I've got some homework ahead of me as I only brush up on hardware when I need to build out a machine. I'm completely behind on hardware now, so I'll be spending a few days just exploring it. I see a couple other relatively recent build threads here and will be exploring those, too, for input.
I'm going to work on this and keep some notes here as I go. Bear with me...
For cases ... something with good airflow is a must, preferably with filtering options since we have a lot of animals and dust. Lighting effects, clear windows, etc ... aren't needed, but are nice to look at.
For HDD's ... I'm thinking it's time to move into a RAID array to improve my load/access times - and would still want to use a good SSD for the OS (not in the array). I'm looking for multiple terabytes of drive space to expand into (I like to keep every PC game I own installed without needing to uninstall/reinstall to make space; current that's sitting at around 1.5TB across 5 older drives). I'm not even sure if RAID is a good choice for gaming. Research (and opinions here) will tell...
- I could re-use my SATAIII 64GB SSD for the OS. It's 5 years old, but still running well - and the OS isn't a big deal to me if I need to reinstall it if/when this fails. Steam apparently can see old installs and tie back into them if I have to rebuild the OS, and it's pretty painless to reinstall other digitally owned games. A 'nice to have' but not essential component right now.
- If I use a minimal number of 3TB drives...
- 2 drives at RAID 0 is double the read/write speed, but lacks survivability. I'd have 6TB of drive space - ~$210
- RAID 1 is good for survivability, but isn't quite as fast and cuts the space in half. I'd have 3TB of drive space, with maybe twice the read speed and no write gain. ~$210
- RAID 5 requires at least 3 hard drives, but boosts read speed and survivability. I'd have 6TB of space, double read speed, and can lose a drive. ~$315
- RAID 10 requires at least 4 drives, and greatly boosts read and write, and I can lose a drive safely - but cuts into drive space a lot. 4x read speed, 2x write speed, 6TB of space - ~$420
- I suppose this decision needs to be put on hold until the other components are selected, with at least $210 in mind for hard drives.
- Instead of 6TB of space with some arrays, I could use smaller drives to get 3TB of space and lower the cost.
- 3TB is an objective simply based on the current growth of my games library. 6TB is probably optimal to carry through into the next build 5 years down the road, but not a requirement.
- Western Digital has always been a preferred brand, but they seem to have gone off the deep end and make drives for specific purposes now? Color coded... Purple Surveillance, Red NAS, Gold Datacenter, Black Performance (Gaming?), Blue Home PC... so I guess I'm looking at the Black options and their competitors' parts.
- 4 2TB Western Digital Black drives in RAID 10 would offer the most performance, 4TB of space, but costs $560. I could save hours of time waiting for load screens in the next 5 years using this, though.
For CPU ... 99% of what I do is gaming and web browsing. I don't farm bitcoins or do fiendishly complex celestial calculations.
- A previous thread here suggests the i5 is a solid choice as a lot of games don't take advantage of the i7's capabilities (yet?). Also saves on the budget.