Very true.
I love how some of these kids, I read about on the tech sites, overclock, burn out, and replace hardware as though it's nothing. I cried when I fried a USB port on the motherboard I just replaced!
In this case, though, the waiting game will pay off with faster hardware. Right now these SSDs cost about what the old Seagate 40MB hard drives cost about 20 years ago. Now hard drives 7 times that size go for about $200.
John
I hear you. The current rig I run was a second hand one build by a friend of a friend who's nephew could be described as one of those kids you mentioned. The nephew wanted the latest and greatest and I was looking for bang for my buck. Worked out well and I remain grateful! I do think the price will come down a bit more too as time goes on. Folks in shoes like mine will want to migrate up to something in the middle of the pack as time goes on. Plus, it looks like SSD is here to stay (esp. with some of the speeds I've been reading). From that article you posted and I want to quote two specs that blew my mind:
1) "2.5GB/s and a write speed of 1.5GB"
2) "It's hard to look over an SSD that can extract 38GB archives in less than a minute or backup 45GB of images in a little over two minutes."
Geez! I grew up with a Commodore 64 that had 128k of memory. With 5 1/4 floppys! Makes you wonder what technology people will use in 20 years time!
That said, to have the latest and greatest comes with a hefty price (to buy the SSD and the components [IE MoBo, RAM, etc...to keep up with it] ). It's still amazing to see the gains once you move up to the next level though (even if it is middle of the pack or so). I felt that way several years ago when I started using my current rig.
I want to thank everyone, especially the OP as this has been a very enlightening thread.
Eating a bit of crow after doing more research. Ref. post 4 of this thread. I was going to use a SSD for my operating system and TANE in a new computer, but like many on these forums I'm retired, so after thinking about it, counting my pennies and weighing the benefits, I have decided a WD 1TB black HDD is going to have to do.
I'm running a HPe9110t built in August of 2009: Intel core 2 Quad cpu@ 2.33GHz, 6GB RAM, so I figure a new system with a i5 6600 6M 3.3GHz cpu, 8GB RAM and GTX 970 videocard should prove a huge improvement.
Maybe I'll save the SSD for next Christmas.
Regards,
I have learned quite a bit and am very happy to hear that this was useful to you too! I run 2 WD Caviar Black 750 GB HDDs myself and I do personally have to attest for their quality and longevity (no issues, continue to work perfectly). I run a similar set up: AMD Phenom II X4 965 (~3.4 GHz) with 8 GB DDR3 and a AMD HD Powercolour 6850. Your video card is leaps and bounds above mine so I imagine you'll see huge gains compared to your current system.
Not to start a flame war but from what I've read John, AMD is a more cost-effective option in general compared to Intel (at least for GPUs). I do hear that Intel seems to win slightly on performance, but for the price one pays for that premium, AMD is what I go with and I have no regrets. Since you are doing research before you upgrade, it's something to consider.
You could also consider, like I am, just getting a smaller SSD (maybe in the area of 128 GB) just for your OS. I still think the price would justify it for the gains you get in speed for your OS and executables. You might not see a huge difference in Trainz, but I'm betting you use your computer for other things too.
As for me, I'll be waiting until after Xmas for an SSD. Doubt our exchange rate will improve much but I can wait...
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