[SOLVED] First time PC Builder here (help)

[SimSim7]

Hello there!

I've been trying to make my very first gaming rig, and it's quite scary.
I ended up with this setup so far, but i´m worried if the parts are all compatible.

GPU: MSI RX Vega 56 Air Boost 8G
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 (The Division 2 game included for free)
Case: NZXT H500
MotherBoard: ASUS prime B450M-A
Ram: G.Skill AEGIS DDR4 16 GB x 3000 MHz
Power Supply: Corsair TX650M
Storage 1: WD Green 120GB M.2 SSD
Storage 2: Seagate Barracuda 1TB x 7200 rpm
Monitor: AOC Gaming C24G1
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

The build is intended to be a modest gaming rig. My main game is gonna be The Division 2 in 1920x1080 Resolution in 144hz (if possible)
I live in the EU so some of these choices may seem weird, but its should be the most bang for the buck over here.
Any improvements or suggestions are really appreciated.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Good build , but if possible squeeze in the NVME M2 SSD.

 

[SimSim7]

Good build , but if possible squeeze in the NVME M2 SSD.

That was actually the plan, but having trouble finding a decent one. Any suggestions?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Samsung 970 EVO or PLUS.

 

[SimSim7]

Thanks alot, Gonna give it a look!

 

[Karadjgne]

I'd try for a slightly larger SSD. As a 128Gb owner, I'll tell you straight that it's a pain constantly shuffling stuff around in an attempt to maintain a decent amount of free space. There's quite a few games with DLC that will get to or go beyond 100Gb all by themselves and with @ 50-60Gb taken up by OS and other OS type programs, you'll end up with most games and other software purely on the HDD.

I'd take something like a 500Gb Crucial mx500 over a faster 250Gb NVMe anyday.

 

[SimSim7]

I'd try for a slightly larger SSD. As a 128Gb owner, I'll tell you straight that it's a pain constantly shuffling stuff around in an attempt to maintain a decent amount of free space. There's quite a few games with DLC that will get to or go beyond 100Gb all by themselves and with @ 50-60Gb taken up by OS and other OS type programs, you'll end up with most games and other software purely on the HDD.

I'd take something like a 500Gb Crucial mx500 over a faster 250Gb NVMe anyday.

Yeah I totally get that, my thought were, as you mentioned to just use the SSD for OS, and the HDD for gaming, since the HDD has basically the same performance in games (aside from the loading screens ofc)

 

[Karadjgne]

Yeah. There are things that help with those 120/128 drives. First thing is get rid of hibernation and hiberfil.sys. You have a pc. Windows is a multi platform OS (you'll find battery settings in power plans etc) so you absolutely do not need hibernation, that's for laptops. The thing about the OS is that with hibernation active it automatically portions your C drive 75% of your ram size. Got 16Gb of ram? You automatically lose @ 12Gb, just on the off-chance windows will hibernate. And you can't get it back unless hiberfil.sys is gone and hibernation gotten rid of.

Steam main files on ssd, any games through steam on hdd. Download folder on hdd etc. The games save file is in the OS, so is on C, but is small, so no worries. That way, the game is loaded through the ssd cache, so runs at ssd speeds after the first load.

You'll need to keep an absolute minimum 10Gb free space, more is better.

 

[SimSim7]

That's great information! I've never heard about that, thank you so much!

 

[Karadjgne]

I also partitioned my hdd into 3 separate drives. There's multiple different opinions on this as to its effectiveness, but I did it for 2 reasons. First is it creates separate drives under 1 physical drive. If I get bad sectors etc, I have somewhere else to copy the info. I can transfer everything from E to F and E never gets used again, effectively halting whatever wear is on that portion. By doing so, I'll get more use out of the whole section of platter, not just the area closest to center with little usage near the outside.
The second being time. Unless you spend a lot of time optimizing (which too much actually hurts the hdd prematurely) then anything deleted leaves gaps that windows will try and fill. This leaves your data spread out everywhere in bits, which takes time for the arms to retrieve. Larger the drive, longer it takes as stuff is spread out more. By limiting my drive sizes (my catch all F drive is 400Mb, E is 100Mb) anything searched for in F is only looking in that 400Mb, not the full 1Tb. Any data written to F is in that 400Mb, not spread out over the 1Tb.

Might not seem like much, but with a hdd, every bit helps.

 

[SimSim7]

Hello, just an update from me.
I've ordered the PC with some minor changes, for the better
Thanks for the help guys! have a great day!

And thanks a lot Karadjgne for all the pro tips!

 

[Karadjgne]

You are welcome. If you need anything else, feel free to hit us up again.