# Gaming PC build verification



## Ka3el (Aug 22, 2019)

Hallo, please verify bellow build. Its for gaming in 1440p (maximum 144Hz).

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3VFQjy

You will be probably surprised by storage configuration, I keep two SSDs because I would like to have separated disk for system and games. One of the shops here has also "action", they give Nvme ADATA XPG GAMMIX S5 SSD 256GB free to ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS, so there is possibility to replace M2 Sata SSD from my config with free Nvme. Would you take this opportunity and take Asus instead? I somehow fell in love with Gigabyte.
Other option would be to forget separated SSds and buy one 1TB, for example Intel 660p but as I mentioned I would like to have system on separated drive.

How about cooling, will Wraith be ok or should I buy better one? Something like Be quiet! PURE ROCK?

Note: PSU is currently probably overkill but there will probably come stronger graphic card later (with some of the next generations)


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## TheLostSwede (Aug 22, 2019)

I would consider a slightly larger SSD as the OS drive, budget permitting, as 250GB means you can't really put more than 200GB on it before performance starts to drop.
Also look see if you can't find an RTX 2080 for closer to the RTX 2070 Super pricing, as here, they're going for the same or even less money.

As far as boards goes, Gigabyte seems to be pushing out more frequent UEFI updates at the moment, so that might be good in the early phases of Ryzen 3000, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between the two boards. The Asus board gets you two extra SATA ports and an extra PCIe x1 slot, the Gigabyte has a front USB 3.1 connector, but Asus has a rear USB-C port.

The "free" Adata SSD is pretty poor as far as NVMe drives goes, in fact, the 4K read performance is most likely no better than the Crucial SATA drive you've picked.








Obviously both are different size than what you're looking at, but still.

You might want to check out the TPU offers for Windows 10, as you'd save a lot of money on getting that, since you're getting an OEM copy either which way.


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## Sithaer (Aug 22, 2019)

TheLostSwede said:


> I would consider a slightly larger SSD as the OS drive, budget permitting, as 250GB means you can't really put more than 200GB on it before performance starts to drop.
> Also look see if you can't find an RTX 2080 for closer to the RTX 2070 Super pricing, as here, they're going for the same or even less money.
> 
> As far as boards goes, Gigabyte seems to be pushing out more frequent UEFI updates at the moment, so that might be good in the early phases of Ryzen 3000, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between the two boards. The Asus board gets you two extra SATA ports and an extra PCIe x1 slot, the Gigabyte has a front USB 3.1 connector, but Asus has a rear USB-C port.
> ...



Tbh 200+ GB is more than enough for a OS drive if nothing else is there.

I have mine on a 120 GB one and with a completely up to date Win 10 pro I still have ~45 GB free space on it and my Documents&Settings folder is fairly big thanks to years worth of game saves and whatnot.

I would also pick up a better cooler than the Wraith Prism,sure it works but even some cheap coolers can outperform it.


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## TheLostSwede (Aug 22, 2019)

Sithaer said:


> Tbh 200+ GB is more than enough for a OS drive if nothing else is there.
> 
> I have mine on a 120 GB one and with a completely up to date Win 10 pro I still have ~45 GB free space on it and my Documents&Settings folder is fairly big thanks to years worth of game saves and whatnot.



Sure, IF you don't install anything else on, which I know I don't do for sure. In fact, once you've installed Office and a few other things, you quickly get close to 200GB.
It was more of a matter of future proofing, than saying 250GB isn't enough.


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## Chomiq (Aug 22, 2019)

For more than 2 AAA at a time? Nope. If one of them is a MS Xbox port? Definitely not. FH3 takes up something around 70 gigs and I imagine FH4 takes even more than that.


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## Ka3el (Aug 22, 2019)

How about that Seagate Barracuda drive guys, please? I have just heard its quite loud?


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## dgianstefani (Aug 22, 2019)

Just get a 1tb 970 evo plus and be done with it.


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## kapone32 (Aug 22, 2019)

Ka3el said:


> How about that Seagate Barracuda drive guys, please? I have just heard its quite loud?



There is almost no point in getting a HDD now. The only ones I would even consider are the Firecuda drives which come with 8GB  of SSD. With AMD's Store MI though that would be a waste. If you want good inexpensive storage look at having an NVME Drive as boot (The one you mentioned for free is not good but not bad either) and using the 660P 2TB (it is cheaper than most 2TB non NVME SSDs) as a data drive period. The board you want would run that at full speed regardless of what M2 slot you populate it in.


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## Ka3el (Aug 22, 2019)

I have already changed my config little bit to use MX500 1TB (instead 500MB) for games, but I would like to still keep HDD for data


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## Vayra86 (Aug 22, 2019)

Ka3el said:


> Hallo, please verify bellow build. Its for gaming in 1440p (maximum 144Hz).
> 
> https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3VFQjy
> 
> ...



- Hardware split between OS disk and 'data' disk is very useful, I'd hold on to that. Even with SSDs.
- You can run your OS on a 120GB SSD, and size up the other one to 1TB. I can tell you right now, you will use it and price/gb is favorable on higher capacities these days. But, 256GB is a decent size too; still, budget wise, if you can make that switch, the end result is more space and having it separated better the way you want it: OS separate from everything else. With 750GB total space in the system, you won't be installing many games simultaneously, that's for sure and you will end up having to squeeze more stuff onto your OS disk too. Data accumulates FAST.
- NVME or M2... irrelevant for home use or gaming. Get the lowest price/gb and look for quality in endurance instead. Speed difference is not noticeable versus regular SATA SSD.
- Mechanical HDD. Something to think about. I will say one thing about it: think about that low hum / resonating noise in the case. With all SSD, what you've got is a 100% silent box in idle and even during non-gaming operations. Add one HDD and you lose that. It will be spinning up and will be humming and you will hear it... An external HDD for your mass storage might be interesting too, that wa you can hook it up only when needed.

- Avoid Gigabyte Gaming OC GPU models. Meh build quality, and Gigabyte is notorious lately for crappy RMA (not an isolated case...)

- If you're looking for money to complete this within budget, cut off the Windows 10 license for 100 bucks and get one at 4-10 bucks instead. TPU has the occasional offer but its widely available, for example @ www.allkeyshop.com. This is grey area but I have yet to hear of problems, I use a cheap license too and its doing just fine.

- Ryzen 3700X. There is also some budget space here, you can knock this down a bit and still have stellar CPU performance. Any particular reason for 8c/16t? If not, go 6c/12t instead.


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## Khonjel (Aug 22, 2019)

CPU is your choice. So no comment there.

Gigabyte is also fine. But ASUS is also good value. And unlike previous time both ASUS and Gigabyte didn't skimp on VRM. Use this table to quickly compare features. But as Lost Swede said, Gigabyte is currently fastest (and most communicative in their forums) about AMD bios updates.

RAM is also fine. Just check the parts number to have AES at the end. Currently those RAM are very good overclockers.

I'll generally shy away from hard disks now but if you want them still I'd say avoid Seagate. Their failure rate precedes them.

Iirc the M.2 MX500 is SATA so the NVMe "free" SSD might be faster.

See if you can find RTX 2080 priced close to 2070 Super. Aside from the fact that it's faster, who knows if you ever need RMA they might just send you 2080 Super since base 2080 won't be available *wink *wink

Case is personal choice so no comment.

I think 650w should be enough. And even if you upgrade to a powerful card in the future, they're gonna be less power hungry than today. Ofc it's not also bad to be inside power supply's efficient range. Correct me if I'm wrong but 50% load is most efficient for most power supplies. So if a system consumes 375w, with a 750w unit it would be most efficient it can supply current.
IDK why you chose a DVD writer in this day and age but won't comment on it.

The monitor is excellent. Good choice.

I think you can save some money by buying third party like others have said. But I don't think it's going to Microsoft so don't condone it. That $100 WILL go to MS don't worry about it. But I myself am a poor salt farmer I just download a ISO from Microsoft and don't activate Windows. The only thing I'm losing of value (to me) is system-wide dark theme, now even in My Computer/This PC/Library/whatever it's called. No discrimination in Windows updates if you fear that.


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## authorized (Aug 22, 2019)

Vayra86 said:


> - Hardware split between OS disk and 'data' disk is very useful, I'd hold on to that. Even with SSDs.


Why though? I can't think of a good reason. Unless you already have a smaller ssd or can get it for free in a promo like OP can - then sure, OS drive is a good use for it.


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## kapone32 (Aug 22, 2019)

authorized said:


> Why though? I can't think of a good reason. Unless you already have a smaller ssd or can get it for free in a promo like OP can - then sure, OS drive is a good use for it.



Because you never know what can happen with a Windows PC. Especially in the age of 25 to 90 GB downloads for games, having a data drive for games, videos, pictures makes perfect sense when you want to reset or reinstall Windows.


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## authorized (Aug 22, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> Because you never know what can happen with a Windows PC. Especially in the age of 25 to 90 GB downloads for games, having a data drive for games, videos, pictures makes perfect sense when you want to reset or reinstall Windows.


That's what partitions are for.

@Ka3el 
If you don't have a specific reason for buying 3700X (like streaming or rpcs3), 3600 is a much better value for games, and if you put that $130 price difference into a better GPU you will get better gaming performance. If 3700X was a future proofing choice, it's not worth it.
If you have much data other than games that you want to hoard, I'd recommend an external usb 3 hdd instead of internal one. They cost about the same, have pretty good speed, they're quiet and portable.
Get a good cooler, for Ryzen cpus better temperatures mean better clocks.
I was also going to make suggestions regarding the case, but then noticed you intend to put an optical drive in there, that's quite the limiting factor.


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## kapone32 (Aug 22, 2019)

authorized said:


> That's what partitions are for.
> 
> @Ka3el
> If you don't have a specific reason for buying 3700X (like streaming or rpcs3), 3600 is a much better value for games, and if you put that $130 price difference into a better GPU you will get better gaming performance. If 3700X was a future proofing choice, it's not worth it.
> ...



Partitions on a boot drive? Why do motherboards come with more than 1 SATA port? Why do modern MBs have more than one M2 slot? Why can you put expansion cards on free PCI_E slots form 1 to 16? To mitigate against the danger of the 1 drive you have failing or developing errors. Ever since I built my first PC I have always used a boot and data drive. It's not like drives are expensive compared to the other components in your build. I guess you have never had to reinstall Windows. I also am going to assume you don't have a very large game library. I did see however that you recommended external storage over an internal. To me there is no benefit other than portability of using external especially HDDs like the Seagate Expansion series (everyone USB port on the 5 that I have owned has died but the drive was still good and became an internal). There is also the fact that you would be limited to USB speeds on a SATA drive. USB 3 C is just catching up to Esata in terms of real world performance and I don't know of any inexpensive USB C drives.


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## Vayra86 (Aug 22, 2019)

authorized said:


> Why though? I can't think of a good reason. Unless you already have a smaller ssd or can get it for free in a promo like OP can - then sure, OS drive is a good use for it.



- You tend to swap drives as you run out of space. You can prevent reinstalls by separating the OS from your 'bulk' storage. And vice versa, your OS install or reinstall won't mess up your file systems on other drives. Was of great benefit when upgrading from Windows 7 to 10, for example. You just never have to worry Windows business wiill tear apart some of your files.
- You can move your data drives to any other system without making your main rig unusable.
- Drives go bad, having an OS drive where you're not constantly writing large amounts of data will prolong its life; and with that, its unlikely your OS drive will ever go bad in the life of the machine. Its also easier to eliminate that drive as a cause for problems.

Yes, partitions, but its not the same thing really; but holds some of the same advantages. Think of it as a form of redundancy.

Then there is the 'why not' argument; the price difference is negligible, but it does offer advantages. And I have yet to meet a consumer PC that is struggling for spare SATA or M2 slots.


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## Sithaer (Aug 22, 2019)

I also used to have Partitioned OS but since the age of 'cheap' 120-250 GB SSDs I made it a separate drive completely.
I had scenarios in the past when a drive died on me or I was forced to format my main drive with the OS+everything on it,wasn't funny to say the least so its better to separate that stuff imo.

Getting rid of HDDs completely would be nice yes but if someone is a 'Data' hoarder like me its not really an option yet,unless someone is rich like that.
I have a 3+1 TB HDD in my PC and I barely have 1+ TB free space currently,keeping all that on SSDs would be quite expensive.


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## authorized (Aug 22, 2019)

kapone32 said:


> Partitions on a boot drive? Why do motherboards come with more than 1 SATA port? Why do modern MBs have more than one M2 slot? Why can you put expansion cards on free PCI_E slots form 1 to 16? To mitigate against the danger of the 1 drive you have failing or developing errors. Ever since I built my first PC I have always used a boot and data drive. It's not like drives are expensive compared to the other components in your build. I guess you have never had to reinstall Windows. I also am going to assume you don't have a very large game library. I did see however that you recommended external storage over an internal. To me there is no benefit other than portability of using external especially HDDs like the Seagate Expansion series (everyone USB port on the 5 that I have owned has died but the drive was still good and became an internal). There is also the fact that you would be limited to USB speeds on a SATA drive. USB 3 C is just catching up to Esata in terms of real world performance and I don't know of any inexpensive USB C drives.


You make it sound like an outlandish idea, but back in the day, before ssds and big, cheap hdds, when most regular home PCs had only one hdd, that used to be a common way of doing it. Reinstalling OS, making dual or multiple booting on one hdd - none of that was a problem, excluding human error. Of course, nowadays ssds price/capacity ratio scales very well and you can get very cheap drives with enough space for the OS, but it wasn't always this way. With hdds, even smallest available capacities used to still cost quite a bit, it wasn't really worth it.
M.2 slots can actually be a decent reason for picking larger ssds, at least if you want benefits of nvme. You can have at most two of them, and on many cheaper boards there's only one slot. What do you do when you want to upgrade? If you replace your small OS drive with a big one, you're still left with partitioning  (or putting everything together which is obviously unadvisable). Replace your big ssd with an even bigger one? Have to figure out what to do with the old one or it's quite a waste. Or you just end up with good old sata drives which, for ssds, are on the way out it feels.
As for external USB drives, I should clarify that I meant 2.5'' drives. Even though they don't reach speeds over 100MB, they are not slow at all. You don't really need great transfer speed for storage. Meanwhile, they are not only portable, but also virtually noiseless. It depends on your priorities, I'm not trying to present it as a clearly better option. Personally, I don't want mechanical hdds in any of my rigs from this point on and it's already a fairly common sentiment.

When you have multiple drives, you can still run your pc when one of them goes bad - that's a good reason.


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## Ka3el (Aug 23, 2019)

Thank you all for very valuable comments, this forum is the best!

Have to think about that HDD. In my current set up I have HDD Samsung SpinPoint F3 and I dont hear it all (PC is under table and not directly beside my legs, its little bit on the left, case Fractal design define R3).

FOr the 3700X Iam aware currently same performance (in games) as 3600X but there are rumors Next Gen consoles will use 8 core CPU so the games will benefit from it also. Of course nobody knows but I dont want to regret next year or so. I would like to keep PC for a longer time and just change graphic card.

I also hear from others that its not good to go with X570 MLB that its not worth the money. Whats your opinion on it, please? I picked X570 because I heard (from Tech deals) "If you build a new rig go with X570"..that others may not support 3700X so good. also there is possibility some (close) next gen graphic card will benefit from PCIe 4.0.
Lastly considering I will get free 250GB Nvme the price of Asus TUF not so bad.

Gigabyte GBU not good enough? What would you please suggest?


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## Vayra86 (Aug 23, 2019)

Benefit from pcie 4.0 for GPU is not likely. Similarly, benefit from 8c/16t for gaming Im also not seeing anytime soon. (3-4 years from now the same CPUs will do similar things). Consoles dont need that perf so if they get 8 core Zen it will be older or lower clocked, or some variation of Ryzen G series.

Dont buy into things that might happen. Instead save the cash and upgrade a bit earlier with it.


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## hzy4 (Sep 27, 2019)

Hi Ka3el did you pulled the trigger on the X570 TUF with the XPG M2 SSD?


Ka3el said:


> One of the shops here has also "action", they give Nvme ADATA XPG GAMMIX S5 SSD 256GB free to ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS


I had the same setup, its a promo in middle EU I think. I facing troubles to make the XPG GAMMIX S5 to work on the board, the latest BIOS update did not fix it.
The installation of windows was all right, in windows the PC crashed, since then the SSD is not recognized in windows, nor bios. Occasionally it works, mostly dont.


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## oobymach (Sep 28, 2019)

If you use virtual memory ie a page file on an ssd with daily internet use the drive will start failing after about 3 years. Most ssd's are only good for a handful of block writes before they die, 3d nand is garbage, and you only hasten its death by using it. Put windows on an hdd, I use western digital black drives, windows on one others are for downloads and storage. I also have an m2 1tb drive for games, but for daily use a good hdd is going to last around 10 years and has no chance of corrupting data, no ssd (I had an ocz ssd that started death throes after only a year) can make that claim.


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## GamerGuy (Sep 28, 2019)

Sithaer said:


> Tbh 200+ GB is more than enough for a OS drive if nothing else is there.
> 
> I have mine on a 120 GB one and with a completely up to date Win 10 pro I still have ~45 GB free space on it and my Documents&Settings folder is fairly big thanks to years worth of game saves and whatnot.
> 
> I would also pick up a better cooler than the Wraith Prism,sure it works but even some cheap coolers can outperform it.


I had a 120GB Corsair Force GT SSD from my i7 3960X build from 2011/2012 IIRC, I decommissioned the 120GB drive last year in favor of a 250GB 850 EVO. It still had about 40-50GB of space inside, once it'd dropped to 20+ GB, I did some housekeeping, cleared out 'Windows old' and it was back to 40+ GB. But, for a new build, 250GB should more than suffice, but OP wanna go higher, by all means go 500GB since SSD prices are pretty good these days. Use it for OS, and other relevant programs like DDU, MSI AB, etc. For my recent Ryzen 3900X build, I went with a 256GB Sabrent Rocket NVMe M.2 which should last me quite a good number of years. As for cooler, I've heard that the Wraith Prism is good enough and performs well for a stock cooler. But heck, going for a good 3rd party cooler would, of course, be better.


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## Zach_01 (Sep 30, 2019)

Oh god, dont suggest HDDs for boot drive... We are in 2019 and things progress! (except using StoreMI)

For a boot drive can go with a nice 250~500GB TLC or even MLC type SSD and for additional storage a 1~2TB QLC type drive. This way you can install games/apps in both drives and have pretty nice performance.
QLC type SSDs wear out faster than TLC, (about half total writes on the same capacity) but still 1~2TB QLC SSDs would have a few hundreds total TB writes before they start loosing performance.
TLC type have half total writes compered to MLC type (same capacity).

On my previous build I had a SATA 500GB SSD (MLC, 300TB total writes) as a boot/OS and a SATA 1TB SSD (MLC, 600TB total writes) as storage and additional installation space. After 3 years of daily usage, intalling/uninstalling on both and playing games, and with the two drives filled to 60~65%... the counter for total writes was 13TB on the boot drive and 2.2TB on the secondary. Keep in mind that pagefile was disabled from the OS drive and enabled (8GB) on the second 1TB.
So... SSDs die hard! Keep them cool as more as possible.

If someone is in a tighter budget, can go with one 2~3 TB HDD for OS/games/apps and a TLC 250~500GB for the use of AMD's StoreMI. Its very interesting if you look into it. Works on X399/400/500 series chipset and gives SSD like performance.

Please walk through the whole video to see the benefits



			https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/store-mi
		












*And some additional info*

SSD life expectancy










QLC vs TLC SSDs: Samsung QVO & EVO











Khonjel said:


> I think 650w should be enough. And even if you upgrade to a powerful card in the future, they're gonna be less power hungry than today. Ofc it's not also bad to be inside power supply's efficient range. *Correct me if I'm wrong but 50% load is most efficient for most power supplies*. So if a system consumes 375w, with a 750w unit it would be most efficient it can supply current.
> IDK why you chose a DVD writer in this day and age but won't comment on it.


About right... From what I've seen most quality PSUs are on the rated efficiency from 30~35 to 70~75% and peaks at about 55~60ish% (maybe 1 or even 2% above rated eff.)
IMHO a PC should never load a PSU more than 60%, not only for the peak efficiency but for longevity mostly.


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## oobymach (Oct 1, 2019)

I boot win 10 in 21-24 seconds from an hdd, and my windows drive won't be on deaths door in 3 years. If you plan on throwing away your pc after 3 years go with an ssd. I see no good reason to put windows on one unless you plan on never writing to it ever, then it'll last a million years, but if you use it ie. surf the internet for an hour or more a day it won't last more than 3 years tops. It all depends on the user and whether or not they want to manually reinstall windows on a new ssd every 3 years.

A 1tb ssd with a 75tb write life is only good for 75 block writes before it starts to fail. The best ssd lasts around 3000 block writes but almost all consumer level ssd's are 3d nand which is only good for about 75 block writes before block death.

I've killed 2 ssd's now in the quest for a slightly faster windows experience, one died pretty much completely after about a year (ocz arc) so I bought another (different make) and that one started having major boot issues after about 2 years (one in 2 or one in 3 times it would take to boot after it started failing) so by all means run windows on an ssd if you don't like your computer, I know better.

Ssd as a game drive absolutely, but put windows on it and you're just asking for trouble.


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## Zach_01 (Oct 1, 2019)

oobymach said:


> I boot win 10 in 21-24 seconds from an hdd, and my windows drive won't be on deaths door in 3 years. If you plan on throwing away your pc after 3 years go with an ssd. I see no good reason to put windows on one unless you plan on never writing to it ever, then it'll last a million years, but if you use it ie. surf the internet for an hour or more a day it won't last more than 3 years tops. It all depends on the user and whether or not they want to manually reinstall windows on a new ssd every 3 years.
> 
> A 1tb ssd with a 75tb write life is only good for 75 block writes before it starts to fail. The best ssd lasts around 3000 block writes but almost all consumer level ssd's are 3d nand which is only good for about 75 block writes before block death.
> 
> ...



Didn’t you read any of the content below? If what you are saying is true, all internet would be swarming with users complains and states of how bad SSDs are at lifespan.
Not true at all!
Although I never dealt with any SSD brand other than Samsung (PRO/EVO) who uses V-nand.



Zach_01 said:


> On my previous build I had a SATA 500GB SSD (MLC, 300TB total writes) as a boot/OS and a SATA 1TB SSD (MLC, 600TB total writes) as storage and additional installation space. After 3 years of daily usage, intalling/uninstalling on both and playing games, and with the two drives filled to 60~65%... the counter for total writes was 13TB on the boot drive and 2.2TB on the secondary. Keep in mind that pagefile was disabled from the OS drive and enabled (8GB) on the second 1TB.
> So... SSDs die hard! Keep them cool as more as possible.



*What short of brand, models, were those failed SSDs with that 75writes/cell only?*


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## oobymach (Oct 1, 2019)

Even samsung (600 TBW for 1 TB model) are only 600 block writes with their newest vnand, western digital blue ssd's are only rated for 150 block writes (600tbw on a 4tb drive). Once you write to a block more times than it is rated you start getting random corruption of that block, if you write to a whole sector of blocks with a pagefile for example that sector is basically unusable once it has exceeded its block write capacity. Many ssd's will continue to work fine with areas of the drive heavily corrupted, but once you start storing data on those sectors you will notice corruption. Games load with weird textures or bad models, movie files won't play (or have visible corruption/distortion), and you can't fix it. The new intel claim 164 PBW on their 1.5tb which is 109333 block writes if their claim is to be believed.


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## robot zombie (Oct 1, 2019)

How many GB a day dyou suppose it takes to approach 600TBW in less than a few years?


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## kapone32 (Oct 1, 2019)

robot zombie said:


> How many GB a day dyou suppose it takes to approach 600TBW in less than a few years?



Probably over 100GB for like 20 years


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## oobymach (Oct 1, 2019)

That's the thing, it doesn't take 100gb a day to kill an ssd, you can kill areas just by browsing the internet. Your temp folder, your virtual memory, any area that's accessed regularly and repeatedly written and re-written with new stuff like webpage or game content will die first. You may not even notice but at some point your data may and probably will overlap these dead zones (which is what happened with my first 2 ssd's) and you get corruption.


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## authorized (Oct 1, 2019)

@oobymach
Those drives didn't fail because of nand wear, you were either running them in unfavourable conditions (overheated) or it was simply bad luck. All kind of devices have a certain failure rate, everything can develop a fault.
Did you even check their total writes count before they died or are you just presuming they wore out?

Also, do you think mechanical drives last forever? They wear out with usage as well and will all eventually die.

I have had my Crucial MX100 512GB for about 4 years and my write count is a bit above 20TB. This drive has a TBW rating of "only" 72TBW and still, it appears I won't reach that limit in another 10 years.

An important point to make is that TBW is not an indicator of when the cells will give up, it's only a value guaranteed by manufacturer. There have been experiments in which constant writes were performed on multiple ssds of different brands and nand types used. They showed most of them exceeding their TBW by huge values, in many cases several times over.

Lastly, I have never heard of any home user having their ssd wear out.

Your claims are completely unfounded.



oobymach said:


> That's the thing, it doesn't take 100gb a day to kill an ssd, you can kill areas just by browsing the internet. Your temp folder, your virtual memory, any area that's accessed regularly and repeatedly written and re-written with new stuff like webpage or game content will die first. You may not even notice but at some point your data may and probably will overlap these dead zones (which is what happened with my first 2 ssd's) and you get corruption.


No, their firmware spreads out writes evenly across its cells.


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## Zach_01 (Oct 1, 2019)

Clearly he doesnt know much about SSD function, and how they manage and operate the data. Of course SSDs do not wear out a specific cell area. And thats why we dont use defragmentation tools any more. I wonder if @oobymach was using one regularly...




This is a drive that is working as a boot drive from day one more than 3 years ago (38 months, 36 on a PC, last 2 on LapTop). 16.7 TB... and thats about 15GB/day. According to SMART readings still 97% life remains.
A reminder: For 2.5 years was filled to 60~65%


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## Splinterdog (Oct 1, 2019)

Khonjel said:


> Use this table to quickly compare features.


That worksheet is a work of art. I'm gobsmacked how much information is there and the time and effort the creator has put into it.
It's quite remarkable and so easy to follow. Hats off.


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## oobymach (Oct 2, 2019)

No I never defrag ssd, I don't think fragmentation is even an issue anymore. Haven't defragged a drive since windows xp. Also my first boot ssd (ocz arc) started doing the boot loop wherein windows doesn't load and you have to restart manually after only a year. I swapped it for a new ssd (both were 240gb) and used the old one as a game drive.

Games on the old ssd had issues like the background in diablo 3 would glitch when there was activity like magic, textures didn't load in Dying Light, one game wouldn't even boot, so I know there was corruption from exceeding the block write life in multiple areas of the drive which manifested in issues with the data stored.

When the games were re-loaded on one of my hdd's they worked fine. My usage could be considered heavy, I game and surf internet for many many hours a day, and also use a pagefile because games like gta5 don't like it when you turn it off. The ssd's both died from normal heavy use.

My tower is a thermaltake core v71 which has 18 total fans inside (which runs about 16db on quiet mode) including like 5 which blow air in from the front over my drive bay which runs 30-32 degrees, so it's definitely not a heat issue.

Also, I'm 38 years old and have been using computers since I was 6. I know more than your average user, and I killed 2 consumer level ssd's by exceeding their block write life in several areas of the drive in a period of 3 years. I'm not a noob.


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## kapone32 (Oct 2, 2019)

oobymach said:


> No I never defrag ssd, I don't think fragmentation is even an issue anymore. Haven't defragged a drive since windows xp. Also my first boot ssd (ocz arc) started doing the boot loop wherein windows doesn't load and you have to restart manually after only a year. I swapped it for a new ssd (both were 240gb) and used the old one as a game drive.
> 
> Games on the old ssd had issues like the background in diablo 3 would glitch when there was activity like magic, textures didn't load in Dying Light, one game wouldn't even boot, so I know there was corruption from exceeding the block write life in multiple areas of the drive which manifested in issues with the data stored.
> 
> ...



OCZ drives, especially from that generation were known to be flaky. I have had a Corsair Mp60 and an OCZ vertex drive artifact and die on me. The thing is it was not the Nand but the controller that gave up the Ghost in both instances.


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## authorized (Oct 2, 2019)

oobymach said:


> Games on the old ssd had issues like the background in diablo 3 would glitch when there was activity like magic, textures didn't load in Dying Light, one game wouldn't even boot, so I know there was corruption from exceeding the block write life in multiple areas of the drive which manifested in issues with the data stored.





oobymach said:


> Also, I'm 38 years old and have been using computers since I was 6. I know more than your average user, and I killed 2 consumer level ssd's by exceeding their block write life in several areas of the drive in a period of 3 years. I'm not a noob.


How do you know exceeding the block write was the cause of their failure?



kapone32 said:


> OCZ drives, especially from that generation were known to be flaky. I have had a Corsair Mp60 and an OCZ vertex drive artifact and die on me. The thing is it was not the Nand but the controller that gave up the Ghost in both instances.


Yeah, afaik the controller is the most common cause of ssd failures.


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## oobymach (Oct 2, 2019)

I assume it was block write failure since pagefile and surfing/downloads and temp updating daily for a year but I could be wrong, that gen of ssd's were only like 75 block write life (75tbw on 1tb drive) I know that after wiping it to use as a game drive (assuming it still had a lot of life in it) 3 out of 5 games had issues, plus the second drive (silicon power) had roughly the same treatment and started exhibiting signs of failure about 2 years in.

Didn't use it as a game drive though, just took it out and replaced it with an hdd after windows 7 stopped booting (one in 2 or one in 3 tries would boot to desktop and be mostly fine) so I decided no more system critical crap on ssd's for the next little while and built my newest compy since I had an excuse because windows 7 stopped booting.

I have a 1tb m2 ssd for games in my new rig, I'm not against ssd's, but I won't be using one for windows again for a while.


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## Zach_01 (Oct 3, 2019)

You can use AMD's StoreMI if you dont trust SSDs for boot/OS. Works great with SSD close like performance for OS boot time, apps/games launch and load time.


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## (*^^*) (Oct 3, 2019)

I don't have any problems personally, so I feel like buying it as it is.  But if you don't use m.2 SSD, you can use B450.  The advantage of the current X570 is that Gen4 m.2 SSD and heat countermeasures and MB power supply efficiency are good and compatible with RyzenCPU.  If Gen4 m.2 is not connected, neither heat protection nor m.2 will be required.  The B450 costs a little time to update the BIOS, but is inexpensive.  If you choose B450, you can spend money on cooling the Ryzen7 3700X or increasing the capacity of the SSD.  By the way, ASRock X570 sells well in Japan.


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## Vayra86 (Oct 4, 2019)

oobymach said:


> That's the thing, it doesn't take 100gb a day to kill an ssd, you can kill areas just by browsing the internet. Your temp folder, your virtual memory, any area that's accessed regularly and repeatedly written and re-written with new stuff like webpage or game content will die first. You may not even notice but at some point your data may and probably will overlap these dead zones (which is what happened with my first 2 ssd's) and you get corruption.



Its clear you don't really know how regular SSDs these days work.

There are technologies under the hood such as wear levelling, TRIM, and overprovisioning is built-in as well. That is why many disks went from the good old 256GB to for example 250 or 240GB capacities. The NAND capacity hasn't changed, it just exposes a bit less to you.

I'm still rocking a Samsung 830... and it has been going like it was on day one. Zero speed loss, zero stability problems, good drive health, SMART values are all OK. If you bought into some of the bad controllers back in the day then yes, your situation may occur. But yours is an N=1 (2?) experience. Irrelevant in the larger scheme of things.

Endurance testing shows time and time again that even with the newer NAND (TLC, MLC, VNAND, no expections) the controllers have become so good there are no real problems. In most cases, the specced TBW is exceeded, and *royally*, at that. The jury is still out on QLC... but we already know that might be pushing things too far both for endurance and speed concerns for long-term / somewhat heavier consumer/prosumer usage. Even so, one QLC drive isn't the other.

I've had more mechanical HDD failures (2) in the past five years than I've had problems with an SSD. And one of those HDDs was a new one too... bought at the same time as the Samsung 830, and already got replaced because of too many bad sectors, and getting more noisy than it should. That alone counters your experience... but I won't be saying every mechanical HDD is worse than an SSD.


I read you had OCZ drives... those were notorious for being some of the worst ones in history. So yea... buyer's due diligence, next time, instead of blanket statements about technology you don't understand.


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