be careful if you do that you don't accidentally delete something important -- it always helps to have a back up copy of your data. Hope this helps.
  6. If you're talking about a desktop, you're going to have an external monitor that way? Assuming you need the monitor either way, it may still save a lot of money to use your MacBook Pro as the brains of the operation.
  7. Which MacBook Pro? You could get an external GPU dock, boot into Windows, and probably game quite well.
  8. I know you said small form factor desktop would be OK, but I feel like a laptop would really make your life a lot simpler. Especially because you can get full Core i7 6 core CPU's and stock clock 1070's in laptops now. The new Razor Blade 15" with 6 core i7/1070 for ~$2200 would be my pick. https://www.razer.com/comparisons/blade-15 PS: I've heard really good things about the Corsair One, but yes the price seems on the high end for what you get.
  9. If gaming is your primary concern, at 1080p on your HP monitor, I would upgrade GPU first; if non-gaming is primary, 4-core CPU first in your existing motherboard; then memory to 16gb once RAM prices come down. Hope this helps!
  10. Some of this comes down to anecdotal feeling/perception, but I believe M.2 NVMe SSD's are faster to a worthwhile degree in practical workloads -- the MX500 is a perfectly good drive, but I think the WD Black at just ~$10 (or even $20) more is worth the premium considering its higher performance. Applications that swap heavily or are latency-sensitive benefit more than others (so, not gaming, but even for this build I think it's worth the extra $).
  11. @DocSwag Nice one. I think this is a good build because the i5 8400 is worth the extra expense in my opinion. PS: I prefer a single fast SSD over splitting storage between a small SSD and rotary hard drive, but that just comes down to preference.
  12. I heartily agree with the other posters that recommended changing your choice of CPU, but considering the one in your list is 2 generations old, I'm wondering if there is limited parts availability where you live? If streaming is important I would probably choose the Ryzen 2700X.
  13. Challenge: Put together the best build you can focusing on low price around a Ryzen 5 1400 and either AMD RX 570 -or- Nvidia 1060 3GB. While discussing this Micro Center deal for a Dell Ryzen 5 1400/RX 570 system for $599 (including Win10 license of course), I was wondering if it was possible to get to that price with a self-build. Myself and @orbitalbuzzsaw came up with a few interesting options, and I was wondering what others would choose in building such a system, and if it was possible to beat Dell's price. It's pretty tough considering the $95 Win10 license you get with the Dell, but still interesting to try. @orbitalbuzzsaw build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kkCGJ8 (uses slightly different CPU) @stellarshy build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/g3cJnH
  14. Nice, that's pretty darn good even if it doesn't include Windows 10 license. Still you threw in the SSD, a slightly cheaper video card than the Dell system (but I would probably prefer the 1060 if I had a choice as well), and minus a DVD drive but who cares, but even if it was $125ish more I would rather have the one you built. Of course I would splurge and get at least an S340 case, a little bigger SSD, a little better motherboard... and then it wouldn't be ~$600 anymore. =) But that's how these things go. =) Here's my take (also without Win10) with an M.2 WD Black SSD and compatible motherboard, S340 case: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/g3cJnH
  15. Agreed an SSD would help it a lot, even one of those <$50 Sata 120gb SSD's just for Windows and a couple of games. Given that, I can't think of any way I could build a 4-core Intel or AMD system with AMD RX 570 for <$600, even with super cheapo case/power supply/etc.
  16. This is only at Micro Center -- but it does look like you can buy online, and it's a pretty impressive deal -- just the Ryzen 5 4-core and AMD 570 GPU together are worth about $400, so it would be pretty hard to build this system yourself by getting a case, motherboard, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, power supply, DVD Burner, and Win10 for under $200. http://www.microcenter.com/product/506811/Inspiron_5675_Desktop_Computer
  17. What is your current CPU/motherboard?
  18. I would probably go with an i5 and a non-K variant if you want to upgrade cheaply; like @JoostinOnline pointed out, the i5 3470 would be a good choice and a quick search shows them for <$50 on Ebay UK. Then as he also said, you could upgrade the video card and play basically any modern game, although personally I would probably upgrade to an SSD first considering the games you play aren't very demanding yet. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i5-3470-Quad-core-3-20GHz-SR0T8-CPU-Processor/253640577934?hash=item3b0e28138e:g:H0IAAOSwYhdbBFp3
  19. If you have a little more money to spend I would upgrade the the whole system with one of the cpus that MiNy suggested (although you might be able to find a deal and get the slightly upgraded Ryzen 7 2700X vs the 1800X). But, I do think you could get more mileage out of your current system. You can find 4-core i5/i7s From that era on eBay for a $40-$70, and especially if you combined that upgrade with a solid-state drive I think it would be a big improvement for what you do with your system for not much money compared to buying a whole new system.
  20. Everything looks compatible, but I also think they would tell you if anything was not compatible with another of your choices. I can't tell what the difference is between the Adata that cost $80 more but the one you have selected should be well suited to your system. It's definitely a little confusing, but I think what it's trying to convey is that one is a free upgrade from 2400 MHz to 3000 MHz, and one is a double the memory upgrade that happens to include 3000 MHz memory. So the one you have selected is the better deal. One thing I would change – you have a SATA SSD selected as your primary drive but you will get much better performance from a M.2 PCIE NVMe drive without a big increase in price. For a system that is already this expensive, I would choose this one: 500GB WD Black Series PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 3400/2500 MB/s, Rnd R/W up to 410/330k (Single Drive) or 500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 3400/2300 MB/s, Rnd R/W up to 370/450k (Single Drive) Hope this helps!
  21. Because RAM is so ridiculously over-priced right now? Agreed. Still, $165 is way better than $225+ I've been seeing for some other RGB kits. This is the only Vengeance RGB speed/capacity with this sale, maybe because it's 3000mhz CAS 16, while Corsair makes a CAS 15 kit that is otherwise the same.
  22. Thanks for info -- do you know what NAND Corsair uses for V. RGB?
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