The possibility of upgrading my PC to a Haswell-E setup

Couple of days ago I posted on Facebook how I chickened out from delidding my Devil's Canyon chip. A friend told me that it would be beneficial for me to upgrade to Haswell-E instead. Haswell-E die is soldered to the IHS so it shouldn't run at a temperature as high as Devil's Canyon. And I get at least two more cores to play with.

There is a huge barrier for entry due to price

I checked the prices of the Core i7 5820K (because the 5930K is useless and the 5960X is out of reach), ASRock X99E-ITX/ac Mini-ITX motherboard (the only X99 Mini-ITX board out there) and 16GB of DDR4 2666 sticks.

• CPU: ~ JPY 50,000
• Motherboard: ~ JPY 37,000
• RAM: ~ JPY 18,000

That would total out to around JPY 105,000. Expensive, but that’s what you have to pay for cutting edge. But it all depends on how much I can make from selling my existing stuff.

I checked the offers on Sofmap store and  it was disappointing.  Very disappointing. I would only receive around JPY 50,000 in total for my Core i7 4790K CPU, Asus Z97i-Plus board and A-DATA DDR3-2400 16GB memory. That’s an insanely low amount. No way I am going to sell my stuff to these shops.

However, shops aren’t the only place I can sell them. I can auction them online. However, since these are all used parts, I bet I won’t be able to extend this to JPY 70,000 mark. JPY 60,000 is possible, but it will take a long time because I have three components to sell. And if I sell at least one of them, I would have passed the point of no return.

Got rid of the darn Asus T100 tablet

I waited till the 5th to pay a visit to Sofmap to sell the Asus T100 tablet off. That's because days ending with the number 5 are called the "Sofmap中古日" which means if you decide to exchange the items for Sofmap points, you get a 5% boost on such days.

I hopped onto a train bound for Kawasaki after work on the Wednesday. There is a Sofmap support center in the Lazona shopping complex where they handle 買取 or purchases from their point of view. I went there and waited for my turn. When it was my turn, I handed over the tablet which was cleanly packed as it came from the factory, telling the staff personnel that the keyboard dock doesn't work properly. He made a serious face and told me that in that case there is a chance they might not accept the tablet at all or return the keyboard dock and take only the rest of the parts. I feared they would go with the former.

He took the tablet in for inspection and told me to come back in 30 minutes. That was short, probably because there weren't many people there and it was a weekday. I wandered around the Biccamera store checking out the cool gadgets during that 30 minutes.

[Article] Haswell, here I come: 4770K + Maximus VI Hero.

Two years and one month ago, I got my SandyBridge CPU (2600K) and motherboard. Yesterday, my motherboard broke. Well, after a long sleep, it came back to life. Still not completely stable, but it is working at least. But I decided that I’m gonna get a new motherboard anyway. It’s a matter of time this board will die imho. I just hope I will be able to sell the motherboard.

I had been sitting on the fence in dilemma, uncertain whether to stick with my SandyBridge 2600K CPU or to upgrade. I first felt Haswell was not worth it. Then the feature-set of the new boards won me over. I even considered the upcoming IvyBridge-E CPUs. But they will be using the two generations old x79 chipset. The prices would be pretty steep (3930K costs JPY57,000 even now), so I decided that route is not for me. That's JPY80,000 or more.

I had been reading the motherboard reviews to decide on a board. Three boards came out on top. The Asus Z87 Pro, Asus ROG Maximus VI Hero and MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming. I felt the software/UEFI support of Gigabyte boards was cheesy and ASRock boards not so good in terms of power delivery circuitry, software and even price - which was their strong point until now.

[Article] Upgrade itch is so strong! Feeling like upgrading to 4770K Haswell from 2600K SandyBridge after all.

Many shops are giving JPY5,000 worth discounts if you buy a Haswell CPU and a Z87 motherboard these days. Sofmap.com has a eye-catching offer: Core i7 4770K and a Asus Z87 Pro motherboard for about JPY51,000. I sometimes feel like giving a shot at Haswell. I know it won’t give me much benefits over my current CPU and motherboard. But this upgrade itch has been crawling beneath my skin in the past few months. Worse case would be that I will get just about same performance as my current CPU and motherboard combo. That’s if I can only overclock to like 4.2GHz. If I can somehow manage to overclock to 4.5GHz, I will be able to sneak in 10% or so more performance. The temps definitely will play a vital role, especially with the temperature in the summer.

It’s not the CPU that is great actually. Z87 is a great chipset. It performs really well, plus, it uses so little power. It also comes with a lot of stuff my current motherboard doesn’t have, natively. I will get a much better motherboard. I can use the integrated fan controller and throw away (don’t take things literally unless I say so) my current Scythe fan controller. I have been wanting a fan controller that controls fan according to temps. With Asus’s unprecedented fan control software, I can achieve it. I hate the cable mess the current fan controller has created behind the motherboard tray.

Which SSD to get? The SSD dilemma continues (part2)

If you didn't see the part one of this, read about it over here. 

I had almost made up my mind to buy the Samsung 840 250GB SSD, when a new offer came up on Sofmap.com. They are selling the 500GB model fora "mere" JPY27,800. Sure, it is a little bit more expensive that two 250GB drives, especially when the 250GB drive comes with 2% points.

But now I am in dilemma. Should I get the 500GB model now? Or should I get the 250GB model now and upgrade to the 500GB model when the prices half - hopefully in a year. Let's look at the pros and cons of each buy. 

Pros of getting the 500GB model

1. The raw drive would be a tad faster than the 250GB model when it comes to writes. Read speeds seem to be same. 
2. The drive would retain the original performance almost the entire period of usage because more the empty space available in the drive, lesser the chances of finding an untrimmed cell area for future writes.
3. It lasts longer than the 250GB model, but I doubt I would use it for more than 3 years, so it is not exactly a pro. (at 10GB writes per day, 250GB should last about 7 years. 500GB should last about 14 years.)
4. Obviously, I can install more stuff on it. I can even run virtual machines off the SSD. I can keep the hiberfile.sys so that I can use Fast Start in Windows 8. I don't have to worry about moving stuff here and there to free up space. 

Cons of getting the 500GB model

1. Price. Even though it is the cheapest drive around, it is a big investment.
2. I would not be able to ditch that drive in a year or so when faster drives come around. What if 500GB drives that are faster than this drive and also cheaper (or even same price as the aggregate of 250GB now and 500GB then) drives come around? I would not be able to upgrade because I have invested a lot of money into this drive. Sure, I can keep both drives. 

Obviously, the # of pros out-number the # of cons, but do they out-weight the cons? Right now, it seems I'm sitting on the fence. Maybe I should flip-a-coin and see.

P.S. 

There is another reason why I probably should buy the 500GB drive right now. The pricing seems to be based on the old exchange rate which was favorable for JPY. The new Japanese government is trying to drop the value of JPY so that they can increase their export volume. So the next batch of drives would be expensive. Also this is the holiday season. Next month, the prices would be higher once more. So maybe I should use these good times to get the 500GB drive. But you know how my luck goes. The prices would drop as soon as I buy either.

P.P.S

Guess what just happened? I tossed the coin and it said that I should go for the 500GB model.

But, I bought the 250GB model. I just couldn't make up my mind to spend that much money on a drive. I would not be utilising all that space - not for another year at least - so spending money on something that I would not use is wasting money.

Anyways, the drive has been shipped, but since I am not at home they must have left a delivery notice at home. I am going to ask them to redeliver it on Monday at around 4PM - that's my ETA at apartment. Hehe

Which SSD to get? Samsung 840 Pro or OCZ Vector? Or something not thathighend?

Edit:
Since then I have bought the Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD because it was the cheapest drive I could find and it indeed is fast enough for everything I want it for. Head HERE for some benchmarks folks.

To the original post then...

OK. Now that I have replaced the hard drives (link and link), it is the phase 2 of my plan. It's time to replace my Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD.

 

Why replace the current SSD?

 

1. Number one reason is that I have to give someone a cheap SSD and instead of buying a smaller (probably used) SSD, I can give mine away. For someone getting his first SSD, 120GB is a big deal. Besides, I have maintained this SSD very well. Since the resale value of a second hand SSD is pretty low, I'm taking this chance to refresh a new toy.

 

2. I will soon have JPY 10,000 worth points from sofmap.com by trading in my old HDDs , so I'd like to use them on a new toy. I don't have to use then right now though.

 

3. I have had instances where 120GB is just not enough. I've managed to avoid unpleasant scenarios but it won't hurt to have more space. The only problem I have is that there is a very good chance that the prices would come down in the next year. I might be able to buy 512GB for the same amount of money I spend today on a 256GB high-end SSD like the Samsung 840 Pro. That's a chance I have to take. Maybe this single point will hold me off from buying an SSD right now.