PC Upgrade Time

[ste852]

Hello all, it's been a while since I last posted but I was looking for some advice. I am looking at upgrading the current SSD I have and also the RAM. My current system specs are:-

I7 3770K @4.5
MSI Z77A-GD55 Motherboard
Kingston Hyper X 8GB (2X4GB) 1600Mhz RAM
MSI GTX 970 Gaming
Kingston Hyper X 120GB SSD (Boot Drive) + 2TB HDD
Corsair 850W PSU

I am wanting to double the capacity of both the SSD and the RAM but I am at a bit of a loss as to what to get that is good for gaming and light web browsing but doesn't cost the earth, I'd like to hit the sweet spot for performance/cost ratio. If I can get some recommendations please that would be awesome.

Thanks.

[Marc_92]

240gb ssd is normally the sweet spot for price/size ratio. For the RAM, I am unsure if an extra 8gb would be required since you mentioned the pc is for gaming/ light browsing. There is a crucial 500gb ssd for £122 which is a pretty good deal.

[pastymuncher]

I wouldn't touch the ram. 8Gb is more than enough for gaming and even going for faster stuff will make little to no noticeable difference either. Just go for the best 250Gb or even 500Gb SSD you can afford.

[ste852]

Thanks for the replies guys, which 240GB SSD's are recommended these days? That 500GB SSD does look nice though even if it does make me feel a little uncomfortable paying that much lol.

Well I thought 8GB would be enough as well but I managed to max out the 8GB the other day just playing Bioshock Infinite and got massive frame rate drops, nothing was running in the background that wasn't running normally so I thought I'd look into it at least and if it happens again on other games I'd Up the RAM.

[pastymuncher]

£122 for a 500gb SSD is a very good price. It wasn't that long ago we were paying that for 120gb drives. The Samsung 840 (older) and 850 (newer) series seem to be the best regarded ones. I have a pair in my pc, a Sandisk Extreme 240gb for my C drive and a Crucial M500 240Gb just for Steam. My next will be a 1Tb so I can get rid of the pair of 240gb ones.

[ARr0w]

i'd be happy to have that. What to upgrade in that, i find it awesome.

[KeyboardDemon]

If you are only having issues with one game then it might be down to that one game and not your lack of system ram, the combined total that you would have put into upgrade your ram and SSD would have come to more than the price of the £122 SSD, I think you should get that SSD and forget about the ram.

[ste852]

Well since I has only happened with that one game so far I was going to wait and see if it happens with other games as well but so far it hasn't happened yet.

I do like that SSD that Marc_92 linked me too, are their any other's that are reccomended before I pull the trigger on that one? Also do I need any special program to make an exact copy of my current SSD so I can simply unlpug the old and plug in the new once I'm done or can windows handle that?

[KeyboardDemon]

Windows does have tools that will allow you to move/copy your OS from one drive to another, tools like DISM which are part of Windows PE can look after that for you, but they are not a simple GUI based set of tools. There are some free/shareware tools that can do this job with a graphical user interface though. I think there's one called DD but I don't have much experience with this and will most likely be trying to perform a similar operation but using the Windows tools just as an exercise to see if I can manage it.

[Agrippa]

AOMEI Backupper is a free and simple backup/cloning utility which I used myself a little while ago when moving from a 128GB to a 250GB SSD. It has options for "System Clone" and "Disk Clone", which both appear to do the same job (according to the manual). However, using "System Clone" requires you to either upgrade to Pro or praise the program on social media, so I never bothered with any of that.

Very easy to use and pretty fast (although I've not compared it to anything else), so it may be worth a look. Worked fine for me anyway.

[ste852]

Ordered the 500GB SSD now. Thanks for the inputs guy's, I'll give AOMEI Backupper a go as well when it arrives, Fingers crossed it all goes well.

[Agrippa]

It's a pretty straightforward procedure, so you should have no problems.

- Connect new SSD
- Initialise it if needed
- Run Backupper, couple of clicks and let it do its job
- When done shut down PC and swap out the old SSD for the new
- Turn on again and boot from shiny new drive

[ste852]

Thanks dude, I'll give it a go when it arrive's. It's looking like it will be either tomorrow or Friday when it will turn up.

[ste852]

Update!

Drive arrived yesterday and I have managed to get it installed and all files copied over successfully this morning and it's running like a dream, Thanks a bunch guys.

I have one more request though, can someone help me find the right size mic sponge to fit me Corsair Vengeance 1500 please, I'm struggling a little bit.

[defcon1]

I would try to contact Corsair on their website and see if they can supply one.