blown capacitors
had this happen once... scared the shit out of me. 

I've been using an SSD for over a year, got all my programs and win installed on it. Indeed sub-30sec startup is great. I don't install games on it though, I'd need way bigger than 120gb for that. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7PJ1oeEyGg 

Single best upgrade you can do. If you are upgrading or building a new system, I would prioritise this over everything else (even if it means making sacrifices in other areas).

Even a 120gb drive is enough to have OS + apps + a few games on it. Programs like SteamMover make it easy to manage (so you can move games back and forth between the SSD and your mechanical dinosaur). 

I love my SSD. My old Core2Duo conked out last fall and I had to build a new machine. I decided to go with an SSD and I'm very happy I did. That sucker boots to the Windows 7 desktop in less than 16 seconds, and most of that is the BIOS starting up. From BIOS beep to the desktop is only about 3 seconds.

I also have an HP Microserver with over 4 TB of storage and I run gigabit ethernet, so the small size of the SSD in the new computer is no problem (it's a Crucial M4 120GB). It also has a 1 TB WD Black that was the data drive in the Core2Duo. 

I bought a new laptop with a SSD and it is awesome, boot up times are crazy fast, it is silent and creates less heat. Downside is the size, I have 120Gb and it is tiny for storing games and apps. 

I think they are even more important for laptops because otherwise you get slow 5400 rpm hdds. :( 

so boot times are one of the most unimportant things ever :-) (at least in the desktop pc) 

Well, I think boot times are something people use just as an example because almost everybody can relate to waiting for Windows to load. Pretty much anything that uses the disk is going to run a lot faster. When I double-click on Firefox, my homepage pops up in one second. Save games load very, very fast if the game is on the SSD. 

 

I shutdown/restart my computer only for applying Windows updates, but I do use sleep very extensively and SSDs provide a major boost to sleep/resume speed. 

i shut mine down everyday 

... but it never rebooted... still have to buy a new one :( 

will not benefit much from installing the game on a SSD...

Just ordered one online yesterday and was hoping that it will make loading a savegame in Doom3 as fast as loading in quake1 or doom2. 

Well, it did not for me but try it. If it works better for you, please say. 

when it arrives and gets installed in the system. 

by installing the game in a SSD. Definitely so.

I estimate that loading time is shortened by 1/3 or 1/2, but you still would notice that it is being loaded looking at the bar progressing visibly. 

Recently upgraded to 16GB ram, I thought of maybe plugging 32 just cause I can, but 8 was already plenty -- had to upgrade since some of it was faulty. I love how cheap RAM is nowadays. But now I really want to upgrade my GPU, it's just not cutting it anymore for the newer stuff. Right now I'm on some cheap ass 240GT, passive cooling tho, which is nice. What's the best bang for buck Geforce (sticking to nv) in the 100-200$ price range? GTX660 with dual slot fans seem to be coming up in the pricelists. 

That's it I guess. Though the '7 series has just started to launch. The 770 looks like good VFM. Maybe there'll be a 760 Ti or a 760 which could be worth witing for? 

The 770 is way over my budget though, I'dd never pay that amount for a gpu. I don't mind being behind on the curve a bit either. The thing with the waiting game is you never know how long it might take, and 'the next big thing' is always around the corner :P 

 

The Mac Mini actually seems suprisingly decent at running some light games, I was expecting to be only able to run stuff at low resolution, lowest details and still only get a barely playable fps due to only having an integrated Intel HD4000 GPU, but it's much better then that.

Playing in OS X, at 1280x720 (which is my native res cut exactly in half, so there are no distortion artefacts), details high to medium, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, COD: MW all run smoothly without any issues 

Running on a dual core Sandy Bridge at 2.1Ghz, and yeah, they game. Still no-where near to a proper graphics card, but functional. 

I'm asking you as a guru of the modern hardware etc/

So actually whats the differens between gtx 670 and 770

i know - gtx 770 it is basically upgraded 680, but

its seems i cant handle to upgrade my card third time in a few years :) 

And 192 more 'shader units' (think like a core in a CPU) in a 770 than the 670. The clocks are also faster than the 680, though it is kinda the same card....