Thinking of building a new computer, what would be the best parts?

[BotOnTilt]

Currently I have a Core2Quad Q6600, 4gb of ram and an Intel X25 SSD (the SSD I use only for my HEM2 DB). This computer has started to feel a bit sluggish at times, I think its mainly because of my Windows 7 since with a fresh installation it seemed quicker (I'm too lazy to reinstall atm, especially when considering a new comp). Although I don't have any problems running HEM2 on it I kind of feel like I'd like to build a new computer. I don't play other games than poker so its mainly just for running HEM2 and poker software.

What would be the best parts to get? When I updated to a SSD I was amazed at the performance and how much faster it was to run reports and get the HUD up and running. I guess part of why it seems slow is that I have a bunch of applications open, and usually have a few dozen browser windows open etc. Also partly the reason why I want a new computer is that in the past I always built my own computers with the price/performance/quality that I wanted but right now I have this HP computer and I'm not too happy on how loud it is and would like to build my own computer again.

So I was wondering what would be the best parts to get?

Should I go for an Intel i7 or would an 8-core AMD CPU be more efficient for HEM2 (and notecaddy)? The reviews I browsed seemed to show that the AMD one is fairly slow in most applications compared to an i7, but I didn't notice anyone comparing performace with large databases.

Is 12GB of ram more than enough, or should I try to squeeze in more?

Is there any merit in a PCI-Excpress based SSD-drive? I saw some in the store and from a review I understood that they should be much faster in IOPS than regular SSD's. The Revodrives aren't that incredibly expensive either, but I wonder if it still merits the investment (I do intend to get an SSD for my system disk in my next computer and might use than one for my DB instead of my current Intel SSD)

Does the graphics card matter at all? I imagine I shouldn't need any kind of gaming card so I'll just go for something that generates as little of heat and sound as possible, e.g. a cheap low performace card that has just enough oomph to drive my 2048*1536 and 1920*1200 screens.

[Patvs]

Read:
http://forums.holdemmanager.com/mana...ease-tips.html, http://hm2faq.holdemmanager.com/ques...+is+lagging%3F


Are you running a 64 bit Windows 7 now? Adding more RAM should improve performance.

From my experience, Intel (both i5 and i7) will beat any hexa/octa-core AMD system.
Some i5s (note some i5s are also quadcore) are even faster than i7 for most applications.

12 GB is more than enough. 4-6 GB is not enough.
RAM is extremely cheap now.

PCI-Express SSD: there is some merit. They're too expensive. The fast ones rely on a (unreliable) RAID0 array, and a NEW SATA-600 SSD will already be really fast. But they should have higher IOPS. It will still be difficult to justify the price though, as 256 GB SSDs (SATA-600) are finally more affordable.

Graphics card doesn't matter... any NEW model will do. There ONLY are isues with 2-3 years old ONBOARD GPUs.

[BotOnTilt]

Thanks Patvs, I did some of those tips in the performance increase tips - the DB size was cut in half after I purged and did the DB maintenace things from Postgres

I'll look into a i5/i7 system then when I'll build. Thanks again.

I have Win7 64bit, I tried swapping out two 1gb sticks for 2 2gb sticks I had lying around, but my computer recognizes them as 1gb sticks anyway...

About the SSD, I've never had any issues with corrupted DB's with my Intel X25-V. I'll avoid the PCI-E cards then if you think they are unreliable. I only intended to have my HEM DB there, so its not the end of the word if I need to restore from a backup (I try to backup about once a month) and re-import new hands, but it would suck to lose the notes I've taken in between. Would an Intel 520 series model be a good choice, or is it overkill?

According to their specs its recommended for corporate IT:
Intel® Solid-State Drive 330 Series

And the Anandtech review thinks its a reliable drive:
AnandTech - Intel SSD 520 Review: Cherryville Brings Reliability to SandForce

But I think it has a fairly hefty premium compared to other drives with similar speeds. It kind of feels silly to compare these drives on which one is the fastest, as I think my two year old SSD is fast enough for me and they probably all beat it easily in speeds. I.e. the performance boost is probably not all that noticeable even if it would be ten times faster... So maybe there isn't that much merit in trying to find a very fast drive, but reliability would be nice. The thought of getting blue screens while playing would be awful.

Edit: Actually the X25-V has a read speed of 25k IOPS while the smallest 520-series drive has 15k IOPS... Weird... Well the larger drives do outperform my current drive and they all have much higher write speeds. I do assume its the random read speed that's most important for HEM2/Postgres?

[udbrky]

If you have a 32bit Windows installed, it will only read 3GB of RAM.

Check on Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews for hardware reviews and comparisons. They are the top of the line resource these days for looking at hardware.

I'd try reinstalling Windows. A good clean install is great, everything runs better, you get rid of all crap, and it's like a fresh start.

[udbrky]

Here's some more info I send to people regarding SSD's:

Out of HM1, HM2, PT3, HM2 has by far the smallest DB's. You can use NTFS compression on the DB folder in roaming and the postgres\data\base folder to make it smaller:

Best practices for NTFS compression in Windows

You can put your postgres data folder and the HM2 database parent folder on a different drive.

In HM1 there are a lot of tables that deal with a specific hand played by a specific player. In HM2 we don't have these tables, instead, for player related hand data, we use a flat file approach. Each player has his own folder and each file represents a single day. Each line within the file is a tokenized version of a single hand with incredible amounts of detail. Your overall HM2 spaced used (DB + Files) is about 2/3 of HM1 and we store probably 2-3 times as much info plus it can be accessed many, many times faster and allows us to do some things that wouldn't be possible otherwise, many of which are yet to come. If you don't want the space in your Roaming folder due to C: file space or something like that, we do give you the option of storing this data anywhere

General rule is 1 million hands = 10 GB.

In reality it's: 1 million hands
HM1: 6.8 GB
HM2: 4.3 GB
PT4: 13.6 GB

So with a 10 million hand database you need as SSD of at least 60 GB (Windows) + 100 GB = 160 GB.
We use 1 million = 10 GB (instead of 6.8) because when you want to perform a vacuum/analyse or backup/restore a database it will require a LOT of disk space to perform such a task.

You can also run tree size free to locate wastes of space:

TreeSize Free - Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs

Please see this guide to optimize your SSD:

Can You Get More Space Or Speed From Your SSD? : Optimizing Precious Solid-State Storage

[Patvs]

The X25-V is still really fast.
It only has slow WRITE speeds, but those are not very important.

Also BIGGER SSDs tend to have higher (READ) speeds.

The Intel 520-series is really good, they're not that expensive. They're 15% more expensive for which you get slower speeds... and 'reliability'
Also really good Samsung 830 series, and Intel 330 series.

[BotOnTilt]

Hey!

Thanks for all the friendly and helpful replies!
So I finally got a new computer. A decent i7, 16GB ram and 256 GB SSD as my system disc.

Also really good Samsung 830 series, and Intel 330 series.

Yeah, got that one now the 256GB model.

So my question is now should I use the Samsung 830 256GB SSD as both my system disc and HEM DB? Or should I use the Samsung as my system disc and the 40GB Intel X-25v for HEM. I'd imagine that I won't be multitasking too much while I play, so it might be faster to just use the Samsung. Although if windows starts doing some maintenance maybe it will be slower?

Also I don't think I'll have too much use of the Intel X-25v if I don't use it for HEM, as its only 40GB. According to the reviews it has almost as fast random read rates as the Samsung. Quite surprising for me, as its a 3-4 year old drive while the Samsung is quite new. (Its not like I'd throw it away though, I might put it into a USB3-case and make a wicked fast thumbdrive or maybe give it to a friend)

Random read of Intel X-25v, 60.5 MB / s:
AnandTech - Intel's X25-V & Kingston's 30GB SSDNow V Series: Battle of the $125 SSDs

Random read of Samsung 830, 64.2 MB / s:
AnandTech - The Samsung SSD 830 Review

[Patvs]

I'd install everything on the Samsung. It should be faster than the X25-V in its overall I/O operations /s.