Frost [moved]Apr 15, 2021

Hey, so!

We've used laptops all our life, been dealing with Cables Everywhere and external everything and never being able to upgrade anything ever and honestly we're kinda fed up with it all...

so we wanna build ourselves a desktop!

Buuut we're looking at like $350, oof.
[https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Mchkrr]

We currently have $100, so a $250 goal (we're going to save too but it's slow)... anyone wanna help us out?
https://paypal.me/mirrorwolf

Show threadFrost [moved]Apr 16, 2021
Okay, with a huge RAM upgrade (much faster 8GB instead of slow 4GB) and a significantly better case, that bumps the cost up to $430 (so $300 goal). But worth it. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tvspkX
Show thread Noma Apr 16, 2021
@IceWolf (you can go cheaper on the SSD if that helps!)
Show threadFrost [moved]Apr 16, 2021
@Nomaxice (We can? Oh that would help! NVMe was only like $8 more than the particular SATA drive we picked (and $8 we could cover out of pocket), but I didn't think to look at other SATA ones.)
Show thread Noma Apr 16, 2021
@IceWolf Yeah, like I said, especially for the usecase, you really don't need super duper stuff, you can always get a high end SSD later on, after you upgraded the rest, but at this point an NVMe one would pretty much peg the CPU up because it's so fast, so you might as well look for what's available for cheaper than this
Show threadFrost [moved]Apr 16, 2021

@Nomaxice How much should we worry about name-brand for SSDs? Don't want it to fail on us, even though this /is/ a temporary stopgap.

(gods, being able to just decide to upgrade the storage... wow.)

Show thread Noma Apr 16, 2021
@IceWolf Not tooooo much?
Like, what matters is the controller, the cache, and what tech is used, really
Linus from LTT tried a fat dove racing brand SSD that was super cheap yet super amazing despite being a completely borked brand xD
Show threadFrost [moved]Apr 16, 2021

@Nomaxice Cool!

That's $20 saved. :3 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DFCwvf

Show thread Noma Apr 16, 2021
@IceWolf 3D TLC with SLC cache? Good enough! ^^
Show threadFrost [moved]Apr 16, 2021
@Nomaxice Honestly we have /no/ idea what any of that means, we just got the cheapest one we could find. >,,>
Show thread Noma 

@IceWolf so, to store more data on flash memory, they got a way to store multiple bits per flash unit.
SLC is the old, single bit per unit.
MLC is 2 bits per unit.
TLC is 3 bits per unit
QLC is 4 bits per unit

Upside: more storage for cheaper
Downside: less performance and more wear

Having a cache, however, SLC cache, alone, will help have good performance, and reduce wear on high LC counts.

3D just means they stack flash chips basically to store more on a single area of PCB.

Apr 16, 2021 at 12:51pmWeb