What is the best possible and versatile gaming rig you can build for 800$?

[Fascinate]

You would think that but unless you are installing games constantly or really working your hard drive you wont tell a difference. My mother just got a windows 10 laptop. it boots up in ~12 seconds and is fully usable at that point. Windows 10 does an incredible job with start up and shut down, which traditionally is where SSD's shine. Game load times are really not a worry either with HDD's, were talking a second here second there.

That said SSD's are really cheap right now (well not really, but compared to prices in the past). Tell us what your planned build is and we can suggest where to skimp if your budget is still 800. I wouldnt go any smaller than 128 you get slow downs in reads/writes under that, this is a decent 128 for 41 bucks:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009SX6VLC/?tag=pcpapi-20

[Lathais]

You would think that but unless you are installing games constantly or really working your hard drive you wont tell a difference. My mother just got a windows 10 laptop. it boots up in ~12 seconds and is fully usable at that point. Windows 10 does an incredible job with start up and shut down, which traditionally is where SSD's shine. Game load times are really not a worry either with HDD's, were talking a second here second there.

That said SSD's are really cheap right now (well not really, but compared to prices in the past). Tell us what your planned build is and we can suggest where to skimp if your budget is still 800.

12s? My Win 8.1 machine boots up in less than half that. I can do a full reboot in less time than that. A full reboot, from pressing restart to having firefox back open and loaded takes around 8-10 seconds.

As for load times, depends entirely on the game. In fact, in some MMOs, like WoW, having an SSD actually does improve FPS in crowded areas, where it is having to get a lot of data from the HDD/SSD to load it, as well.

However, it was also fairly noticeable to me as my wife and I were both playing GTAV, I have SSD she does not, and the difference in load times was very very noticeable and more than just a second here and there. More like 5-10 seconds on each load screen. Other games, like FFXIV, the SSD makes no difference at all.

[Fascinate]

12s? My Win 8.1 machine boots up in less than half that. I can do a full reboot in less time than that. A full reboot, from pressing restart to having firefox back open and loaded takes around 8-10 seconds.

As for load times, depends entirely on the game. In fact, in some MMOs, like WoW, having an SSD actually does improve FPS in crowded areas, where it is having to get a lot of data from the HDD/SSD to load it, as well.

However, it was also fairly noticeable to me as my wife and I were both playing GTAV, I have SSD she does not, and the difference in load times was very very noticeable and more than just a second here and there. More like 5-10 seconds on each load screen. Other games, like FFXIV, the SSD makes no difference at all.

You are splitting hairs here, 12seconds 6 seconds that isnt the point. Windows 7 on a HDD were talking a minute or more to boot up. The only game ive seen that has more than a few second faster load times is the division, more like 5-6 seconds. In WoW the only difference you will see is initial load time for your character, past that and HDD load times are nearly identical to SSD. Im not saying he shouldnt get an SSD just that not to expect a massive difference on windows 10 like it was on windows 7.

Also the bolded part, ya thats literally impossible. Im sure you saw this yourself or you wouldnt post it, but trust me your increased FPS was due to another factor not a SSD.

[Lathais]

Also the bolded part, ya thats literally impossible. Im sure you saw this yourself or you wouldnt post it, but trust me your increased FPS was due to another factor not a SSD.

This is not something I have seen myself as I have not had an active WoW account in ages, but I have seen multiple reports about it. Due to the fact that in a crowded area the GPU needs to wait on model to get loaded from the HDD, it can increase FPS, though it's really only in crowded areas such as main cities.

[Kagthul]

This is not something I have seen myself as I have not had an active WoW account in ages, but I have seen multiple reports about it. Due to the fact that in a crowded area the GPU needs to wait on model to get loaded from the HDD, it can increase FPS, though it's really only in crowded areas such as main cities.

Uh, yeah, not so much. WoW pre-caches things you cant even see yet as it is. Anyone telling you an SSD improved their framerates in WoW is full of it.

[Lathais]

Uh, yeah, not so much. WoW pre-caches things you cant even see yet as it is. Anyone telling you an SSD improved their framerates in WoW is full of it.

So when you are moving through a crowded area it has already pre-cached the thousands of different character/hair/weapon/armor models?

Making me really want to test this, doesn't seem like it would be too hard. Simply have WoW on SSD and HDD. Load from 1, log in and fly through busy city, note FPS. Close WoW, load from other and do the same. I do not have an active WoW account, but if someone could do this, would be interesting to see.

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Here is one place I saw this info:
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=...ve-performance

Specifically:

That's all very dependent on the HDD and the computer. WoW keeps a soft-cap on its RAM. It unloads and reloads things in chunks to avoid hemorrhaging memory (since it's loading such a large landscape). Pay close attention to the fluidness of the game as you move through the landscape (especially on a fast flying mount, and especially in more graphically intensive and complex parts of the world): you'll see micro-stutters occurring rather regularly. This seems to be when the client hits a spot where it wasn't pre-loading the data quick enough and has to pause the client for a few milliseconds to get more landscape data off the HDD. An SSD should entirely do away with these microstutters.

As to the OP, yes put WoW on the SSD. That's the point of them. WoW, your programs, your operating system should all go on the SSD. That's what will benefit most from the increase in throughput and reduction of access times. Your whole computer will feel noticeably "snappier" if you load up all of those things on the SSD, and reserve the HDD for things like movies and music files (where speed doesn't matter, but ample storage space does).

and:

I can confirm this... I was using HDD with 7200RPM 32MB cache and upgraded to samsung 830 SDD and overall FPS did increase as well as when flying really high the FPS wasnt spiking up and down as much as it did before plus fast loading.

This is kinda old data, but I swear I saw someone elses here recently say the same thing. They moved WoW to their SSD, no other changes to system or add-ons or anything, and noticed less stuttering and improved FPS, though only in crowded areas where there is far far too much stuff to pre-load.

Here is some more data that supports the same thing:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2251166

Sure, in games where it does not have to load a lot, it does not really help, but in specific games where mass amounts of landscape or model data must be loaded in to RAM, like in WoW when you enter a crowded area or are flying up high and fast, it can at the least reduce stuttering and increase FPS.

It's a very specific circumstance that only happens in some areas of some games though.

[Artorius]

WoW simply won't even render the characters if it didn't finish loading everything that it needs to. You don't get lower framerates because you're loading textures, you simply don't see them until they're loaded.

[Lathais]

Ok, I am going to attempt to test this with my friends account this weekend if he'll let me. Possibly even later tonight since he is coming over for D&D anyway, we'll see if we have time after our session. I'll start it D/Ling when I get home and will hopefully be finished by the time we are done. I'll stream it, so keep an eye on twitch.tv/lathais if you are interested.

[Master Guns]

Um yeah sorry, trust me an SSD for an OS is huge. Improves life so much. 1 min boot up times to 6 seconds. I have one.

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I am not talking about putting games in the SSD. I referring to a small SSD for just the OS. All games will be saved on the hdd.

[Artorius]

Sounds like you're comparing Windows 7 boot at a HD with 8.1/10 boot at a SSD.

I have a machine here with Windows 10 installed at a HD and it goes to the desktop in less than 10s.

[Master Guns]

Going to the desktop is not the benchmark. Having everything set up and functional is the benchmark. I can hit the power button ok my PC and in 9 seconds I can be loading this page.

[Artorius]

Going to the desktop is not the benchmark. Having everything set up and functional is the benchmark. I can hit the power button ok my PC and in 9 seconds I can be loading this page.

Not exactly hard to do this either. Just use Edge instead and you get 2~ seconds ahead of Chrome/FF lol.

[Master Guns]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ck9kCJ

What about this build? It's a mix of a few of your alls.

[BetrayedOf52]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ck9kCJ

What about this build? It's a mix of a few of your alls.

Solid imo, the cooler that comes with the Intel Core i5-6500 works fine too, I see you didn't add one, my friend has been using the stock cooler no problem for months now.

[Master Guns]

Solid imo, the cooler that comes with the Intel Core i5-6500 works fine too, I see you didn't add one, my friend has been using the stock cooler no problem for months now.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[Lathais]

Ok, I am going to attempt to test this with my friends account this weekend if he'll let me. Possibly even later tonight since he is coming over for D&D anyway, we'll see if we have time after our session. I'll start it D/Ling when I get home and will hopefully be finished by the time we are done. I'll stream it, so keep an eye on twitch.tv/lathais if you are interested.

As a sort of update to this, did not make a video yet, however, I was able to log in on a char I had under level 20 in Org. Org was not very packed but I did notice that on the SSD my FPS never dipped below 95 on the HDD it was dipping down to 80-85. There was a small difference. Not very noticeable or anything, but there was a measurable difference in FPS.

I would like to go to a more crowded area, but not sure I can really get to any very crowded areas on my level 16 without access to the recent expansion. Nor can I fly as no access to flying mount. I also did not have enough gold to purchase 30 days as I gave the majority of it away when I quit playing. Will see about checking my wife's account later today.