SSD or a more powerful GPU

[KyberKylo77]

I've heard SSDs do really add to the overall experience recently so i'm wondering if i should get a i5 8400 GTX 1080 and a samsung 850 EVO 250GB or just ditch the SSD and get a i5 8400 and a GTX 1080 TI? If you asked me the same question a week ago i'd go for the GPU but now i'm reconsidering.

 

Keep in mind ill be running a 1440p monitor, and im totally aware a that a GTX 1080 is enough to max out games in 2017 and possibly 2018 but at the same time i really want a GTX 1080 ti so it'll last me a few more possible years till nvidia releases their 3000 series in 2020 which ill upgrade to then.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're under a tight budget I recommend go with a better GPU now than an SSD. I'm under no belief that running with an HDD only system is really that painful as long as you're not constantly adding and removing things to make fragmentation an issue. Even then I'm lead to believe it's not really an issue unless it's severe.

 

Besides, an HDD will only hurt when loading something. So unless you play open world games a lot, you're not really going to notice an HDD causing performance issues. Whereas a subpar CPU or GPU is going to always hurt. That's not to say the GTX 1080 is a slouch though.

[TheKDub]

SSDs are great, though they won't do too much to benefit you in gaming other than faster loading times. The main benefits of them are faster file transfers and much faster boot times.

 

What's your current GPU? Or do you not have one yet?

Have you considered going with Ryzen for the CPU?

[Sanctorum]

SSD. GTX 1080 is plenty to last you until 2020. You might even want to wait a bit for a 1070Ti though.

 

Oh, and the difference in price between a 1080 and 1080Ti is more than enough for a 500GB 850 EVO.

[horribly outdated]

Definitely an SSD. While the 8400 is certainly a good cpu, a 1080 ti is too much, and it could make you experience bottleneck lagging.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Giulio Cellocco said:

Definitely an SSD. While the 8400 is certainly a good cpu, a 1080 ti is too much, and it could make you experience bottleneck lagging.

The 8400 is more than plenty to keep a 1080 Ti happy even if this were a high framerate situation.

[KyberKylo77]

10 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

SSDs are great, though they won't do too much to benefit you in gaming other than faster loading times. The main benefits of them are faster file transfers and much faster boot times.

 

What's your current GPU? Or do you not have one yet?

Have you considered going with Ryzen for the CPU?

I dont have an up to date pc rn so im gonna just scrap my current one and build a new one.

 

As for ryzen, i dont really do that much editing to justify it and recent benchmarks shows that the i5 8400 is bdtter overall in both gaming and editing workload sometimes.

[TheKDub]

Just now, KyberKylo77 said:

I dont have an up to date pc rn so im gonna just scrap my current one and build a new one.

 

As for ryzen, i dont really do that much editing to justify it and recent benchmarks shows that the i5 8400 is bdtter overall in both gaming and editing workload sometimes.

If you want some even better CPU performance, you could jump up to the i5 8600K. Userbenchmark shows roughly a 15% increase for both single and multi thread performance at stock clocks, then closer to a 30% increase when overclocked.

 

I'd definitely go with the 1080ti over a 1080 and SSD. You can add an SSD for not too much more in the future, but replacing the GPU would cost much more.

[brob]

An ssd will impact most system usage. Browsing in particular can benefit from an ssd. A more powerful gpu will only make a difference in gaming. Even then the difference may not be perceptible. After all do most people notice a difference between 150 fsp and 200 fps?

[Bworde15]

Just now, KyberKylo77 said:

I've heard SSDs do really add to the overall experience recently so i'm wondering if i should get a i5 8400 GTX 1080 and a samsung 850 EVO 250GB or just ditch the SSD and get a i5 8400 and a GTX 1080 TI? If you asked me the same question a week ago i'd go for the GPU but now i'm reconsidering.

 

Keep in mind ill be running a 1440p monitor, and im totally aware a that a GTX 1080 is enough to max out games in 2017 and possibly 2018 but at the same time i really want a GTX 1080 ti so it'll last me a few more possible years till nvidia releases their 3000 series in 2020 which ill upgrade to then.

I would go with the 1080ti, that will last for a while and upgrading a GPU will cost a lot more than getting a SSD.

[KyberKylo77]

4 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

If you want some even better CPU performance, you could jump up to the i5 8600K. Userbenchmark shows roughly a 15% increase for both single and multi thread performance at stock clocks, then closer to a 30% increase when overclocked.

 

I'd definitely go with the 1080ti over a 1080 and SSD. You can add an SSD for not too much more in the future, but replacing the GPU would cost much more.

Which one is better? I7 8700 plus a cheap 70 dollar motherboard (will be out by the time i buy the parts) which comes out to the same price as an i5 8600k with the cooler and the more expensive motherboard. Also the best cooler i can afford will be a hyper 212 so keep that in mind. 

[KyberKylo77]

5 minutes ago, brob said:

You might find the GTX 1080 and GTX 1080Ti gaming results for the i5-8400 at https://us.hardware.info/product/412178/intel-core-i5-8400-boxed/testresults quite interesting. To me they clearly suggest that the GTX 1080 is a better match for the cpu.

 

An ssd will impact most system usage. Browsing in particular can benefit from an ssd. A more powerful gpu will only make a difference in gaming. Even then the difference may not be perceptible. After all do most people notice a difference between 150 fsp and 200 fps?

Dont worry about the bottlenecks cuz in 1440p maxed out settings its gpu bound and as games get more demanding it'll continue to use more of the gpu which helps with bottlenecking.

[KyberKylo77]

7 minutes ago, brob said:

A more powerful gpu will only make a difference in gaming. Even then the difference may not be perceptible.

That really got me thinking... hmmmm

[Bworde15]

Just now, KyberKylo77 said:

Which one is better? I7 8700 plus a cheap 70 dollar motherboard (will be out by the time i buy the parts) which comes out to the same price as an i5 8600k with the cooler and the more expensive motherboard. Also the best cooler i can afford will be a hyper 212 so keep that in mind. 

It depends, i would go with the i7 8700, but would you want to upgrade the motherboard or the CPU later?

[KyberKylo77]

1 minute ago, Bworde15 said:

It depends, i would go with the i7 8700, but would you want to upgrade the motherboard or the CPU later?

Nope, not upgrading till maybe 4 years from now which will mean 300 chipset wont be supported anymore

[Bworde15]

Just now, KyberKylo77 said:

Nope, not upgrading till maybe 4 years from now which will mean 300 chipset wont be supported anymore

Yeah, if it would annoy you to have a cheap motherboard then maybe get the i5 but then the i5 might get run over by the time it comes to upgrade again.

[dizmo]

What refresh rate is your monitor? If it's a simple 60hz monitor, I'd go with the SSD. The 1080 should be more than enough to make full use of it. What's your total budget? Might be worth spending a little more for an 8600k, as it performs basically the same as an 8700k when it comes to games. The 8400 falls a little behind. Don't get the 212 Evo if you're looking to do any kind of OC, it's not that great of a cooler.

 

Personally, I'd never use a computer that only had HDD storage. It's a sluggish, horrible experience.

 

38 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If you're under a tight budget I recommend go with a better GPU now than an SSD. I'm under no belief that running with an HDD only system is really that painful as long as you're not constantly adding and removing things to make fragmentation an issue. Even then I'm lead to believe it's not really an issue unless it's severe.

You sound like someone who has only had an HDD

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, dizmo said:

You sound like someone who has only had an HDD

Over the weekend as part of my Windows cloning project, I used my laptop with it's SSHD only for a day or so to give it time to settle. Yes it was an SSHD and it may have already cached everything that I would've used anyway, but the experience wasn't as bad as people are making it out to be. The laptop's total boot time was still under 30 seconds without Fast Boot to help it (migrating to the SSD shaved off 12 seconds so no, Windows wasn't completely in cache), login after booting was pretty much instant, and even when I was doing things out of the norm it did hesitate, but nothing I'd go "Wow, this is terribad"

 

Then again I'm probably more patient/tolerant than a lot of people.

[TheKDub]

26 minutes ago, KyberKylo77 said:

Which one is better? I7 8700 plus a cheap 70 dollar motherboard (will be out by the time i buy the parts) which comes out to the same price as an i5 8600k with the cooler and the more expensive motherboard. Also the best cooler i can afford will be a hyper 212 so keep that in mind. 

I'd go with the i7 and cheap mobo for now, then get a better cooler and possibly better mobo down the road. It'll still be cheaper than upgrading to the i7 later on.

[KyberKylo77]

9 hours ago, Bworde15 said:

Yeah, if it would annoy you to have a cheap motherboard then maybe get the i5 but then the i5 might get run over by the time it comes to upgrade again.

Ok thanks but which one performs better in gaming and editing workloads?