End of Year PC Build

You don't split the page file across all drives or to its own drive?

I would need one that can go for up to four hours though. For once its done the PC job it would need to be plugged into the freezer and the Microwave.

I see... In that case I would probably have just started over. If it included pictures of memories necessary to keep I would just have remembered them in my head instead of going through the trouble. Guess I am not such a sentimentalist. Lucky you got it done as a favor.

I will rely on my experience I have encountered till then. And as Kappa issue are showing Windows 11 may not like SSD's either...

I refer to my traditional hard drive experience and to stick with them till the evidence proves you wrong or right. I am not the kind who goes out and just replaces dead drives on a whim. If they die they die and don't get replaced till all are going to be. Hard drives must endure and by that I mean nearing a decade of service. THAT is paramount to me. Performance can take a back seat if necessary. I don't really care if you mock me for sticking to tried and true.

Sorry for wall of text but when I get a lot of information I try to give as much information as I can and hope it helps:

What you want isn't so much outdated as not conforming to Microsoft's -"Let us be Borg approach". So I see nothing wrong with it. Also anyone who works somewhere is going to try and sell you items you may not want or need and if you want different sometimes you have to do it yourself. 

You could try the Ameliorated Windows 10 version that Bmwcrazy mentioned in the past -it will not work for me but maybe it would be for you. Though I think there is talk its got spyware within so maybe not a good idea. You could look into Windows 10 Black Edition but I also think that its spyware laden. Though if your technically inclined you can probably remove most of the spyware. Personally I burned an ISO of Windows 10 Enterprise 1909 long time back and install Windows 10 -while internet is disabled in the BIOS. That way Windows can't find no internet period. 

The only thing a M.2 hard drive will help with is maybe bootiness as an OS drive and will help in snappiness in menus and the saving and load times if its the game drive. All of this pandering that "You must have M.2" is bollocks at the best of it. Any traditional hard drive will work as an OS or game drive. If you see a traditional drive cheaper than a M.2 I don't see why it won't work. Will it load as fast as M.2 -no. BUT it will work if time isn't a bother -just will take longer.

M.2 will not actually make the games run faster. If your Commander Shepard who is standing there in the ME2 Arrival DLC waiting for the timer to run out the M.2 isn't going to speed that up. Speaking as some who has multiple drives -4+ and more in the new build. I would advise keeping the games and OS separate. Also most mod programs now ask where you want your mod items to go -even the Fallout 76 one does.

When you partition a SSD -while it does not cause degradation in performance -if you have to reinstall the OS multiple times then that section will become unusable first. So after a time that space will not function and you will have to use space for games as the OS partition. Also if you put games on the same drive with the OS then that will fill up the SSD faster and one thing about SSD's -they like free space -the fuller they get the slower they eventually run.

In my view if using a SSD and want it to have a LONG and productive life -you should keep free space above 40%+ free space. So in my opinion its best to keep it two drives -one for OS and one for games. If your game collection is massive though you may want to consider three drives. One for OS. Then two drives for games: half and half. That would keep the drives free space high and keep the SSD performance up longer than most who just fill up hard drives. It may be more expensive but it pays off in the long run.  

If you want to know how long a Hard Drive will last you can check using Crystal Disk Info but I don't really use it since it just goes off the S.M.A.R.T. data. I prefer using Hard Drive Sentinel -it even shows estimated Drive life left. Had a friend who used HDS and it reported 6GB of damaged sectors and a suspected drive life time left of about a week. He didn't believe and took it to Microcenter and they basically verified what HDS had told him. They also tried to sell him a whole new computer when all he wanted was to replace the drive but they didn't expect is his fortitude. Saved himself $1200 getting the drive replaced versus getting a completely new PC -with speed he didn't need: only does email and minecraft. 

Hope it helps. 

After re-installing Windows on June 16th and using my PC with nothing but Edge and my Bitdender on it (without any issues whatsoever)....Today, I finally got around to re-installing all my other programs and games such as CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller Pro, Corsair iCue (for my liquid Cooler) etc....and for the last 4 hours.....my PC has been running beautifully.


I will monitor this over the next few weeks. *Paws, Ears, Whiskers and drumsticks crossed for continued problem-free behaviours and usage*

There is no news yet. I didn't touch the PC yesterday at all. Was busy.

Now it's Monday morning and sometime in the afternoon/evening the PC will be picked up again and then I don't expect to hear anything about it until Tuesday evening.

I'll send the guy all the error codes I got and fingers crossed he can figure out what is going on. If it's damaged hardware I'll have to replace with and I guess fixing the computer is going to take a while. :/

I still don't know what to do about a new GPU either. It's a choice between the 4070 and having to upgrade to something with more vRAM soon. Or going overboard with a 4090 so that I can use it for 5 years. I'd really love to try Cyberpunk overdrive mode. It CAN be done with DLSS on a 4070 but meh. I know I'd be unhappy with a 4070 for modding. But I might also be unhappy if next generation I can get 4090 performance for half the price. It's almost three times the price of the 4070 for double the performance. So that would be really stupid too. I have less than a month to decide because I want the new card for BG3.

But first my PC needs to be running at all...

I see the 4070Ti as the worst option because it's expensive and still has only 12GB! That's a big no-no for me as a modder. Performance is great right now, that is true. But the vRAM will be a problem as quickly as with the 4070. I'd rather get the 4080 instead but the pricing is the worst of them all and for that much money I want 24GB. I've been carefully watching prices. They kept dropping but they're already getting more expensive again. Ugh. I doubt the 4080 will be available for below 1000€ anytime soon if ever. This all sucks so bad. I don't expect the pricing to be better for the next generation and I really need a new card now. So waiting even longer is not an option for me anymore. I guess it will come down to either the 4070 dropping in price further or the 4090. I expect neither.

Really maybe prices are different in Australia? Mine cost $1,249 AUD which was comparable in USD but not sure about Euro's.

12GB is pretty huge for V-Ram but I am no expert and for the games I am playing, or plan to play that's overkill. The guide I used was 4GB VRAM as a minimum for 1080p gaming and I have a 1080p monitor, 6GB for 1440p and 8GB for 4K.

From what I researched the 4070Ti is a way better option performance and longevity wise than the 4080 and in Australia far cheaper.

Quote from someone I asked and trusted: The 4070Ti is perfect for 1440p and can do both Ultra settings and high frame rate at that resolution. It can do 4k fairly well too, probably at High settings and lower FPS (still above 60ish) but would be better if the game has DLSS support.

I am currently playing at 120 capped FPS with 2880x1620 Resolution upscaled to 3000x1800+ resolution.

I have no idea however how MODDING which you as a user do affects anything.

This will be telling. You running with or without the suspected devices?  

You get insane VRAM usage when you start modding your games like using custom high resolution texture packs.

Newer PS5 and Xbox X/S ports use a lot of VRAM as well.

Jedi Survivor can use up to 13GB of VRAM with epic ray-tracing at 1440p and even up to 18GB at 4K with max settings. I play Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p with max settings and the game regularly uses more than 10GB of VRAM.