![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Since there has been a lot of talk about solid-state recently, I thought that I would convey my experiences.
I have been wanting to build a computer with a SS drive for the longest time- having finally done so, it feels great.
Here's my disclaimers: I am not an OCer, my equipment is considered budget, even to myself, and take this with a grain of salt. I did not have a nice stopwatch to time this.
I just recently purchased an HP sr1710nx on the March Madness $200 sale.
Tossed in an Aspire 500wt SLI Ready ATX2.0 24-pin Power Supply (thanks six_storm).
Bought what I thought to be a v1.1 i-Ram from eWiz, but turned out to be a v1.3 (nice surprise).
Filled with Crucial PC3200 1GB sticks for a total of 4GB (had on hand- see my memory whore post)
Added an eVga 7800 GT CO.
and 2 x 512MB Crucial PC3200 Value Ram and 2 x 512MB Kingston PC3200 Value Ram
Everything else is stock- even the crappy Sempron (I told you it was budget didn't I?).
I had to install TinyXP (for those who dont know what this is- google it up) with my license since a default XP install stripped down was still running in the 2GB neighborhood. What I wanted to do was to have XP and BF2 on the ram drive and later install the drive that came with the PC for other apps and files.
BTW, I never noticed it before, but BF2 requires 2Gb of space to patch! =( I had to play around with some ghost tricks to get this to work. Installed TinyXP, drivers, and BF2 to the i-Ram, ghost the drive to the included 100GB SATA, patch, and ghost back. For those who has ghost and have problems with it and SATA drives, make sure you use the -noide flag.
Anyhow, hours later, I had an install that would launch XP in approximately 8 seconds. Remember the XP is loading bar? I would normally launch XP within about 10 rounds/rotations of that bar- my system now launches within 2.5 rounds!
As for BF2, I had set everything at high @ 1280 x 1024 @ 75Hz. The i-Ram didn't show any speed increases in the initial game load, but boy was it fast on a level load. I was averaging 15 second loads on maps. Now something I noticed which was kind of strange is that if I loaded a new map I havent played yet on this new build, it would take 20-25 secs to start, otherwise it would be consistent in the 15 seconds time.
Fast! And yes, I have it on a low res due to my crappy 17" LCD.
The best part is on maps that the server did not add a wait period for commander selection, I was in well before anyone else. I'm not too familiar with map names, but the one where the Chinese and US forces face off in a marshland- I was into that game so quick, that I took a helicopter and took the US spawn point before anyone else spawned. Then of course the rest of my teamates captured the other 2 points (set on small map) and the game ended in less than 1 minute!
I think that was the best part of last night!
Sorry about the non-scientificness of the tests, but if anyone want me to run some sort of test, LMK.
BTW, I still have 1.01GB left on the i-RAM!
I have been wanting to build a computer with a SS drive for the longest time- having finally done so, it feels great.
Here's my disclaimers: I am not an OCer, my equipment is considered budget, even to myself, and take this with a grain of salt. I did not have a nice stopwatch to time this.
I just recently purchased an HP sr1710nx on the March Madness $200 sale.
Tossed in an Aspire 500wt SLI Ready ATX2.0 24-pin Power Supply (thanks six_storm).
Bought what I thought to be a v1.1 i-Ram from eWiz, but turned out to be a v1.3 (nice surprise).
Filled with Crucial PC3200 1GB sticks for a total of 4GB (had on hand- see my memory whore post)
Added an eVga 7800 GT CO.
and 2 x 512MB Crucial PC3200 Value Ram and 2 x 512MB Kingston PC3200 Value Ram
Everything else is stock- even the crappy Sempron (I told you it was budget didn't I?).
I had to install TinyXP (for those who dont know what this is- google it up) with my license since a default XP install stripped down was still running in the 2GB neighborhood. What I wanted to do was to have XP and BF2 on the ram drive and later install the drive that came with the PC for other apps and files.
BTW, I never noticed it before, but BF2 requires 2Gb of space to patch! =( I had to play around with some ghost tricks to get this to work. Installed TinyXP, drivers, and BF2 to the i-Ram, ghost the drive to the included 100GB SATA, patch, and ghost back. For those who has ghost and have problems with it and SATA drives, make sure you use the -noide flag.
Anyhow, hours later, I had an install that would launch XP in approximately 8 seconds. Remember the XP is loading bar? I would normally launch XP within about 10 rounds/rotations of that bar- my system now launches within 2.5 rounds!
As for BF2, I had set everything at high @ 1280 x 1024 @ 75Hz. The i-Ram didn't show any speed increases in the initial game load, but boy was it fast on a level load. I was averaging 15 second loads on maps. Now something I noticed which was kind of strange is that if I loaded a new map I havent played yet on this new build, it would take 20-25 secs to start, otherwise it would be consistent in the 15 seconds time.
Fast! And yes, I have it on a low res due to my crappy 17" LCD.
The best part is on maps that the server did not add a wait period for commander selection, I was in well before anyone else. I'm not too familiar with map names, but the one where the Chinese and US forces face off in a marshland- I was into that game so quick, that I took a helicopter and took the US spawn point before anyone else spawned. Then of course the rest of my teamates captured the other 2 points (set on small map) and the game ended in less than 1 minute!
I think that was the best part of last night!
Sorry about the non-scientificness of the tests, but if anyone want me to run some sort of test, LMK.
BTW, I still have 1.01GB left on the i-RAM!
