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Question About First Build

BriBen

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This is going to be my first build. I need some clarification about installing the GPU. I just read that I need to update the BIOS before installing the GPU. Do I have to do this on a new build?

I was planning on installing all the hardware and then installing Win. 7 without being connected to the internet. Once I had Win.7 installed and before any updates, I was going to create a system recovery disk. Then, I was planning on connecting to the internet and checking for a BIOS update (flashing the BIOS if needed), checking my drives and then moving foward with Win.7 updates and any updated drivers for the GPU.

Again, this is my first build so I'm not quiet sure the progress. Any help would be great. Thanks.

i5-4570
GA-H87M-D3H Desktop Motherboard
CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Corsair 350D Micro ATX Case
Samsung 840 EVO 500 GB SSD
Western (Blue) 1TB Internal Hard Drive
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB
SeaSonic 650w (SSR-650RM) Win.7 Home (64bit)
Asus VS239H-P 23" Monitor
(old Dell 2407 and HP 2311x - which I will be changing out later)
Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core
$194.99
MotherboardGigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150
$122.98
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$76.99
StorageSamsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" SSD
$309.00
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM
$59.98
Video CardGigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB
$329.99
CaseCorsair 350D MicroATX Mid Tower
$69.99
Power SupplySeaSonic 650W ATX12V / EPS12V
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Optical DriveAsus BW-14D1XT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer
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Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
$82.99
MonitorAsus VS239H-P 23.0"
$149.99
Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core
$194.99
MotherboardGigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150
$122.98
MemoryCorsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600
$76.99
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$309.00
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM
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Video CardGigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB
$329.99
CaseCorsair 350D MicroATX Mid Tower
$69.99
Power SupplySeaSonic 650W ATX12V / EPS12V
$100.98
Optical DriveAsus BW-14D1XT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer
$104.98
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
$82.99
MonitorAsus VS239H-P 23.0"
$149.99
 
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not, you dont neef update your bios for gpu, updating bios needed to support newer processor.
it just fine just plug in your gpu and install the driver and make sure you install the latest.
 
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not, you dont neef update your bios for gpu, updating bios needed to support newer processor.
it just fine just plug in your gpu and install the driver and make sure you install the latest.

I had to update the BIOs of my MSI board for my GTX 780ti to run in it.
 
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By system recovery disk, do you mean the one you create in Windows to allow you to boot a corrupt system, or do you mean a snapshot image of your boot drive? Both are a good idea, and Windows 7 has a built-in utility to save an image of any drive. However, the time to take a snapshot is after installing all drivers, updates, utilities, and core programs, when your system is pristine and running perfectly. That way if something corrupts the system, it only takes 5 or 10 minutes to make it perfect again by loading the good image, instead of reloading windows and all your drivers, programs and updates for 3 or 4 hours. Other than that, just make sure your BIOS is set to AHCI mode, install Windows (with only the boot drive connected), install storage drives, install motherboard drivers (best to have the latest ones already loaded on a thumb drive instead of using the mobo driver disc), update your BIOS (if needed), then load the latest driver for your video card, keyboard, game controllers, and any other peripherals. Then install all your favorite programs/games/utilities, run it for a day or so to make sure everything is playing nice together, tweak all your Windows settings/default programs/hardware settings, run Ccleaner or whatever to clean out temp files, internet cache, and whatnot, THEN take your snapshot of your boot drive, save it to another drive (preferably external), and you're done. Now, even if Windows is totally corrupted and unbootable, you can boot with the Windows Rescue Disk, go to advanced repair, and load your pristine image. BTW, nice choice of components, it should all work great together. Good luck...
 
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Stellar component choice you will enjoy it for several years with high to ultra settings for sure! Nice to see someone do the research first, clearly you have!
 
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Why spend $300 on a 500GB SSD, when you could buy a 256GB SSD (which is more than enough), and spend the rest on a 4670 and a nice CPU cooler or better GPU?
 
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Why spend $300 on a 500GB SSD, when you could buy a 256GB SSD (which is more than enough), and spend the rest on a 4670 and a nice CPU cooler or better GPU?

Enough for what? I have to uninstall games constantly on 256 gb to make room. My pictures couldn't even fit on the drive if that was all there was on it. 256gb is a pittance.
 
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Enough for what? I have to uninstall games constantly on 256 gb to make room. My pictures couldn't even fit on the drive if that was all there was on it. 256gb is a pittance.

That's what HDD's are for. I have LoL on a RAMDisk, it loads about 3 seconds faster than my friend who has it on an SSD, who loads about 5 seconds faster than a HDD. SSD's make almost no difference to game loading times that you could care about.
Pictures don't need to be on an SSD. That's the most useless way to use SSD space.
 

rtwjunkie

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Pictures don't need to be on an SSD. That's the most useless way to use SSD space.

Nor should anyone WANT to trust the safety of valuable, irreplaceables such as photos to an SSD. Reliability is still below HDD standards (for most of them), and at least an HDD gives warnings most of the time when it's nearing EOL. And they are much more economical for long-term storage.
 
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That's what HDD's are for. I have LoL on a RAMDisk, it loads about 3 seconds faster than my friend who has it on an SSD, who loads about 5 seconds faster than a HDD. SSD's make almost no difference to game loading times that you could care about. Pictures don't need to be on an SSD. That's the most useless way to use SSD space.

You're looking at SSDs the wrong way, the old way. With 1 TB capacities being the most cost effective capacity they're not just boot drives anymore. At the very least you should have one big enough to fit your games. Ideally you should be able to dump everything on them and enjoy the all around speed boost. Yes even pictures and videos open faster. And I really don't see the ram disc as practical. Games are huge these days and ram costs an arm and a leg. If you got a small 10gb game that can't use much more than 4 gbs of ram then ok, but that's not very common anymore, and to make it's usefulness even more obscure the majority of games don't load any faster than on a SSD. I'm assuming it's because there's all sorts of programing bottlenecks since they're not designed or tested with that level of bandwidth in mind. It's nice it works for you in LoL but that's a tiny ass game. Try doing that with WoW.

Nor should anyone WANT to trust the safety of valuable, irreplaceables such as photos to an SSD. Reliability is still below HDD standards (for most of them), and at least an HDD gives warnings most of the time when it's nearing EOL. And they are much more economical for long-term storage.

And where are you getting that data from? Sounds counter to the failure rate data I've seen, and without that point you're just arguing for backing up your data in general, which obviously everyone should be doing.
 
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ram costs an arm and a leg

So do 500GB and 1TB SSD's. If 1TB is so cost effective, and 256GB isn't enough for you, then why haven't you practiced what you preach?
It's not practical to buy a 500GB SSD when you can get more overall performance gain from a better processor or GPU.
FPS > 2 seconds faster loading time.

Pictures open faster? You've got to be kidding yourself buddy. My pictures open literally the instant i click them on a HDD. How you can possibly notice a photo opening faster on an SSD is beyond me, unless you have some kind of benchmarking tool open 24/7.
 
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Folks are going to jump all over me for suggesting this, but consider faster RAM. Do you really need a 500GB SSD (would 256GB be enough)?

I was planning on installing all the hardware and then installing Win. 7 without being connected to the internet. Once I had Win.7 installed and before any updates, I was going to create a system recovery disk. Then, I was planning on connecting to the internet and checking for a BIOS update (flashing the BIOS if needed), checking my drives and then moving foward with Win.7 updates and any updated drivers for the GPU.

Windows 7 has a great image tool for exactly that. I did the same thing... I think it's in Home Premium.
 

rtwjunkie

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@LAN_deRf_HA: You're right about backing up data! I agree, and do it myself, but honestly, most surveys reveal that the majority of computer users STILL do not backup. That's why I will not recommend people storing their photos and whatnot on an SSD. 256 is a perfect size that I recommend.
 
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buy ssd for os and apps and leave the data in hdd
hdd nowadays is kinda cheap and has enough space to save everything
 
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