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[Nadaka]

It isn't a bad deal. Its got a good cpu and high speed disk for the price. The rest of it is kinda meh? but over all it is better than anything new that you can get in that price range.

[nenjin]

Wow, he threw a SSD in there? That might make the entire package worth it. The mobo is a drag, but, the sooner you get away from anything eMachines, IMO, the better. With eMachines there's no guarantee that anything will fit comfortably or at all. Last I checked, they were one of the worst pre-builts to have because they like to use proprietary-sized components like cases and motherboards, which makes upgrading a pain in the ass.

[Mullet Master]

Wow, he threw a SSD in there? That might make the entire package worth it.

I agree with nenjin. For $250, there's a lot of usable components now with the addition of the extra parts.

[nenjin]

Let's note though.

That's a 60 gig SSD. (Which is why it's only ~$100 on Newegg.)

To put that into perspective, Windows 7 requires 16 GBs of hard drive space. Battlefield 3, probably the top-of-the-line FPS shooter on the market right now in terms of tech and such, requires around 14 gigs of hard drive space once you have the game, DLC, Origins, blah blah.

Between just those two things, you're using up more than half that drive. And you'll use more once Win 7 gets updated about a bazillion times. Your average AAA game today is between 5 and ~9 gigs too.

So, it's not big enough to serve as a repository for all your system and game data, meaning you'll probably want to keep your second drive around. The question would be, what to put where? Obviously you'd want to put the OS on the SSD. What else you put on there would be a matter of what you need to perform the fastest. The rest, especially music and movie files, I'd put on your other drive, since you don't really need lightening fast access to it.

So while SSDs are really nice, bear in mind that it's a small drive, versus the 400gig+ drives that, until the disaster, were cheap and readily available.

[xDarkz]

Welp, I bought it. The box was HEFTY, but I expected it to be. It has room for another video card, some more SSDs and quite a bit more stuff that I can't quite remember. Everything is working as intended. I'm getting the max 60 FPS with vertical sync on some games, even higher in most other ones. I actually couldn't be happier. The only thing that's bugging me is how small the SSD is, like you guys had said. If it weren't for Windows 7 taking up a gigantic amount of memory, I'd be fine. As for a second drive, what should I be looking out for? Another SSD, or would an HDD internal or external work just fine? I don't mind a few extra seconds of load times, as long as the FPS doesn't start to dip. Can you store games on say an HDD and play them as they are?

Oh! I almost forgot guys. It's a 60 gig SSD but I'm only getting 51.1 GB of storage. I've heard of windows caching files even after deletion and I was wondering if this was the case? It's not much, but the extra 9.9 GB would do me WONDERS... Do you guys know how to fix that?

[nenjin]

The only thing that's bugging me is how small the SSD is, like you guys had said. If it weren't for Windows 7 taking up a gigantic amount of memory, I'd be fine. As for a second drive, what should I be looking out for? Another SSD, or would an HDD internal or external work just fine? I don't mind a few extra seconds of load times, as long as the FPS doesn't start to dip.

Games that are FPS centric don't tend to hit your HDD a lot. You notice the speed in loading levels mostly. So, the question is what do you want your secondary drive for? Purely data? Applications? If it's just data, your old drive should be good enough. If you want applications to run off it (like having the OS on the SSD drive but having Steam and games on a reasonably fast SATA drive), find a Serial ATA drive with the highest RPM available. It won't be as fast as the SSD drive, but it shouldn't affect game FPS for the most part.

120 GB Corsair SSD - $189 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233191

150 GB Western Digital (10,000 RPM, SATA 6GB/sec) - $139 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136928

320 GB Western Digital (7,200 RPM, SATA 3.5GB/sec) - $119 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136074

This is a decent drive all around, for non SSD.

1TB Hitachi (7,200 RPM, SATA 6GB/sec, 32 MB Cache) - $119 -http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145533

For reference, 7200 RPM is pretty much standard, and 15k rpm is pushing the limit of doing any good.

[Thief^]

Oh! I almost forgot guys. It's a 60 gig SSD but I'm only getting 51.1 GB of storage. I've heard of windows caching files even after deletion and I was wondering if this was the case? It's not much, but the extra 9.9 GB would do me WONDERS... Do you guys know how to fix that?

This is probably the difference between 1GB = (1024 x 1024 x 1024) bytes (Windows definition) and 1GB = (1000 x 1000 x 1000) bytes (hard-disk-makers definition).

EDIT: Actually that only accounts for 1.2GB of it. Try checking disk manager (right-click on "my computer", choose manage, then disk manager. See if the SSD is shown as one partition or two (might have a recovery partition or something)).

[LoSboccacc]

I've heard.. stories.

stories about that athlon II x2 220.

stories of unlocking two more cores.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2010/2010081201_Athlon_II_X2_220_unlocks_into_Phenom_II_920.html

Spoiler: disclaimer (click to show/hide)

unlocking will potentially void your warranty, burn your house and ruins your theet, among other things. do it at your own risk.

[xDarkz]

Ah! Thanks Nenjin. I'll look into some of those when I have some more cash! Definitely bookmarking those links.

I had check Disk Manager and there were two volumes: my primary C volume and a System Reserve. The C volume has a capacity of 51.14, while the system reserve has a capacity of a meager 100 MB. I don't think that's the issue... It must be something else. It's strange how 9 GB just disappeared like that.

And dear lord. I don't know near enough to tamper with that CPU. But man, unlocking two more cores is something. Wouldn't ever try it though .

[Thief^]

If you want a success story, in the past I've successfully unlocked not one but two Athlon XP 2400+ cpus into Athlon MP 2400 cpus, and put them into a dual-socket motherboard to get the performance of a 2GHz dual-core at around the time the first dual-core cpus were being launched, at a fraction of the price (all 2nd-hand parts). The unlock required a scalpel, glue and silver conductive paint...
Only do things like this if you would be ok with screwing it up and replacing everything though, don't do it if you couldn't afford to screw it up. I did have to unlock a 3rd cpu a year later after one of the coolers didn't seat right after transporting the pc and I got to watch the temperature monitor go over 100C...

On the other hand, I've had a completely unmodified pc explode on me. One of these bundles: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1583/2
On the motherboard picture, the thing with a fan in the blue socket at the top is a power-regulator card, designed to produce cleaner and more power than the motherboard's onboard regulator. It fell out while the pc was on, the 100W power load of the cpu switched from the card to the motherboard's regulators in an instant, and everything exploded. Lost the motherboard, cpu, gpu...

[Tellemurius]

Ah! Thanks Nenjin. I'll look into some of those when I have some more cash! Definitely bookmarking those links.

I had check Disk Manager and there were two volumes: my primary C volume and a System Reserve. The C volume has a capacity of 51.14, while the system reserve has a capacity of a meager 100 MB. I don't think that's the issue... It must be something else. It's strange how 9 GB just disappeared like that.

And dear lord. I don't know near enough to tamper with that CPU. But man, unlocking two more cores is something. Wouldn't ever try it though .

Windows 7 makes a recovery partition that you can't see and 9gb seems to be the right size for you. Also on the unlocking cores, if you can't find the manufacture code i wouldn't even bother.

[bombzero]

I've heard.. stories.

stories about that athlon II x2 220.

stories of unlocking two more cores.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2010/2010081201_Athlon_II_X2_220_unlocks_into_Phenom_II_920.html

Spoiler: disclaimer (click to show/hide)

unlocking will potentially void your warranty, burn your house and ruins your theet, among other things. do it at your own risk.

he, i have an unlocked processor, a GPU and processor overclocked past whats considered sane, and a 640 GB hard drive, its amazing how much more powerful home modifications can make a computer, despite the inherent extra risks, like the fact i have to keep the side panel off with a desk fan pulling out hot air so my board doesn't melt.

[Thief^]

he, i have an unlocked processor, a GPU and processor overclocked past whats considered sane, and a 640 GB hard drive, its amazing how much more powerful home modifications can make a computer, despite the inherent extra risks, like the fact i have to keep the side panel off with a desk fan pulling out hot air so my board doesn't melt.

If you have a hot-running pc, you just need a case with better airflow, intake fans at the front / side, exhaust fans at the back / top, and preferably a CPU cooler that has the fan on the side, oriented to push the air through the cooler towards the back of the case.

[LoSboccacc]

he, i have an unlocked processor, a GPU and processor overclocked past whats considered sane, and a 640 GB hard drive, its amazing how much more powerful home modifications can make a computer, despite the inherent extra risks, like the fact i have to keep the side panel off with a desk fan pulling out hot air so my board doesn't melt.

If you have a hot-running pc, you just need a case with better airflow, intake fans at the front / side, exhaust fans at the back / top, and preferably a CPU cooler that has the fan on the side, oriented to push the air through the cooler towards the back of the case.

I had one. clumped up by dust, death by overheat. remember that the more the air intake, the more the maintenance you'll need to have for removing dust from the innards (short circuit risk) and from the heat sinks (fills up the heat exchange area).

[Nadaka]

he, i have an unlocked processor, a GPU and processor overclocked past whats considered sane, and a 640 GB hard drive, its amazing how much more powerful home modifications can make a computer, despite the inherent extra risks, like the fact i have to keep the side panel off with a desk fan pulling out hot air so my board doesn't melt.

If you have a hot-running pc, you just need a case with better airflow, intake fans at the front / side, exhaust fans at the back / top, and preferably a CPU cooler that has the fan on the side, oriented to push the air through the cooler towards the back of the case.

I had one. clumped up by dust, death by overheat. remember that the more the air intake, the more the maintenance you'll need to have for removing dust from the innards (short circuit risk) and from the heat sinks (fills up the heat exchange area).

You can solve the dust problem with a filtered air intake. Just clean out the filter occasionally and the inside of your case wont get gummed up. if you have your airflow right. The trick is to have an inflow fan and an outflow fan and to seal any other gaps. Otherwise the filter might offer enough resistance that you get dust flowing in from somewhere else. Cleaning an air filter is a lot simpler than disassembling the computer so you can blast the dust out with canned air.