What are your computer specs? Thread.

[RainbowBlade]

Why?

Because it is better than dynamic RAM.

 

[BobK]

Because it is better than dynamic RAM.

And why is it better?

 

[Daz555]

And why is it better?

Pro - Faster. Much much faster. This is why it is used in memory caches etc.
Con - Lower density than DRAM. Expensive - very.

As far as I'm aware it is not possible to build a modern PC that utilises SRAM for your system RAM.

 

[RainbowBlade]

I'd only want enough to use for the most basic tasks, and to store the hiberfil.sys in.

 

[Silent Drifter]

Built my gaming computer in January, just before things went downhill with the pandemic.

- Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 3900x
- Motherboard: Asus Prime x570-Pro
- Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4 RAM 3200mhz
- Storage: 1TB Sabrent NVME Gen 4.0/2TB Sabrent NVME Gen 3.0/8TB External Storage
- Graphics: MSI 2070 Super
- Power Supply: Corsair RMX White Series 850W 80+ Gold Fully Modular
- Monitor(s): 49" Samsung CRG90 5120x1440p/Sceptre E22W secondary monitor.

Next thing is probably an AIO to cool the CPU down. I might upgrade to the 3090 next year. But I'm in no hurry. The 2070 Super is doing fine.

 

[Alex Porter]

Originally built my current PC back in October 2017 but with the arrival of the new Microsoft Flight Sim I thought it was time for a partial upgrade freshening up.

Went from a i7 7700k to i9 10900k
Z270 to Z490
16gb to 32gb ram (3200)
And a fresh new CPU water cooler.

Had previously upgraded the GPU from a GTX1080ti to my current RTX2080ti in 2019..

Windows 10 Home 64bit
Intel i9 10900K @ 5.3GHz*
Gigabyte Aorus 360 ARGB LCD CPU Liquid Cooler*
MSI MEG Z490 ACE Gaming Motherboard*
32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4 3200 Ram*
Gigabyte AORUS nVidia RTX 2080Ti Xtreme Waterforce 11GB RGB
Corsair NX500 400GB NVMe PCIe SSD (boot)
Samsung 970 EVO 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD (games)
WD Blue 2.5" 1TB x2 (storage)
EVGA DG-87 E-ATX Tower Case
EVGA SuperNOVA P2 750W PSU
TrackIR 5
Samsung 49" Curved Super Ultrawide Gaming Monitor 3840x1080
*Denotes recent upgrades..

Maybe later on I'll upgrade to a 3080..?

 

[SlowGrayAudi]

Just ordered all the parts to my PC build. First one, was an avid PC gamer in my teenage years but consoles took over. Assetto corsa competizione has driven me to get a PC.

Too bad about the GPU shortage/tariffs/price hikes.

The only GPU i could get my hands on was a 3070 MSI Suprim X. I wanted a cheaper version on the 3070 but i took what i could get. Like my friend said "its only money"

Still waiting on most of the parts to show up. My budget was $1500, that i was gonna be super thrifty about and turn into $1200-1300 with the right deals, but the GPU situation ****ed me in the ass.

These new GPUs are huge!!!

 

[Brett]

At least you were able to pick up a GPU. I have been looking, but unable to find one. I should have bought a Ryzen 7 5800x yesterday when they were in stock.

 

[SlowGrayAudi]

At least you were able to pick up a GPU. I have been looking, but unable to find one. I should have bought a Ryzen 7 5800x yesterday when they were in stock.

My local microcenter get stock monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So im just going there an hour before opening on those days and stand in line.

I got lucky the first day i went i got the 3070.

Went back today and they had a 3080 but o was too far back in line. I was like #15 and they had 4 cards total. 1 3080, 1 3090, 2 3070s

 

[Brett]

I recently added this to my setup:

 

[Lain]

Contemplating downgrading back to my 780 Ti... it seems like that RX 5700 XT I bought last year could fetch $800+ on eBay, lol

 

[Nexus]

Contemplating downgrading back to my 780 Ti... it seems like that RX 5700 XT I bought last year could fetch $800+ on eBay, lol

You could, but I suspect you'd be happier with the extra performance of your 5700 XT compared to pocketing a few hundred bucks and going back to your 780Ti.

I could flip my RX 480 for a nice profit but:

a) I want more performance, not less
b) I don't know if the damn thing even works anymore, either my temporary PSU isn't good enough or the card's had it

 

[Brett]

Contemplating downgrading back to my 780 Ti... it seems like that RX 5700 XT I bought last year could fetch $800+ on eBay, lol

You could flip it, but then you would be like the rest of us wondering when we are going to actually have a chance to upgrade.

 

[Terronium-12]

My 970 cries whenever I start up a game.

No, wait, that's me crying. Yeah, that makes sense.

 

[Darla Starch]

TL;DR:

Main machine:
2019 variant of the ASUS TUF FX505DU bought right as COVID started to really kick in.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3750H
GPU: GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
RAM: 16 GB 2400 MHz (which Task Manager apparently chose to report as 2667 initially)
Storage: 256 GB WD SSD (OS)/1 TB 5400 RPM Toshiba *indistinguishable alphabet soup* HDD (other stuff)
Screen: 15.6" 1920x1080 @ 120 Hz
Performance: Hey I can get into CK2 without the main theme really getting a chance to kick in, let alone loop.

A Lenovo C330 Chromebook is the main machine's tag team partner. Less impressive (11.6" 1366x768 screen/4 GB RAM/MediaTek MT8173C/64 GB eMMC) but does have the 2-in-1 advantage, especially when being put to use for every purpose besides the one I specifically bought it for (writing, specifically ASOIAF fanfiction).

 

[Grayfox]

If I ever acquire the resources to get a new PC, I want STATIC RAM instead of DYNAMIC RAM.

The best thing you can do is disable the pagefile so everything stays in RAM.
This means you will always have a snappy experience when using any program even if it has been minimized for hours.

Nothing loads of the disk as nothing is ever stored on disk.

But you need a lot of RAM.
I push 4GiB+ on log in.

 

[Nexus]

The best thing you can do is disable the pagefile so everything stays in RAM.
This means you will always have a snappy experience when using any program even if it has been minimized for hours.

Nothing loads of the disk as nothing is ever stored on disk.
View attachment 999036

But you need a lot of RAM.
I push 4GiB+ on log in.

With today's crazy-fast SSD's, would disabling the pagefile for an OS stored on an SSD really have a perceivable impact on performance? I only have a pleb-tier SATA SSD, but from what I've gathered, PCIE SSD's feel the same as SATA ones in general usage, so I don't know if it'll be worth disabling the pagefile entirely (knowing that things can get ugly if you start to run out of RAM without a pagefile).

 

[Grayfox]

With today's crazy-fast SSD's, would disabling the pagefile for an OS stored on an SSD really have a perceivable impact on performance? I only have a pleb-tier SATA SSD, but from what I've gathered, PCIE SSD's feel the same as SATA ones in general usage, so I don't know if it'll be worth disabling the pagefile entirely (knowing that things can get ugly if you start to run out of RAM without a pagefile).

SATA 3 is limited to 6Gbit/s
Which is max 550MB/s
So a cheaper SSD may get 400MB/s

RAM oeprates at GB/s

Having pagefile on an SSD would also decreases its life, as pagefile is writing things out of RAM to the disk, but since SSDs can write 100TB before starting to fail, it wont have a big impact on life.

PCIe gen 4 boot into windows about 0.5~1s faster than a SATA based SSD.
So even using a PCIe Gen 3 SSD wont have much impact on boot times compared to a SATA SSD.

But the sequential writes, IOPS is where PCIe SSDs shine.

 

[RainbowBlade]

The best thing you can do is disable the pagefile so everything stays in RAM.
This means you will always have a snappy experience when using any program even if it has been minimized for hours.

Nothing loads of the disk as nothing is ever stored on disk.
View attachment 999036

But you need a lot of RAM.
I push 4GiB+ on log in.

I only have 4GB installed and 2.99 available because my 32-bit OS bottlenecks it...yeah.

 

[Grayfox]

I only have 4GB installed and 2.99 available because my 32-bit OS bottlenecks it...yeah.

Piss on me eyes.

I had 3.6GiB usable when I was running x86.

 

[UltimateYosh]

Using 4GB of ram and a 32-bit OS is brave in 2021.

 

[Grayfox]

Using 4GB of ram and a 32-bit OS is brave in 2021.

Depends on what you do.

I would happily run linux and using office programs and basic web browsing would be fine.

Wouldn't try it with Windows as it is too resource intensive, even on a clean install.

 

[Nexus]

Using 4GB of ram and a 32-bit OS is brave in 2021.

My mum managed to get by with 4GB RAM on her laptop (Windows 10 64 bit though) because she only uses it for basic tasks. I added another 4GB stick later down the line (parted it out from another laptop) but swapping the old HDD for an SSD was a much bigger improvement.

 

[UltimateYosh]

I guess if you are only just browsing the web and sending emails 4GB would be fine, but if you really want to do anything more on Windows 10, things will start slowing to a crawl.

Like Grayfox said, running Linux would be a lot better as it is far less resource heavy. Using any browser other than Google Chrome also helps as that basically uses up 4GB of RAM alone on my PC.

I do definitely agree that an SSD makes a far bigger difference though.

 

[Nexus]

I guess if you are only just browsing the web and sending emails 4GB would be fine, but if you really want to do anything more on Windows 10, things will start slowing to a crawl.

Like Grayfox said, running Linux would be a lot better as it is far less resource heavy. Using any browser other than Google Chrome also helps as that basically uses up 4GB of RAM alone on my PC.

I do definitely agree that an SSD makes a far bigger difference though.

I tried converting mum to using Linux Mint, but gave up in the end because of familiarity with Windows.

 

[Grayfox]

I tried converting mum to using Linux Mint, but gave up in the end because of familiarity with Windows.

Try Zorin OS, it is more windows like in looks and feel.

 

[NLxAROSA]

My 970 cries whenever I start up a game.

No, wait, that's me crying.

And that's before checking new GPU prices.

Anyway, I bought a new rig yesterday:

Core i7-11700
RTX 3060ti
16GB DDR4
512GB NVME M2 SSD
2TB HDD

Some crazyness: a 3060Ti is completely unavailable here, except from scalpers and then you pay 1000EUR. For an additional 300 EUR however I can buy this whole PC including case, PSU, mouse and keyboard, Windows 10 and warranty (New Dell XPS Tower). So the market is so crazy that I can buy a gaming rig at Dell and not have a nasty taste in my mouth as an end result, what a time to be alive ROFLMAO.

 

[Tornado]

Don't think I ever posted after I built it in December 2019, so:

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600x
GPU: EVGA RTX 2070 Super
Mobo: ASUS x570-i Strix
RAM: 2x16 DDR4-3200 G.Skill Trident Z
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 1TB NVMe, Mushkin Pilot 2TB NVMe
PSU: Corsair SF600 Platinum
Case: Silverstone SG13

A bunch of Chromax Noctua AF-9x14 fans for exhaust, and an H80i V2 with an NF-A12x25 in pull. Would have definitely saved money if I wasn't so dedicated to SFF, but what can you do. With a bunch of tweaking managed to keep the temperatures nice and under control (high 70s chipset, low 70s CPU, low 70s GPU) even when the GPU is overclocked, and it's pretty quiet for the most part.





The motherboard fried in March or last year, so I also bought a little ex-office building computer (HP EliteDesk 800 G2) to use while I was waiting for the motherboard RMA, which is nothing special:

Core i5 6500t
Sabrent 1TB NVMe
Some whatever 500GB HDD
2x8GB 2666Mhz RAM



I'll probably replace it with a Surface Pro or Envy x360 or something later this year, but it works for when I need a computer moved around (like when I'm working in the garage).

 

[NLxAROSA]

Love those small-framed builds, so much power in a little box.

 

[Brett]

Small form factor builds are very cool.