LDD hardware support

[legolijntje]

Well, there's nothing wrong with the 840 EVO, the original 840 had indeed some flaws, but the new EVO version is a lot better. There's nothing wrong with the TLC, wince Samsung has put a SLC cache in the EVO, for fast writing speeds. Reading speeds are just fast on the TLC itself. The 840 Pro has MLC, it may be a little faster and it can handle larger operations, but in everyday use, the 840 EVO is very good.

You don't have to worry about TLC's lifespan either. Calculations and experiments show that the EVO ssd's have a lifespan of 15-20 years at heavy usage.

[johnboy]

That would be much more than you need for LDD. This is some kind of game-machine that a lot of gamers would dream about

Of course, I don't know what other things you want to do with your pc, but this is good enough for LDD for sure. You would be able to handle quite some big files with that

The friend who recommended these parts is a gamer, so I guess that explains it. As I don't play computer games all I want to do is use it for LDD and surf the net.

Thank you all for your inputs as now I have something to think about.

[legolijntje]

I would recommend something like this:

• Processor: AMD Athlon II 750K Boxed
  
• Motherbord: Gigabyte G.1 Sniper A88X
  
• Graphics Card: MSI R7850-2GD5/OC, or if you want 2 screens: Club3D Radeon HD 7870'13Series
  
• RAM: Crucial BallistiX Tactical BLT2C4G3D1608ET3LX0CEU
  
• SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB or 250GB
  
• HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST1000DM003 1TB
  
• Power Supply: Corsair Builder CX430 Bronze
  
• CPU Cooler: Gelid Solutions Tranquillo Rev.2
  
• And choose a case you like. Make sure it's the ATX motherboard format and it can include 2.5 inch SSD or includes an SSD bracket, otherwise you can buy a seperate one.
  
• Optional: you can also include a CD/DVD reader if you want. You can also add a card reader if you want (for SD cards, MicroSD cards etc).
  

This would cost about €500-€600.

Of course, you can choose other parts. But this would be good enough for browsing internet, using LDD, maybe do some easy photoshopping and playing an game every now and then on medium settings. But, these are just my thoughts. You can make the machine even more simple (and cheaper), but that would be really minimal and only internet and a bit of LDD. This is more future resistent. Of course, the machine your friend recommended is even more future resistent

Just wondering; will your friend build the thing?

[Calabar]

About the configuration, another cheap solution could be to wait for the new AMD APU in January.

Kaveri APU has steamroller cores and GNC GPU with HSA, Mantle and True Audio support. A good step ahead compared to the present APUs.

For LDD it is surely enough, the first configuration is really oversized for the use you have described above.

If your fear is to buy a PC that will not be longeval, you are true, this machine will be surely less longeval than the the previous one. But the cost is 1/3. That mean that you can use the extra budget to update the machine in a few years, saving some money and having a most up to date machine over years.

@legolijntje

840 EVO is surely better than original 840, but at the same price you can buy an SSD with less cheap MLC.

Even with its caches, the 840 EVO don't "shine" in some situations, and the TLC are a "new entry", no one really knows about their real endurance and problems. And I don't like to be a beta tester for Samsung!

Given that any SSD, even cheaper ones, is a good choice for a modern machine, in the case of a over 1,5k dollars computer I think that the 840 pro is a better choice. I suggest the 840 evo, Crucial M4, Plextor M5S, etc... for a cheaper machine.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Calabar

[johnboy]

Of course, the machine your friend recommended is even more future resistent

Just wondering; will your friend build the thing?

No he is too busy but he did put me in contact with someone who will build it for me. I will go ahead with this system after the new year. Once again thank you all for your helpful inputs

[Lego Otaku]

+1 AMD CPU instead of Intel. AMD CPU is much cheaper, often more than 75% cheaper than similar Intel CPU. The savings can be used toward bigger SSD for booting and OS or more RAM for better overall performance.

LDD is pretty much CPU dependent with little benefit from high end video card. A standard 4 core is enough if you're not going to do any heavy work like photoshopping or video rendering.

My computer is an overpowered rig: dual XEON X5650 (about $3,000 for CPU and dual socket motherboard) and if I could do it again, I would have settled for cheaper solution. Dual XEON with hyperthreading is equivalent to a single 24-core CPU. It rips through models in POV-Ray tracing in minutes what comparable computer would need in hours but 24-process doesn't help LDD itself. It still goes slow over 10k piece counts and becomes unstable at over 100k piece counts. Plus most games are good up to 2 or 3 cores so my computer's wasting on average about 90% of total power :/