[Thad E Ginathom]

I bought a 500gb SATA SSD (WD Blue, I think) from Amazon a couple of years ago.

My 10-yr-old motherboard then died. The computer was rebuilt around a modern motherboard and processor: considerably more powerful.

Initially, the SSD got left out of the build. I added it in later. I put my OS filesystems (/ and home, it's Linux) on the SSD. Booting the already fast computer became hugely faster.

The rest of the SSD is used for the current-year's photos (which I shift to HDD at the end of the year and start again). reading JPGs into Gimp is fast, writing back is almost instant.

A lot of write/read/delete/write is not supposed to be ideal for SSDs. I don't care: it is my "workspace" and that works exceedingly well. If its overall life is reduced by the way I use it, that's just the price I'm paying for the way I use it. I don't need it to be bigger than 500Gb

Other data, including older pictures, is spread over 3 HDDs, and slower performance is fine.

The new motherboard has an NVMe slot. I'll get one, one day, just for fun!

Amazon or local business? The last time I replaced an HDD, I had planned for Amazon. Price was what it was, delivery was a few days. Thought I'd check with the local business (a computer maintenance company) who quoted a lower price. Delivery? After lunch! They would have installed it too, but I did it myself.

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by cartrail

Which SATA SSD would be good? I have shortlisted the WD Blue 250 GB SATA SSD.
Also, will it be good to purchase an SSD on Amazon?

WD, Samsung, Crucial (Micron) are all good brands. Each brand have their own versions of higher reliability brands and lower. For example wd green has lower reliability than blue. In crucial, their bx series is less reliable than mx.

If your usage is moderate/high (usage meaning, actual writes to the drive) then consider wd blue or equivalent, else even the green series is good enough. SSD firmwares also usually manage the writes in such a way that they evenly wear out. Thus, their specifications usually indicate the amount of terabytes that can be written over it's life. For crucial Bx series I believe it's in the 80TB for a 256Gb drive (please confirm, I just noted it as an example).

Wd black is meant for gamers as this has a higher amount of write cycles as well as higher speed.

In Sata SSDs, the sata interface itself is usually the limiting factor for performance. That's where nvme scores better but any Sata SSD would be a huge upgrade over HDDs in terms of speed, especially for random writes and reads (like what the primary disk with OS would do). NVMe is the next level as the interface supports much higher speeds.

Bottom line: if your motherboard supports NVMe, do consider it. Else Sata ssd is still a pretty good upgrade.

[Eco_boost]

Hey folks, need some advice. I’m a noob when it comes to windows. I need a PC setup for my office where I and my staff will be doing accounts. Primary software which will be used is Tally. Hence the power requirements are low. Basic search on Flipkart shows a HP all in one PC which retails between 48-56k for an i3 processor. However I feel that I do not need to spend more than 30-35k for the requirements I have

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by Eco_boost

Hey folks, need some advice. I’m a noob when it comes to windows. I need a PC setup for my office where I and my staff will be doing accounts. Primary software which will be used is Tally. Hence the power requirements are low. Basic search on Flipkart shows a HP all in one PC which retails between 48-56k for an i3 processor. However I feel that I do not need to spend more than 30-35k for the requirements I have

One option you can consider is to get a used desktop. There are many professional agencies who recycle PCs from the corporate offices which usually use them for about 5 years and then scrap them for various reasons including lack of warranty. A 5th or 6th gen i5/i7 like desktop with 16Gb ram and a Ssd will perform amazingly well and should cost you about 25 -30k including a new monitor. Since these are for professional use, their specs are usually pretty good and support too should be decent.

Also remember that a desktop spec I5 will run at a much higher speed than the same generation laptop spec I5. So don't go by your laptop experience to judge the desktop performance.

[atulsian]

Originally Posted by Eco_boost

Hey folks, need some advice. I’m a noob when it comes to windows. I need a PC setup for my office where I and my staff will be doing accounts. Primary software which will be used is Tally. Hence the power requirements are low. Basic search on Flipkart shows a HP all in one PC which retails between 48-56k for an i3 processor. However I feel that I do not need to spend more than 30-35k for the requirements I have

For Tally and other basic usage, I would suggest go with a refurbished Dell optiplex. You can find plenty on Amazon or local computer market. 8th gen i3 are around 17k with Ram and SSD.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

RTX 3060ti will be enough for few years.

Currently you just need the GPU upgrade, your current GPU is heavily bottlenecking the whole system.

the 3060ti seems a bit overboard for my budget and usage

would it's smaller sibling be a good fit for my spec?

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08WRF18SC/

[Bluengel180]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

Looking to upgrade my ancient GeForce GT1030 graphics card. (25k budget)

Basic PC Specs are:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Gigabyte B450 Mobo
2x8GB 3200MHz RAM

Might have a chance to get someone to pick it up from the US. Now I believe I can't just randomly select the best GPU available at my budget for fear of bottlenecking my CPU? And will my B450 mobo also be a crutch?

Not into heavy gaming, but ever since Diablo 4 launched, the craving has been eating me from within

Get a AMD based graphic card, It pairs well with the processor and there is an option of load sharing the 6700 series should be perfectly capable in that price range.

Also look at preowned options. You get massive bang for your buck especially with graphic cards. There are official retailers like Gameloot that deal with them and offer limited replacement warranty. You should be able to get a 3070ti or a 6700xt around 20k if you go preowned.

Drop me a DM when you want to sell the 1030. I might have a use for it.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by Bluengel180

Get a AMD based graphic card, It pairs well with the processor and there is an option of load sharing the Rx 6700xt series should be perfectly capable in that price range.

Drop me a DM when you want to sell the 1030. I might have a use for it.

Thanks. The 6700 seems to be available only with Sapphire and they don't have service support here i guess. Which is a bit scary. But nice price for a nice card that

Apprehensive about the pre-owned stuff. How do you know they haven't cooked the GPU by OCing? :(

[Bluengel180]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

Thanks. The 6700 seems to be available only with Sapphire and they don't have service support here i guess. Which is a bit scary. But nice price for a nice card that

Apprehensive about the pre-owned stuff. How do you know they haven't cooked the GPU by OCing? :(

The resellers usually subject the cards to stress tests. This is to ensure that it has no inherent problems and wasn't used for mining. I know they work because gameloot returned my 5700xt that I was selling because it ran hot.

But yeah a new card will be peaceful on the mind. However prices are still inflated in my opinion. A 3060/6700 will work fine for 1080p gaming. newer games rely heavily on RAM so choose highest graphics configuration you can get for your budget.

[sentinel733]

Hello, I upgraded my PC last year and only retained the graphics card from my previous build that is Nvidia GTX 960 due to budget constraints. Now I'm planning on replacing it and budget is around 40k. I do all my AAA gaming on the PS5 and only use PC for RTS games like Anno 1800, Crusader kings 3, City skylines etc. Please suggest a good graphics card and I'm open to both team green and team red as well.

My specifications as below:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600
Gigabyte B550M DS3H
2x8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR4 3200Mhz
Cooler Master MWE 650 Bronze

Has anyone here used the Intel ARC series cards? I would like to know how is the performance and driver support for games.

[Thad E Ginathom]

I don't really want to be asking this but recent advances in AI photo processing and de-noiseing have made me begin to reconsider my MS-Free House status. These advances will probably filter down to FOSS (or even chargeable) Linux software, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is an in-principle question, not a request for detailed help at this stage...

1. My system was configured to work with a new motherboard and boot from existing Linux file systems: secure boot was turned off.

2. All my file systems are ext4, including most of my external backup disks. (I have one long-defunct ntfs partition with an old XP install on it, just in case I need to pick anything out of it)

3. Linux is staying. I would want Windows to be just an option on the GRUB menu.

My Linux distribution is Linux Mint 20.1.

I don't think that Wine is an option for any of the decent photo software. I suppose VM might be. I don't have much VM experience. Is is practical for compute-intensive graphics work?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

VM experience. Is is practical for compute-intensive graphics work?

It depends .. VM works great as long as CPU does the job. As soon as GPU is required for some of AI tasks VM fails (as in that specific feature does not work).

I suggest :

1. Download Windows ISO (Free, Legal and works for few weeks)
2. Install VirtualBox and give Windows + Adobe Lightroom a try

Lightroom is free for few days too, and just ~2k a month till you want to use it.

This experience will tell you if your specific usecase works well in VM (and is Free to try as well).

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I don't really want to be asking this but recent advances in AI photo processing and de-noiseing have made me begin to reconsider my MS-Free House status. These advances will probably filter down to FOSS (or even chargeable) Linux software, but I'm not holding my breath.

Have you tried the Darktable? Its an excellent photo processor for the single layer image editing, especially for the camera RAWs. It has few decent noise reduction features. You can also load the LUTs in it.

[Candy$Cars]

Originally Posted by sentinel733

Hello, I upgraded my PC last year and only retained the graphics card from my previous build that is Nvidia GTX 960 due to budget constraints. Now I'm planning on replacing it and budget is around 40k. I do all my AAA gaming on the PS5 and only use PC for RTS games like Anno 1800, Crusader kings 3, City skylines etc. Please suggest a good graphics card and I'm open to both team green and team red as well.

My specifications as below:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600
Gigabyte B550M DS3H
2x8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR4 3200Mhz
Cooler Master MWE 650 Bronze

Has anyone here used the Intel ARC series cards? I would like to know how is the performance and driver support for games.

Hi!
Welcome back to PC master race!!
At your budget the most bang for ur back would have been the Radeon 6750XT and the 6700XT. They were going for great prices few weeks back but looks you missed it , all good models are out of stock everywhere online. Some Asus dual fan variants are available but I am not too sure how good they will be. Maybe some offline stores have a few left?

On the team Green side, the new 4060ti is available at around 40k. For the games you play, that will be perfect. The only issue is the 8gb Vram which can be a bottleneck on few latest AAA games, but you can definitely go for it.
If you can wait, maybe AMD may launch some new 7000 series card but there is no rumours when. And in the PC World, one can continue to wait indefinitely .

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

I suggest :

1. Download Windows ISO (Free, Legal and works for few weeks)
2. Install VirtualBox and give Windows + Adobe Lightroom a try

OK, thanks for that. Abobe won't be my choice. Preferably I'll steer clear of all subscription software! It'd probably be DXO or Topaz, as seen in

this video

I'll revise setting up VirtualBox. I haven't done it for years.

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Have you tried the Darktable? ...

Not much. When I work with raw, I usually use RawTherapee.