If you’ve installed new RAM and now have no display, it’s likely due to incorrect installation, incompatible RAM modules, or BIOS/UEFI issues. Proper installation, compatibility verification, and BIOS updates can usually resolve these issues, ensuring a smooth upgrade experience.

We’re going to sort this out together and get your system up and running, so don’t throw in the towel just yet!

Introduction

Stepping up your computer’s RAM game should be about witnessing that sweet performance lift, not staring at a stubbornly blank screen. It’s the sort of twist that’s all too common: the anticipation, the letdown…we’ve been there and done that!

Navigating the choppy waters of PC upgrades comes with its share of woes, and a non-cooperating display is definitely one of the classic woes. But fear not, it’s nothing we can’t fix.

This guide is your one-stop-shop for ditching the black screen blues and embracing the joys of your upgraded memory. Whether you’re a tech rookie or a seasoned veteran, we’re going to walk through this, step by step, ensuring your display—and your mood—light right back up!

Understanding the Problem

Installing new RAM is akin to integrating a new component into a well-oiled machine. If this new piece isn’t aligned properly or is incompatible, it can disrupt the entire system. Grasping how RAM interacts with the other internal components is key to determining why your display isn’t cooperating.

There could be a number of causes behind this issue, and the path forward is to methodically work through them to pinpoint the root of the problem.

Best case, this could be a simple installation error. Or maybe it’s a more nuanced compatibility issue between the new RAM and the existing components. It’s important that every part is on the same wavelength to avoid any disruptions in display.

Unless you’re using RAM of questionable quality, it’s probably not just the RAM stick itself.

We’ll delve deeper into specifics like compatibility considerations and installation mishaps. Our goal is to dissect these variables and provide clear solutions to get your display back on track and your upgraded system running seamlessly!

Preliminary Checks

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of compatibility and configurations, let’s run through a quick checklist to rule out some common culprits that could be causing your display woes.

• Ensure Proper Seating of RAM: Sometimes, it’s as simple as the RAM not being seated properly. Turn off your PC, unplug it, open it up, and make sure that the RAM is securely inserted into its slot.
• Checking GPU Seating and Power: Ensure that your Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is correctly seated and connected. Sometimes, installing new RAM can inadvertently unsettle the GPU. Re-seat it and ensure all power connectors are securely plugged in.
• Check the Display Cable: It sounds trivial, but it’s always good to double-check if the display cable is connected securely at both ends. Any loose connection here could be the unsuspecting villain.
• Monitor Power & Source: Verify that your monitor is powered on and is set to the correct input source. Sometimes, the simplest oversight can create seemingly complex problems.
• Inspect for Damages: Give a quick once-over to the RAM, the slot, and other nearby components. Be on the lookout for any visible signs of damage or anything out of place that could be causing the hiccup.
• Try the Old RAM: If all else fails, put your old RAM back in and see if the display comes back to life. If it does, your new RAM or its compatibility with your system are probably to blame.

Remember, these steps are just the starting point, designed to iron out any straightforward issues that might be clouding the bigger picture.

If the problem persists after these checks, no worries, that just means it’s time to dive deeper and explore more specific issues related to compatibility and configuration that might be at play here.

Keep your toolbox ready—we’re going to get technical!

Step-by-Step Troubleshooting

If the preliminary checks didn’t resolve the issue, don’t sweat it—we’re going to roll up our sleeves and dig a little deeper. Let’s explore some structured steps to troubleshoot and, hopefully, resolve the display not being detected.

• BIOS/UEFI Update: First off, ensure that your system’s BIOS/UEFI is updated to the latest version. An outdated BIOS can cause compatibility issues with new RAM, leading to display problems.
• RAM Compatibility: Double-check the RAM’s compatibility with your motherboard. Look through the motherboard’s manual or look at the manufacturer’s website to confirm the supported RAM type, size, speed, and configuration. Rarely, it could be as simple as 16gb vs 32gb of RAM.
• Correct RAM Slot: Verify that the RAM is inserted into the correct slot as per the motherboard manual. Some motherboards are picky about which slots are used, especially when dealing with multiple RAM sticks.
• Memory Diagnostic Tools: Run a memory diagnostic tool to check for any errors or issues with the new RAM. Windows has a built-in Memory Diagnostic Tool, or you can use third-party software like MemTest86.
• Check Display with Another Device: Connect the monitor to another device, like a different computer or a laptop, to rule out any issues with the monitor itself.
• Consult the Manual: It might sound old school, but never underestimate the power of the manual that came with your RAM or motherboard. It can provide insights and solutions that are tailored to your specific hardware.
• Contact Manufacturer Support: If you’ve tried everything and are still stuck, it might be time to contact the support team of your RAM or motherboard manufacturer. They can provide specialized assistance based on the exact make and model of your components.

Don’t get disheartened if the issue doesn’t resolve immediately. It’s all about methodically working through the possibilities and narrowing down the culprit.

Advanced Solutions

If you’ve made it this far and are still staring at a blank screen, it’s time to delve into some advanced solutions. Don’t worry, we’ll navigate these somewhat trickier waters together!

• CMOS Reset: Resetting the CMOS can resolve a myriad of hardware issues by clearing any stored hardware configuration settings. Refer to your motherboard’s manual for instructions on how to reset the CMOS on your specific model.
• Reinstalling the Operating System: While this is a more drastic step, sometimes, a fresh start is what your system needs. Back up your important files and consider reinstalling your operating system to rule out any software conflicts causing the display issues.
• Testing with Minimal Components: Boot your system with the minimum components required—a single RAM stick, CPU, and GPU (if there’s no onboard graphics). If the display works, gradually reintroduce other components to identify the conflicting hardware.
• RAM Voltage and Timing Adjustment: Sometimes, tweaking the RAM settings in the BIOS can resolve compatibility issues. Consult your RAM’s manual and adjust the voltage and timing settings accordingly, but proceed with caution—incorrect settings can cause system instability.
• Professional Diagnostic Testing: If all else fails, it may be worth having a professional run diagnostic tests on your components. They can identify faults or compatibility issues that may not be apparent and suggest the necessary remedies.

Remember, while these solutions are a bit more involved, they are critical steps in resolving more complex issues. Take it one step at a time and don’t be afraid to get professional help.

Recommendations for Prevention

Alright, so now that we’ve navigated through the tumultuous sea of potential solutions, let’s talk about some steps to preemptively strike against any future display detours post RAM upgrade.

• Consult Your Motherboard’s Manual: Before even purchasing new RAM, take a gander at your motherboard’s manual. It’s filled with crucial info on compatible RAM types, speeds, and installation procedures that can save you a headache down the line.
• Use a Memory Configurator Tool: Many RAM manufacturers offer online tools to help you find compatible RAM for your system. Use these tools to avoid buying incompatible memory modules in the first place.
• Ensure Proper Seating: When installing new RAM, ensure it’s properly seated. A common culprit for many post-installation issues is improperly seated RAM. Double, no, triple-check that the sticks are snug and secure.
• BIOS/UEFI Update: Keeping your system’s BIOS/UEFI updated is important for ensuring compatibility with newer hardware components, including RAM. Regularly check your motherboard manufacturer’s website for any updates and follow the provided instructions to update your system.
• Quality over Quantity: It’s tempting to go for the cheaper options, but investing in high-quality, reputable RAM can pay off in the long run. Premium RAM often comes with better warranties and customer support, making them a safer bet.
• Gradual Upgrades: When upgrading, consider doing it gradually. Start with one component at a time, testing each one to make sure the system is stable before moving on to the next. This method helps in isolating any issues that might pop up along the way.
• Professional Installation: If you’re not comfortable handling the innards of your computer, consider having your new RAM installed by a professional. It might cost a bit more, but it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Conclusion

Hopefully, we’ve helped you get up and running with your new RAM and your display is working just fine. If all these steps haven’t fixed the issue, you may need to phone a professional friend.

Whether you’re a seasoned tech enthusiast or someone just starting their journey into the world of PC building and upgrades, having a foundational understanding and a handy toolkit of solutions is key.

Here’s to smooth future upgrades!

The post “No Display” After Installing New RAM (How to Identify & Fix It) appeared first on Cybersided.

In general, physically building your own PC is not hard at all, even if you have limited technical experience. Most PC components are designed to be plug-and-play, meaning that you usually can build an entire PC with nothing other than a screwdriver and a simple manual. The whole process can often be done in an hour or two.

Without a doubt, the hardest part of building your own PC is simply knowing which individual component to select for the build. There are numerous options for CPUs, motherboards, RAM, GPUs, etc, and it can be difficult for a beginner to know which parts to combine.

That’s the way-too-short answer and, if you’re new to this whole process, you’ll definitely have plenty of questions and concerns. But don’t be intimidated- a DIY PC is almost certainly going to save you money and perform better than a pre-built.

We created this quick guide to give you a good understanding of how easy/hard it will be for you to create your own build that fits your own specific needs. And we put a special emphasis on simplifying component selection (the hardest part of the whole process).

Introduction

So you’re thinking of building your own PC, but there’s something holding you back from taking the leap.

Maybe it seems too complicated for you, or maybe you’re afraid you’ll pick out the wrong components. Maybe you have a sinking feeling that you’ll accidentally break all your expensive new computer parts while you try to put it all together.

Building a computer sounds like it should be a difficult undertaking best left to those sci-fi-loving IT geeks or the bigwigs at Intel and Dell…but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

A DIY PC is the best (and only) way to make your perfect rig a reality. You can work and game on a computer you grab off the shelf, but there’s nothing like having a machine that you built from the ground up to your exact specifications.

You (probably) can’t build yourself a personalized car or assemble your ideal smartphone, and you can’t design and build your perfect home without the help of a whole crew (and a ton of money). Computers may be some of the only electronics—or big purchases in general—that you can truly personalize down to the finest details.

That may be enough to convince you. If not, chances are you’ll feel a lot better about building a new computer by the time you finish reading this piece. It’ll walk you through choosing your components, making sure they’re all compatible with each other, what risks are involved, and some other info that’ll help you make an informed decision.

But first, a question: Why build a PC instead of buying a pre-built one?

Pre-Built PC vs Building Your Own PC

There’s nothing wrong with buying a pre-built computer. Building a PC isn’t for everyone, and there’s no rule saying you can’t be a real gamer or computer whiz if you opt for a pre-built model. That being said, however, there are some real disadvantages that come with those pre-built PCs.

The first problem with buying a pre-built PC is the price. Manufacturers add a nice margin for themselves on the PCs they build, so almost any pre-built PC will be more expensive than the exact same computer built on your own.

See for yourself: Pick out a computer from a retailer like Best Buy, see what parts they use, and see if you can find the same parts online and add up the prices. You may be surprised at just how much of a premium manufacturers put on pre-built machines.

For all that money you’d think pre-built machines would only have premium parts, right? Yeah, not exactly. A lot of manufacturers win bids to build PCs by coming in at the lowest possible price, which naturally means a lot of cut corners.

It’s all in the details; they’ll often grab your attention by putting the (actually quite good) CPU or GPU front and center while quietly slipping a bunch of bargain-bin RAM, an off-brand motherboard, barely functional storage, or a hilariously inadequate cooling system (or no cooling system at all).

You may have better luck with some pre-built brands than others, but you should always take their spec sheets with a grain of salt and dig into it for yourself.

Another problem with pre-builts comes in the form of bloatware. Pre-built computers don’t just come with an operating system installed, they also come with a bunch of extra programs you never asked for.

Programs like “free” trials of antivirus software, random games, and other third-party apps you’ll never use. Manufacturers get paid to install all this garbage on their pre-build computers, and while it may not actually hurt your computer, bloatware can adversely affect its performance.

It takes up storage space, runs processes in the background (even while you’re not using it), and generally makes a nuisance of itself until you remove it.

There’s nothing wrong with buying a pre-built computer, but it’s hardly the best choice for anyone with even a modicum of technical knowhow. You’re going to want to build your own PC if you plan on doing anything more involved than browsing the internet. So now that you know that, it’s time to move on to the first step toward building your perfect PC: Finding the right components.

Picking The Right PC Parts

Every computer needs a few key components to function: A motherboard, a processor, some RAM, a storage device, a power supply, and, if you’re a gamer, a graphics card.

You’ll also need a case, some kind of cooling system, a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse.

As we’ve said, compared to physically installing everything, this is usually the hardest part of a DIY PC build. You’ll want to make sure you know what you need, what you don’t need, and how it all works together.

We’ll cover each critical component piece-by-piece to help you know exactly how to choose.

Picking The Right CPU

The processor (CPU) is perhaps the most essential part of any PC. They’re essentially the brains of the computing world; they interpret and execute instructions, run programs, and are generally in charge of telling the other components what to do.

There are two companies that produce CPUs today: Intel and AMD. Both firms offer a whole range of CPUs to fit just about any budget and use case, and neither has a clear advantage over the other in terms of performance or versatility.

Picking an AMD or an Intel CPU will lock you into their respective ecosystems, however, so keep in mind that you won’t be able to mix and match your motherboard, CPU, and (often) storage device.

Aside from the manufacturer, the most important aspects of a CPU are how many cores it has, its clock speed, and the size of its cache. Picking out the right one can be tricky, but you can narrow it down pretty well if you know what kind of computer you’re trying to build.

You don’t need to break the bank on a super-powerful processor if you’re only planning on using your computer for doing schoolwork, for example, but you also don’t want to opt for something cheap and weak if you’re going to do anything remotely resource intensive.

Here’s some advice to help you narrow it down:

AMD or Intel CPU?

While AMD used to be the cheap, less-impressive alternative to Intel, it’s really come into its own in recent years. Newer AMD CPUs are just as powerful and versatile as their Intel counterparts, and they’re often cheaper, too. You’ll be just fine regardless of which company you go for.

Which CPU is right for you really comes down to two things: Your budget and what you want to do with it. Here are a few general recommendations based on what you plan to do with your new computer.

What CPU for Basic Computing?

If you’re planning on using your new computer for stuff like browsing the internet, watching videos, checking your social media, and working with basic documents, you probably don’t need anything too extravagant. You’ll probably get by just fine with an entry-level CPU like an Intel Core i3-10100F or an AMD Athlon 200GE. You could go for something more expensive, sure, but there’s really no reason to unless you plan on upgrading your other components in the future.

What CPU for Gaming?

Most games rely more on GPUs than CPUs, so you may be better off going for a midrange CPU and spending the extra money on a better GPU. That doesn’t mean you can skimp out on a CPU—you still need a decent one to game no matter how powerful your GPU—but it does mean you don’t need to drop over $400 or $500 on a CPU. Something like an Intel Core i5-12600K or an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X would give you plenty of power without breaking the bank.

What CPU for Data Processing and Creative Work?

Some creative work can be handled by your computer’s GPU, but most of the more intensive stuff you’ll do in your average workday—managing spreadsheets, crunching numbers, running reports, etc—rely heavily on your computer’s CPU. And since faster processing means faster results, spending the money on a good CPU now can save you time and make you more productive in the future.

You’ll want to splurge for something high end like an Intel Core i9-11900KF or an absolute beast like the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. The sticker price may be a bit of a shocker but remember, time is money.

Picking The Right RAM

RAM (Random-Access Memory) is a bit like your computer’s short-term memory. It stores all the data and instructions for all your active programs so your CPU can access it quickly, and it’s what lets your computer manage multiple open programs and browser tabs at once.

Too little RAM will make your computer run sluggishly, and excess RAM will sit there unused, so you’re really looking for the right amount of the right type of RAM to get you in the Goldilocks zone where you aren’t wasting time or money.

Thankfully, RAM is easier to pick out than a CPU. RAM (with very few exceptions) will work just as well with an AMD CPU as it will with an Intel CPU, so you have a lot more freedom of choice, and picking it out is pretty straightforward. All you need to consider is the RAM’s generation, its speed, and how much of it you want.

As far as which brand/model of RAM to opt for, check out our guide to whether or not RAM brand matters. It has everything you need to know in order to avoid paying for things you don’t need, along with compatibility info.

RAM Generation

Most of the cost-effective RAM you’ll find on the market is of the DDR4 generation. DDR5 generation RAM exists, but it’s new, expensive, and not widely available (though this is changing fairly quickly).

And while you can technically opt for cheaper DDR3 RAM, it’s almost certainly worth the extra few bucks to bump up to DDR4. Part of it is performance—DDR4 has higher bandwidth and faster speeds—and part of it is compatibility; most newer motherboards only have DDR4-compatible slots, so there’s really no point to buying DDR3.

RAM Speed

There’s a decent amount of variation in RAM speeds even among models of the same generation. DDR4 RAM can operate as slowly as 800MHz and supposedly maxes out at 3200MHz, but firms like Kingston and HyperX have worked their magic to accelerate their RAM’s performance well past the supposed limit. It’s safe to say that you shouldn’t settle for any RAM with advertised speeds below 3000MHz.

RAM Amount

This largely comes down to personal preference, your computer’s intended use, and how long you plan on keeping your new rig before upgrading.

Minimum: 8GB is the bare minimum you should shoot for. It’ll give your PC the power to manage a few lightweight programs at once, run some games, and even do a bit of light photo or video editing.
Ideal for Most: 16GB of RAM will be more than enough for everyday stuff, and just enough to handle more in-depth creative work and run more demanding games in higher resolution. You probably won’t need any more than 16GB outside of a few special situations.

For Special Situations

32GB of RAM is what’s recommended for people who do heavy-duty modeling work, animating, editing huge videos, designing games, or anything that might require lots and lots of rendering. 32GB is overkill for the vast majority of users, however, so there’s really no reason to spend the money unless you’re planning on using your personal PC as a creative powerhouse.

Picking The Right Storage

This one’s easy. There are two main types of storage devices on the market: Hard drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs), with HDDs being the older, slower, more conventional choices and SSDs being the faster, newer, and almost objectively better options.

When you’re on this step, definitely take a look at our guide that covers when SSDs are worth the extra money and when they might not be.

You only have to consider three factors when you’re looking for a storage device: Capacity, price, and transfer speeds. Here’s a quick breakdown of what to look for.

Capacity

A HDD or SSD’s capacity is the total amount of data it can store. Hard drives have higher maximum capacities and tend to be cheaper on a $/GB basis, though SSDs have been catching up in recent years. How much storage space you need depends on what you’re going to do with your computer, but it’s probably safe to say you want at least 1TB of storage. You’ll want a lot more if you plan on installing a ton of games or storing a lot of big files, and you may not need as much if you’re going to use your PC for basic stuff, however, so the choice is ultimately up to you.

Transfer Speeds

Your PC’s operating system, programs, and files all live in its storage drive. It takes time to boot up the OS, load programs, and open files, and it takes more or less time depending on your storage drive’s transfer speeds. Higher transfer speeds mean faster startups and loading times, which translates to a snappier, more responsive computing experience.

Lightning-fast transfer speeds are one of the main selling points of SSDs, and especially NVMe SSDs. We also recently did a complete head-to-head comparison of NVMe SSDs versus standard SATA SSDs.

Where it might take upwards of a minute to boot up or restart your operating system off of a hard drive, a solid-state drive will finish the same operation in a matter of seconds. SSDs all-but eliminate loading times in games, make programs and big files load in the blink of an eye, and make pretty much every other interaction with your PC feel smoother and snappier.

Price

Price is the one main advantage HDDs have over SSDs. SSDs have dropped in price quite a bit since they were first introduced, but you’ll still be hard-pressed to find a SSD that’s cheaper in $/GB than a HDD. NVMe SSDs are even pricier than standard SSDs, but many users find the added price more than worth it for NVMe SSDs’ ridiculously fast transfer speeds.

Picking The Right Motherboard

A PC’s motherboard is a kind of circuit board that houses the other components and facilitates communication between them.

Each motherboard has a set of slots to accommodate the computer’s other components, and the type, shape, and generation of the slots determines what components it’s compatible with. If you choose an AMD CPU you’ll need to pick an AMD-compatible motherboard, or vice-versa if you opt for an Intel CPU.

When you look for motherboards online you’ll see that each one lists what kind of sockets/slots it has as well as its chipset (integrated components that work with the CPU and enable different functions).

It’s a good idea to make sure your components are compatible with the motherboard you’re looking at (manually or with an online service), but otherwise you have a lot of leeway here.

Just don’t skimp out on a motherboard, otherwise you may find your computer’s foundation crumbling long before the rest of the components. We documented this in our guide to determining if your motherboard is a bottleneck for your build.

Picking a Power Supply

This one’s also pretty easy. All you need to do is add up the amount of power your other components need, add at least 100W to the total power consumption figure (for safety and future upgrades), and find a well-reviewed PSU that puts out at least that many watts.

The “well-reviewed” part is important, by the way. The PSU powers all your delicate, expensive computer components, so you’ll really want to spend the money on one that’ll provide clean and safe power.

There are plenty of good PSU options out there. We tend to like Seasonic and Corsair, but they are certainly not the only solid choices.

Picking a GPU (Optional)

The reason we all this step “optional” is that most (but not all) CPUs include integrated graphics. In layman’s terms, this just means that there is a light-duty GPU built in to the CPUs capabilities.

We can’t stress this enough: If you opt for a PC build without a dedicated GPU, make sure you pick a CPU that includes integrated graphics!

If you need extra help deciding, read through our complete breakdown of dedicated vs integrated GPUs. It has everything you need to know in order to determine whether or not

You’re going to need a GPU if you’re planning on building a gaming rig or doing any kind of serious rendering or creative work. Very few modern games will even run without a dedicated GPU, and more and more creative programs are opting to offload their processing from the CPU to the GPU.

It can be tough to figure out which GPU is right for you. There are a ton of different models on the market (or there will be when the chip shortage eases), and AMD and NVIDIA GPUs can work with both AMD and Intel CPUs, so it can be tough to narrow it down. GPUs can also be one of the most expensive parts of your computer, so it isn’t a choice you can take lightly.

You have three options, none of which are better or worse than the others:

• Buy the most expensive/high-end GPU you can afford.
• Opt for a midrange card like an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or an AMD Radeon RX 5700
• Look up your favorite game on Steam, check the recommended specs/components, and buy the card listed

Picking a PC Case

Choosing a PC case is often equal parts function and aesthetics. You can opt for all sorts of designs, shape, and sizes, but the main thing you need to be aware of is whether or not your parts will fit.

There are seven commonly sold types of PC cases. Each type is classified by the type/size of motherboard it can accept, along with its general form factor.

Here’s a list of the PC case types and the motherboards they commonly accept:

• Full Tower: Accepts ATX and many accept eATX (Extended ATX) motherboards
• Mid Tower: Most accept ATX size motherboards and Micro ATX motherboards
• Mini Tower: Most accept Micro ATX and Mini ATX motherboards
• Desktop: Accepts some Micro ATX and Mini ATX motherboards
• Small Form Factor: Usually only accept Mini ATX motherboards
• Ultra Small Form Factor: Accepts Mini ATX motherboards
• Micro: Usually only accepts specialty integrated motherboards

Aside from the motherboard size compatibility (we cover that later in this article), you’ll be basing your case selection mostly off of your own aesthetic choices, other space considerations, and fan placement.

GPUs, in particular, are the main component you need to make sure will fit in your case. Some cases can handle a massive motherboard, but don’t have the side-to-side clearance for the larger GPUs on the market.

Picking Fans & Cooling Systems

When building your own PC, your potential fan options are usually determined by the case you select.

Lots of cases include fans, making your job even easier. The ones that don’t include fans will still have specific slot/spaces pre-drilled and ready for fans.

CPU fans and CPU liquid coolers are another important factor that you’ll need to decide on. Most of the time, a simple heatsink with a fan is plenty good enough. But for high-end, demanding builds, liquid cooling can be a great choice.

There are also lots of all-in-one CPU coolers on the market nowadays. These are basically luxury, closed-loop, plug-and-play coolers for your CPU.

Cooling your custom PC build is arguably the most variable and potentially creative part of the entire process. There are literally hundreds of products and layout combinations you can experiment with.

Rather than try to detail all of that here, we’ll strongly recommend that you check out our guide to PC fans and airflow.

Conclusion

Building a PC is a lot easier than you might think. Picking out the parts is the hardest part; anyone with functioning hands and a screwdriver can put a PC together once you have the components.

Just make sure you do your own research, follow some how-to videos to make sure you’re putting it together right, and enjoy your brand-new PC.

Oh, and welcome to the club.

The post How Hard is Building Your Own PC? (A Quick & Honest Guide) appeared first on Cybersided.

This quick guide will cover everything you need to know about what thermistor cables are, how they work, how to use properly use them, and if they are even worth making use of in your PC.

What Is A Thermistor Cable?

A thermistor cable, in this context, is essentially a cable used to monitor the surface temperatures of components inside a computer. Also known as thermal cables, thermistor cables are often included when users buy new motherboards, and occasionally come bundled with some other components.

Thermistor cables usually have a plug on one end and a flat sensor on the other. The plug end is typically attached directly to the motherboard, and the sensor end is attached to the component (either self-adhering or with tape) whose temperature the user wants to monitor.

Why Would You Need One?

Computers get hot. Components like CPUs and graphics cards consume a lot of electricity when they’re working hard, and some of that electricity is always released as heat. Heat generation is just a part of the deal, and every good PC owner knows how important it is to prevent that heat from overwhelming and even damaging their components.

There’s a whole host of cooling options out there—CPU fans, GPU fans, case fans, liquid cooling systems, heat sinks, heat pipes, undervolting (we recently created a guide specifically for undervolting) and other software-driven solutions, etc—all of which do a great job at keeping the insides of computers cool, but they’re a bit imprecise.

Fans can get annoying when they’re constantly moving air through computer cases (we also have a guide to help you optimize your PC fans and airflow), and so can the constant whining of liquid cooling pumps. It would be nice to be able to check how hot the inside of your computer was getting so you could set its fans or pumps to run only when you need them.

But there’s no way to know how hot your computer or its components are…or is there?

If you’re looking for a cheap, easy, and accurate way to monitor your computer’s internals then you might have come to the right place. Thermistor cables are cheap, easy to install, and claim to give accurate temperature readings in real time, so they should be exactly the solution you’re looking for, right? Unfortunately, things aren’t quite that cut-and-dry.

So, do thermistor cables work as advertised? Are they worth it? We’ll dive further in to help you determine if/when/how to use them.

What Is A Thermistor?

A thermistor is a type of electrical resistor with a temperature-dependent resistance level, meaning it conducts more or less electricity depending on how hot or cold it is. They were first invented back in 1833 by Michael Faraday (the Faraday Cage guy), though they were so hard to engineer it took almost another century before a man named Samuel Ruben made them commercially viable. Since their commercial adoption in 1930, thermistors have become important to many different industries.

There are two different kinds of thermistors: Negative temperature coefficient (NTC) thermistors and positive temperature coefficient (PTC) thermistors.

NTC thermistors’ resistance decreases at higher temperatures and are usually made from rods, discs, or cast chips of semiconducting material. NTC thermistors are typically used as temperature sensors, and have found their way into cars, consumer electronics, digital thermostats, 3D printers, and even commercial food storage systems. The thermistor cables referred to in this article are almost certainly NTC thermistors.

PTC thermistors, on the other hand, gain resistance when the temperature rises, and are usually made from materials like silicon or doped polycrystalline ceramic. PTC thermistors are often used within circuits to limit electric currents above a certain level, as protection circuits in lithium batteries, as heaters in diesel-powered trucks, and in all kinds of electric motors and power transformers.

How to Use Thermistor Cables

Thermistor cables typically plug into a motherboard’s T-sensors, if it has any. If your motherboard doesn’t have any labeled T-sensor ports, try checking the manual to see if it has any two-pin headers that will accommodate the thermistor cable’s plug.

If you don’t have your manual on hand, try looking near the bottom of the board for any unoccupied headers, then see if your thermistor cable’s plug will fit. Just make sure your computer is unplugged before you do—getting zapped tends to ruin one’s day.

After you check to make sure your motherboard has the right headers for a thermistor cable, the next step is to decide where you want to attach your cable’s temperature sensor. CPUs almost always come with built-in temperature sensors, as do almost all graphics cards and many motherboards, but they aren’t the only components that can be damaged by excessive heat.

Hard drives and solid-state drives slow down, become unstable, and can even fail completely when they get too hot, RAM sticks can become warped and may break if they overheat (though this doesn’t happen very often), and overheating power supplies may suffer from lowered performance, wear out more quickly, and potentially even fail completely.

Wires, circuits, and connectors aren’t immune from excessive heat either; wire casings may melt, circuits can warp, and connectors may become dislodged with no obvious way to fix them. And in the absolute worst-case scenario, an overheating computer may suffer a series of catastrophic events that lead to either total system failure or short circuit and potentially start a fire.

The best way to prevent thermal damage to your computer is to set up an adequate cooling system, but that isn’t always enough for some users. Cautious users don’t like to leave their computer’s temperature up to chance, so they install thermistor cables inside their computer case either to monitor its ambient temperature or the surface temperature of specific components.

Once you decide on where to place your thermistor’s temperature-sensing side, all you need to do is attach the sensor to your component of choice using a piece of thermal tape—or at least some kind of tape that won’t melt when things start heating up. When that’s done, all that’s left is to boot up your PC and figure out which temperature monitoring utility you want to use.

The required software will often be included with the motherboard, mentioned in the manual, or available as a free download from the motherboard’s manufacturer, but this is not always the case. If the software you need isn’t pre-installed or readily available, there are a few open-source programs that will do the job.

It can be a bit difficult to tell whether a monitoring software will work with your thermistor cable (as opposed to just monitoring CPU, GPU and motherboard temperatures), however, so it may take some trial and error before you find one that works for you.

Now that you know a bit about what thermistor cables are and how to use them, it’s time for a few recommendations.

Are Thermistor Cables Worth It?

Posts on forums, Q&As, and Reddit comments give you the impression that computer enthusiasts are not exactly enthusiastic about thermistor cables. The consensus seems to be that they’re given away for free for a reason; properly calibrated thermistors can be incredibly accurate, but the simple ones used in computers are neither properly calibrated nor particularly accurate. Thermistor cables are completely optional, and many users seem to think they aren’t worth the hassle of installing them.

Our Recommended Thermistor Cables

The good news is that thermistor cables are very cheap. The bad news is that it may be kind of tough to find a good thermistor cable if your computer’s components didn’t come with any. It’s not that there aren’t any on the market—there are plenty—it’s just that looking for a specific electrical component is like looking for a needle in a haystack if you don’t know precisely what to ask for.

Here are a few options to get you started, and remember that you’re looking for a temperature sensor with a 2-pin plug that isn’t designed for 3D printers.

XSPC Wire Sensor 10K (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This cheap thermistor cable is 50cm long, perfect for use inside a computer, and users on Amazon have confirmed that it works with their motherboards.

Phobya 10K Temperature Sensor (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This one is very similar to the XSPC sensor above, but it’s a little longer (80cm instead of 50cm) and a little pricier. Users have also confirmed this one works with almost all of their motherboards.

Bitspower G1/4” Temperature Sensor (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This sensor is designed to monitor the temperature of water cooling loops, which makes it much easier to keep track of how hot your liquid cooling system is getting.

Conclusion

Thermistor cables are really just temperature sensors some people put inside their computers. Some users think they’re useful, but most people seem to think they aren’t worth the effort. CPUs, GPUs, and some motherboards already come with temperature sensors, so many users think there’s no point in installing more temperature sensors inside their computer cases.

After all, the CPU and GPU generate the most heat during operation, so monitoring their temperatures should be enough to prevent the whole system from overheating. Instead of installing thermistor cables and configuring their software to interpret the temperature data, many users simply prefer to invest a bit more into their cooling systems.

It’s up to you whether you want to invest the time and money into installing thermistor cables in your computer, but you should really do some more research to make sure you won’t be wasting your effort.

The post Thermistor Cables: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Cybersided.

Generally, PSU shrouds are just aesthetic covers for a PC’s potentially unsightly power supply. The shrouds don’t offer any performance or mechanical benefit, but instead create a cleaner look by hiding cables, connections, and the PSU itself.

Even though your PC isn’t going to run better or cooler with a PSU shroud, there’s still plenty of reason to want one, especially if your PC case is windowed.

This quick guide will cover everything you need to know about PSU shrouds. We get into all the details about what they do, how they work, and which products make the most sense.

What PSU Shrouds Are For

Computer enthusiasts were excited when the first computer cases with built-in viewing windows or fully clear sides hit the market. After all, what’s the point of spending all that money on the latest processors and graphics cards if you can’t show them off to anyone (other than, you know, all the benefits of having a state-of-the-art rig?

Manufacturers took notice of the sudden rise of transparent cases, and they quickly started factoring aesthetics into their designs. Components became sleeker and more futuristic. RGB LEDs started appearing all over alongside promises of custom and reactive lighting. Everything that went inside a computer case started looking cooler with each successive iteration.

Everything, that is, except for power supplies.

Aesthetically minded users were the first to recognize the PSU problem. These users didn’t take kindly to the unattractive lumps that threw off the appearance of the stylish machines they’d spent so much time and money on, so they did what any self-respecting adult would do in that situation: Cover it up and pretend it didn’t exist. And thus the PSU shroud was born.

The original PSU shrouds were all DIY affairs. Users fashioned them out of whatever looked good and earned them bragging rights. Craftier users made them out of fiberglass or aluminum, makers 3D printed covers made of colored polymer, and less talented users spray-painted some cardboard and called it a day.

Manufacturers noticed this new trend, too, and before long they started including PSU shrouds with almost every windowed computer case they sold.

Are PSU Shrouds Worth It?

PSU shrouds are definitely worth it for making a PC look a lot cleaner. PSU shrouds are also easy to install and don’t interfere with airflow. They are purely aesthetic, however, so you absolutely don’t have to use one if you don’t want to. Your system won’t run any better or worse.

PSU Shroud Design

PSU shrouds are very simple. They’re really just pieces of shaped plastic or metal that fit inside of a computer case to cover up the PSU, its cables, and anything else at the bottom of the case.

The whole point is to make a computer with a windowed case look better, so a good PSU shroud should have a stylish design that matches the rest of the case, completely cover up the power supply and its cords, and accomplish all this without drawing any attention to itself.

Properly designed PSU shrouds should cover up the PSU and its cables without affecting airflow or making it difficult to access the power supply, if necessary, which means they should be easy to install and remove.

Some PSU shrouds may click right into place, while others may require a screwdriver or a pair of pliers.

Proper PSU shrouds should also leave some room for air to flow around the PSU. No one likes a hot power supply, for one, and nothing good can come from restricting airflow to the PSU.

Best PC Cases with Built-In PSU Shrouds

Phanteks P600S Eclipse (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This case won Best Case by Techspot.com, this versatile, easily customizable case has a large side viewing window that lets you show off your computer’s components and a PSU shroud that blends in perfectly with the rest of the case.

Lian Li TU150 Mini ITX (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This portable case comes with a built-in handle, a tough but lightweight aluminum and tempered glass construction, and a window with a tinted bottom that conceals the PSU. That’s right, the PSU shroud is built right into the window itself. How’s that for convenience?

Lian Li LanCool II (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This full-sized offering from Lian Li gives you everything you want in case: It’s roomy, it has two tempered glass panels that swing open for easy access to your computer’s components, and it has built-in RGB lighting. This case also comes with built-in PSU shrouds that swing open like its side panels, giving you the best in both concealment and convenience.

NZXT H510i (Click to check current price on Amazon)

Another compact case with a built-in PSU shroud, this case differentiates itself with its clean, modern design, advanced RGB lighting system, and unique cable routing kit with channels and straps that make cable management fast and easy. The PSU shroud is built across the bottom of the case, but the case’s open back offers easy access to your computer’s PSU.

Be quiet! Silent Base 601 (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This case has two built-in fans, a three-step fan controller, and noise dampening vents that cut down the decibels without restricting airflow. This case is a bit simpler than the others, but its understated style, wide viewing window, and included PSU shroud and HDD slot covers give it a clean, respectable look that stands out without being ostentatious.

Best PSU Shrouds for PCs

The best PSU shrouds are typically the ones that come bundled with new computer cases. You can make your own or commission one from some crafty denizen of the internet, of course, but either one will take a good deal of time and more money than you should spend on a simple piece of shaped material.

And while there are some PSU shrouds available on sites like Etsy and Amazon, the chances of finding one that fits both your computer case and your PSU are very slim.

The chances of finding a PSU shroud that fits your system are slim, but not zero. There are a few different sites out there that sell PSU shrouds designed for a range of different cases and PSUs.

Take coldzero.eu, for instance, or the smattering of proprietary PSU shrouds on corsair.com. Finding a PSU shroud on its own is pretty tough though, so you might want to start somewhere else.

PC Build Aesthetics

Buying a pre-built PC is fine and all, but there’s nothing quite like building your own PC. Planning your build, picking the perfect parts, feeling the components click into place, watching your creation come to life; it’s almost a spiritual experience to some particularly enthusiastic enthusiasts.

If you can’t relate, try thinking of it this way: We can’t build our own cars or design our own smartphones, we can’t customize the layout of our apartments or the décor in our workplaces, and we have no control over the way our towns and cities are designed.

The closest you’ll get to the freedom of choice that comes with building a PC is designing and building your own house, and that’s something that fewer and fewer people will ever be able to do.

Building a PC is a wonderful experience, and at the end of it you get to play awesome games and tear through tasks and processes that would make your old PC burst into flame. Making the perfect PC goes a bit beyond buying the right components, however. Fashion, or at least aesthetics, is becoming a bigger and bigger factor for PC builders.

You may be thinking that building computers and having fashion sense are mutually exclusive, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Custom computers aren’t just big black boxes anymore, they’ve evolved into sleek, stylish beasts with intricately angular designs, RGB lighting, and built-in viewing windows that show off the components inside.

A properly built computer with a modern case can look more like a work of art than a machine, and you’d better believe there are swarms of computer geeks ready to drool over a nice new rig.

There’s just one problem with the custom computer industry’s newfound sense of style: the unsightly and completely necessary mess of wires and cables that come with every computer.

Cable management is kind of a pain. It takes a lot of tedious work to properly bind all a computer’s cables together in an aesthetically pleasing way, but it’s hard to avoid if you want the inside of your computer to look good on and off-camera.

And even after you painstakingly twist-tie all the cables together and pin them to the sides of the case like clusters of electric arteries you’re still left with another unsightly mess at the bottom of the case: The power supply.

You can’t exactly bind the power cords together with the other wires, and manufacturers have yet to design a power supply that doesn’t look like a brutalist black box (though we do probably like Seasonic and Corsair options the best) squatting by the back of the case.

Conclusion

PSU shrouds are important to people who really want to show off their computers. They’re perfect for covering up unsightly components that don’t mesh with the rest of the computer, which is probably why most new computer cases either come with PSU shrouds or integrate them into their design.

There are very few PSU shrouds available by themselves, however, so you might need to invest in a new case if you really want to cover up your power supply without having to DIY it.

The post PSU Shrouds: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Cybersided.

The short answer is that DOCP stands for Direct Overclock Profile and is a function designed to overclock and calibrate high-performance RAM. For the most part, DOCP functions identically to the more popular XMP setting, but DOCP is only available on AMD platforms.

That’s the very oversimplified, in-a-nutshell answer, so don’t worry if you’re confused.

We’ve created this quick guide to give you everything you need to know about DOCP, how it affects your PC’s performance, when to use it, how to enable it, and how it compares to XMP.

P.S. – While you’re looking into RAM performance, check out our guide to whether or not RAM brand matters.

Intro

RAM is a crucial part of every computer, smartphone, tablet, game console, and just about any other electronic device you can imagine. It functions as temporary storage for instructions, files, and programs so CPUs can access them in a hurry, and it’s the reason you can run multiple programs at once, jump between open applications, and keep those internet tabs open until you get around to them.

Too little RAM makes it hard for computers to maintain steady framerates, run big programs, and deal with large files and projects, and the same is true of RAM that’s too slow to keep up with the rest of a computer’s components.

Fixing RAM-related problems isn’t always as simple as adding a couple more sticks to the motherboard, however.

Not all RAM is created equal. It comes in a variety of sizes and speeds, and its capabilities differ greatly even among RAM of the same generation. It’s pretty tough for motherboard manufacturers to keep track of the capabilities of every type of RAM on the market, however, so they’ve opted for a two-pronged strategy for dealing with the huge variety in RAM capabilities.

The first prong is easy: When you first install a stick of RAM in a motherboard, the motherboard will just assume the RAM runs at your system’s standard speeds as determined by the CPU. That works for RAM that runs at standard speeds, but it doesn’t work so well for overclockable RAM that are capable of hitting much higher speeds.

This leads us to the second prong, and the reason we’re all here: Direct Overclock Profiles, or DOCP.

What is DOCP?

You may notice that DOCP’s full name, Direct Overclock Profile, bears some similarity to XMP’s full name: Extreme Memory Profile. That’s because (as stated above) they’re essentially the same thing.

AMD developed DOCP as an alternative to Intel’s XMP, which may be a clue as to why DOCP functions almost identically to XMP. Both XMP and DOCP use built-in profiles to overclock and calibrate high-performance RAM, both of them are accessible via your computer’s BIOS, and there’s some confusion around whether either and/or both of them void your warranties.

While XMP is compatible with all Intel and many AMD motherboards, DOCP has only ever worked for AMD systems. DOCP has been falling in popularity for some time, and more and more new AMD motherboards are dropping it entirely in favor of XMP. It’s hard to say why XMP has beaten AMD’s DOCP on its own platform, but it likely came down to convenience.

Maybe manufacturers were just more familiar with XMP than DOCP, or maybe licensing XMP was cheaper than keeping DOCP up to date, or maybe someone at AMD just lost a bet. It’s anyone’s guess.

What is XMP?

Intel’s Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) technology is the reason AMD’s DOCP technology exists. It came about long before AMD’s DOCP—the first XMP came out in 2007—and the licensing fees Intel charged for using XMP were high enough that AMD (and GIGABYTE) created their own versions of the technology for their own platforms.

AMD and GIGABYTE were successful in creating their own versions of XMP (DOCP and EOCP, respectively), but neither caught on to quite the same degree, and more and more modern AMD motherboards are adopting XMP in favor of DOCP.

XMP is essentially a software and a set of profiles that make it easy to overclock your RAM and/or get it to run at the speeds advertised on the box. Manufacturers build XMP profiles into their RAM that tells the motherboard and CPU how fast the RAM should run as well as all of its timings and other important factors.

The system in question receives the XMP profiles and, when XMP is enabled, automatically calibrates the RAM and the motherboard to run at the speeds specified in the profiles.

RAM kits usually come with two XMP profiles out of the box. The first one, Profile 1, typically loads up the RAM’s default XMP timings while keeping its other settings optimized for the motherboard in question.

This usually results in a very stable setup, though that stability can come at the expense of the RAM’s clock speed. Profile 2, on the other hand, usually bumps up the RAM’s speeds and timings to near or at the advertised rates, but maximizing the RAM’s performance may cause instabilities and require settings that aren’t optimized for the motherboard.

Keep in mind, if you’re running early-stage DDR5, stability could be a bit weirder for you.

It’s possible to overclock and calibrate your RAM manually, but XMP and its derivative programs make it much easier to optimize your RAM’s performance. It, DOCP, and GIGABYTE’s Extended Overclock Profiles (EOCP) all serve the same function: to take the guesswork out of configuring your RAM.

Without all of those individual functions, you’d have to tinker around with voltage levels and clock speeds while making sure your RAM stayed in sync with your CPU’s memory controller, and most people would prefer to do almost anything else with their time.

And since DOCP, XMP, and EOCP all deliver better, more precise results than manual tuning, there’s almost no reason not to use them (more on that later).

When To Enable DOCP or XMP

It’s usually a good idea to enable XMP or DOCP when you install overclockable RAM, and specifically when the RAM is capable of hitting speeds well above the industry’s standard. This is doubly true with RAM in a gaming computer

When gaming, RAM needs to work at its maximum capacity if you want to lessen loading times and maintain a high minimum frame rate, and many (if not most) RAM kits intended for gaming are designed to be ideal candidates for overclocking.

If you want to know if you should enable DOCP or XMP, all you have to do is open your computer’s Task Manager after you’ve installed your new RAM.

Just press Ctrl + Shift + Delete at the same time to open the Task Manager, click over to the Performance tab, then click Memory.

You’ll see a graph of your computer’s memory usage. Look to the bottom right of the graph. You should see a field labeled Speed with a number next to it. If that number is close to the speeds advertised on the box your RAM came in, great! You don’t need to do anything.

If not, however, you should probably enable XMP or DOCP.

How to Enable DOCP or XMP

The process for turning DOCP or XMP on and off is technical enough to be impressive but easy enough for most users to do. Just follow these steps (for both XMP and DOCP).

First, accessing the BIOS.

Accessing BIOS Method 1:

1. Turn off the computer
2. Turn the computer back on
3. Press DELETE during start-up to access BIOS
4. Accessing BIOS Method 2:
5. Open Start menu and select Settings
6. Select Update and Security
7. Click Recovery
8. Click Restart Now
9. Look under Advanced Startup for a Restart Now button that lets you configure PC
10. When PC boots back up click Troubleshoot
11. Click Advanced Options
12. Click UEFI Firmware Settings
13. Confirm Restart
14. PC will restart to BIOS

Enabling DOCP or XMP:

1. Access your computer’s BIOS
2. Enter BIOS Advanced Mode (Press F7 if you’re in EZ Mode)
3. Click AI Tweaker
4. Click AI Overclock Tuner
5. Set it to:
6. DOCP: Set it to DOCP / XMP: Set it to XMP 1
7. Press F10
8. Click OK to restart system

See? Easy.

Some users recommend putting your computer through a stress test or two after you enable XMP or DOCP. This usually entails downloading some kind of software to put your PC through its paces, but you can probably achieve the same results by running a resource-intensive game or particularly demanding software.

Benefits of DOCP & XMP

Enabling DOCP or XMP will make your RAM run faster, though the benefits of boosting your RAM’s performance may not be immediately obvious.

Faster RAM means faster data transfers, which means your computer will perform better while multitasking and have an easier time tackling rendering and compiling tasks, but you’ll see the most obvious improvements while you game.

While you won’t see much higher maximum framerates after boosting your RAM’s performance, you will find that your computer can maintain a higher, more stable minimum framerate.

If that doesn’t sound like much of a benefit, try to think of it like this: A higher minimum framerate means your framerate won’t dip to the point of being choppy or stutter while you game, which can really save your butt during firefights or close races.

Final Thoughts & Recommendations

Direct Overclock Profile (DOCP) is AMD’s version of Intel’s Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) technology. Both technologies take the guesswork and tinkering out of overclocking your RAM, and you really need to use one or the other if you want your high-performance RAM to perform as advertised.

There’s all sorts of misunderstood RAM metrics such as DRAM frequency (we recently covered that in a guide) or RAM SPD (and we covered that in yet another guide). XMP/DOCP/EOCP profiles are just another piece of the puzzle.

All things said, setting up DOCP is easy and safe, and there’s very little reason not to give it a shot.

The post DOCP: What It Is & How to Use It (Pros & Cons vs XMP) appeared first on Cybersided.

Generally, SSDs are almost always worth it, even though they are more expensive than traditional HDDs. An SSD will be much faster, more reliable, more efficient, and save space compared to a hard drive. Usually, the only reason to choose an HDD over an SSD would be to save money on very large storage capacity.

That’s the short-and-sweet answer, but there are some important considerations/recommendations before you decide what’s going to work best for your PC (and budget).

This quick guide will dive deep into the details that actually matter for you. When you’re done here, we guarantee you’ll know exactly whether or not an SSD is worth it for your PC.

By the way: Before you commit to buying an SSD, we highly recommend reading our guide to the performance differences between M.2 SSDs and 2.5″ SATA SSDs. It’s a big deal, but often overlooked when choosing a drive.

Solid-State Drives vs Hard Drives

Hard drives (HDDs) store data on spinning magnetic discs. The discs are durable, offer huge amounts of storage space, and can be easily overwritten, but they’re too slow to keep up with even the weakest modern CPUs.

The fastest HDDs spin at up to 15,000 RPM, and it takes a good HDD about 10 to 15 milliseconds to read and access data, which seems pretty fast…until you realize that’s millions of times as long as it takes an average CPU to complete an action. These rotational and mechanical limitations also severely limit HDDs’ read and write speeds, with all but the most expensive models barely able to reach 200MB/sec.

Solid-state drives do things a bit differently. Instead of spinning discs, SSDs store data on non-volatile chips packed with NAND flash memory cells, which offers a number of tangible benefits compared to HDDs.

The lack of moving parts makes SSDs operate silently and makes them more resistant to physical damage, and their flash memory cells consume less power than an HDD and are easier to miniaturize for use in laptops and smaller devices. Flash memory also offers significantly faster read/write times compared to HDDs.

Standard 2.5-inch SSDs are limited to transfer speeds of 600MB/sec by their SATA interfaces, but newer SSDs have gotten around those limitations by utilizing the much faster PCIe slots and optimizing performance using the NVMe protocol.

Matter of fact, today’s best PCIe NVMe SSDs can reach read and write speeds of up to a blistering 7GB/sec.

Here’s a quick comparison to show you just how drastic the difference can be between the read and write performance of PCIe NVMe SSDs and HDDs:

The Seagate Exos 2×14 has billed itself as the fastest HDD in existence. It can reach sustained read and write speeds of up to 524MB/sec.

The Kingston KC3000 is another monster performer. It can reach read and write speeds of up to 7GB/sec, 13.36 times as fast as the Seagate Exos 2×14.

That’s great and all, but those numbers don’t mean much without context. The next sections will give you the specifics on all the benefits from going with a SSD over an HDD.

When is an SSD Worth It?

SSDs’ lower power requirements, silent operation, and greater physical durability are all important benefits, but they pale in comparison to the real benefit: Speed.

Having faster storage is a bigger deal than you’d think.

Your computer accesses its storage all the time; booting up the operating system, loading programs, saving and retrieving files, and all kinds of other operations that happen under the hood. You may have heard that having an SSD makes your computer boot up faster, but you may not know just how much faster.

A computer with an SSD can do a full restart in a matter of a few seconds and can log you onto your user profile in the blink of an eye, and that’s just the start. You can install the biggest applications in seconds. Programs load instantly. Files are open and at your fingertips as soon as you click on them.

Computers with HDDs will seem like they’re working in slow motion. You’ll never want to go back.

Just about anyone with an HDD will benefit from upgrading to an SSD, and anyone with a SATA SSD will benefit from upgrading to a PCIe NVMe SSD. There are really only a couple of cases where you’d want to stick with an HDD.

Types of Games That Benefit Most from SSDs

Gaming performance is no doubt one of the biggest considerations that factor in to many users deciding on storage for their PC.

Without question, SSDs are worth it for gaming. This is especially true for games that have lots of loading screens, large maps, or are texture-heavy. The difference loading games on an SSD vs an HDD is substantial.

Strategy games like Total Warhammer, open world RPG games like The Witcher or Elder Scrolls, racing games with large maps like Forza– these are the types of games that have massive performance increases with an SSD.

Even relatively lightweight competitive games like Valorant, League of Legends, Rocket League, Apex Legends, etc, will have some noticeable gains with an SSD.

With an SSD you’ll forget many of your games ever had loading screens, and you may see a big boost in performance and framerate. Literally every action will feel a bit (or a lot) snappier and more responsive.

When is an HDD Worth It?

As wonderful as SSDs are, they do have a few downsides compared to HDDs. The first one is obvious: price.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find an SSD that offers the same value (in $/GB) as all but the most expensive HDDs, so you may be stuck with an HDD if you can’t find an SSD that fits both your budget and your data storage needs.

The second disadvantage SSDs have compared to HDDs is tied to pricing: storage capacity.

While you can technically find SSDs with capacities well into the TBs, the larger SSDs are too expensive to be practical for many users. HDDs offer much more storage space for the price, so an SSD may not be the right call for you if you need those extra TB of storage space.

Truthfully, there aren’t many modern cases where you’d want to stick with an HDD instead of upgrading to an SSD. The potential upside is huge, and the benefits are more than enough to outweigh SSDs’ greater cost and lower capacities.

Hopefully you’ve seen enough to convince you that SSDs are worth it, but you may still have a couple of concerns you need addressed. Maybe you’ve heard that SSDs aren’t as reliable or long-lasting as HDDs, and that vague but ominous information is holding you back from pulling the trigger.

Are SSDs Reliable and Long-Lasting?

The first SSDs to hit the consumer electronics market suffered from a few major drawbacks: Price, capacity, longevity, and reliability.

We’ve already talked about the price and capacity—both of which have improved over the years—but have SSDs’ become more reliable and long-lasting since they were first introduced?

In a word: Yes.

Early SSDs suffered from limited write endurance, meaning data could only be written to their NAND flash cells so many times before the cells wore out and stopped working entirely.

Newer SSDs sport improved flash cells and utilize a number of techniques to minimize wear and tear, and the results speak for themselves. Modern SSDs also boast endurance ratings of 3,000 TBW (terabytes written) or more, which should be more than enough for the vast majority of users.

Determining whether SSDs last as long as HDDs is a bit tricky, as you’ll get different answers depending on where you look. Some say HDDs and SSDs have very similar failure rates and overall lifespans—between 5 to 10 years—and others say that SSDs are more likely to fail earlier due to their write limits.

This (not quite scientific) study by Backblaze, a cloud storage company, was referenced by many online publications as evidence that SSDs are slightly more reliable than HDDs, but the accuracy of the study is up for debate.

For now it’s probably safe to assume you’ll want to replace your SSD about as frequently as you’d replace an HDD: About every 3 (if you’re being extra cautious) to 5 years.

And since HDDs are infamous for slowing down as they fill up, chances are a 5-year-old SSD will still perform much better than an HDD of the same age.

History of SSDs

Data storage technology has come a long way in the last century. It all started with punch cards, then moved to magnetic drums, magnetic tape drives, and magnetic cores, and floppy discs, none of which could store more than a few KB.

The advent of the personal computer kicked the development of data storage technology into high gear, and soon the floppy disc was supplanted by miniaturized hard drive discs that offered faster data transfers and greater storage capacities.

Hard drive technology proved to be as malleable as it is durable, and the drives’ capacities grew exponentially even as their form factors became more compact and portable. As programs grew in size and complexity, however, it became clear that even hard drives with the faster SATA interface couldn’t transfer data quickly enough to meet the ever-increasing needs of modern software.

Users would only put up with minutes-long bootup sequences and interminable loading times for so long, so manufacturers began the search for a viable replacement for hard drives. Much to their (and everyone else’s) surprise, the solution didn’t come from some futuristic new development, but from a technology that was first pioneered in the 1970s: Solid-state drives.

Solid-state drives spent decades as the exclusive purview of researchers and forward-thinking businesses with big mainframes and bigger budgets.

This began to change when the first patent for a flash-based SSD was filed in 1989, but it took almost another twenty years for the technology to become affordable and ubiquitous enough to actually pose a threat to HDDs’ dominance of the consumer data storage industry.

SSDs have been steadily gaining in popularity as their capacities have grown and their prices have dropped. More and more new laptops and prebuilt desktops come with SSDs instead of HDDs, and fewer and fewer computer hobbyists are choosing HDDs as their main data storage.

Conclusion

SSDs are worth paying for. They may be slightly more expensive in terms of $/GB, but they more than make up for the added price with their insane read and write speeds, especially if you opt for a PCIe NVMe SSD.

It’s hard to overstate just how much an SSD will improve your computing experience. It’s hard to adequately explain how much better they feel to use than HDDs, and we definitely recommend that you experience that for yourself.

The post Are SSDs Worth It? (Real-World Pros & Cons vs HDDs) appeared first on Cybersided.

Generally, an M.2 drive that utilizes NVME will be much faster than a standard 2.5″ SATA SSD, while an M.2 drive that utilizes SATA will perform about the same as a 2.5″ SATA SSD. However, it’s important to understand that this entire comparison is motherboard & interface dependent.

That’s the way-too-short answer. To determine which option performs best, we definitely have to dive a little deeper into what matters and what doesn’t.

This quick guide will give you the all the details you need to make sure you choose the right option for your PC’s storage.

P.S. – If you’re also confused about how M.2 relates/compares to PCIe, check out our complete guide to M.2 vs PCIe Pros, Cons & Differences.

Performance

Solid-state drives are solid-state drives no matter the shape or the size. Both a 2.5-inch SSD and an M.2 SSD use the same kind of non-volatile flash memory (which is why we recommend SSDs over HDDS) and utilize similar technology, so you won’t see any difference in performance between the two…as long as they’re using the same interface.

One of the big draws of the M.2 form factor is its ability to use either the SATA or NVMe protocol for moving data back and forth. There are some 2.5-inch drives that utilize the NVMe protocol, but it’s much more of an M.2 thing. Here’s why that matters:

The Serial ATA (SATA) interface has been an industry standard for connecting storage drives to their host systems for decades now. SATA has gone through a number of different iterations and revisions, and it’s grown to support transfer speeds of up to 600MB/s (more if it’s SATA Express). SATA is fast enough to keep up with almost all HDDs, but SSDs are a different story.

The SATA interface wasn’t developed for SSDs—mostly because SSDs weren’t really a thing yet. SSDs had to adapt to work with SATA, and in many cases their performance was limited by SATA’s capabilities. NVMe, on the other hand, was developed specifically for SSDs.

Unlike SATA, the NVMe interface plugs directly into the motherboard’s PCIe ports and allows computers to fully leverage SSD’s data structures and parallelism, resulting in much lower latency and as much as a sixfold increase in data transfer rates over their slower SATA cousins.

This speed boost mostly comes from improved sequential—not random—read/write rates, however, so you’ll see the biggest improvements when working with huge files and transferring large amounts of data into and out of the drive.

Compatibility

You’d be hard-pressed to find a modern motherboard that isn’t compatible with any given 2.5-inch SATA SSD. Just about every motherboard has the right slots for SATA cables and 2.5-inch drives, and the vast majority of them will work with an SSD just as well as an HDD.

By the way, if you’re wondering if your motherboard is a weak link, take a look at our guide on How to Determine if Your Motherboard is Bottlenecking Your PC.

Things aren’t quite as clear-cut with M.2 drives. Some motherboards, especially older models, don’t have M.2 ports, and many of the boards that do have M.2 ports only support M.2 SATA drives, not NVMe. You’ll need to make sure your motherboard has the space and the proper ports if you decide to go for an M.2 NVMe drive, otherwise you may end up with an expensive M.2 form-factor paperweight.

It’s also worth noting that many M.2 SATA SSDs will work on an M.2 NVMe port, but not vice-versa, which just reinforces the importance of double-checking whether your motherboard has the right slots or not.

If you’re debating how much storage you really need, we have a guide to help you with that too.

Form Factor & Function

When people say “form factor” they aren’t talking about anything technical or complicated, they literally mean what a component looks like and what its dimensions are.

That doesn’t mean it’s all about appearance, however.

There’s only so much space inside desktop towers and laptops, for one, and motherboards aren’t flexible enough to accommodate a bunch of weirdly shaped parts. Manufacturers want their components to fit into as many systems as possible, so they’ve settled on a set of standard sizes, or form factors, for their parts.

2.5-inch SATA SSDs Form & Function

The 2.5-inch form factor is a legacy from the old days of mechanical disc-driven hard drives. Small form factor hard drives (SFF HDDs) were the enterprise standard for many years—the 2.5-inch measurement refers to the approximate diameter of the platter within drive enclosures—and it didn’t make sense to overhaul motherboard designs for the then expensive and uncommon SSDs.

Manufacturers realized they’d sell more SSDs if users could just slot them in where their old HDDs used to be, so they designed the original 2.5-inch SSDs to be the same size and shape of their mechanical ancestors.

Most 2.5-inch SSDs also connect to the motherboard using the same SATA cables as HDDs, making the upgrade process as seamless and painless as possible for users looking to upgrade their storage without making any other changes.

M.2 SSDs Form & Function

The M.2 form factor is relatively new compared to the 2.5-inch form factor. Formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor, M.2 was built as the successor to the mini-SATA interface and supports much faster data transfer rates than previous interfaces.

Components with the M.2 form factor are small and flat enough to fit in the palm of your hand—perfect for laptops and tablets—and M.2 SSDs can connect directly to motherboards without using SATA cables.

M.2 SSDs have a few benefits. First, they’re much more compact than their 2.5-inch brethren, which lets them fit in much smaller builds and devices.

Many people with M.2 SSDs feel that the slimmer drives make the insides of their desktop towers look much cleaner and less cluttered, which can be important for some more persnickety users.

Second, many of them plug directly into their motherboard’s PCIe slots, which means you don’t need to worry about managing SATA cables.

Third, and possibly most importantly, many more M.2 SSDs support the Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) logical-device interface specification, which offers significantly higher transfer rates than you’d ever see with an HDD or even a SSD with a SATA interface.

Pricing & Value

There isn’t that much variance in price between form factors and interfaces these days, though a safe rule of thumb is that (all else being equal) an NVMe drive will be the most expensive, followed by an M.2 SATA drive, with a 2.5-inch drive being the cheapest.

Take Samsung’s SSDs, for instance.

A 1TB 2.5-inch Samsung 860 EVO SATA drive currently costs around $150 in Samsung’s shop.

A 1TB M.2 Samsung 860 EVO SATA drive costs around $140 on the Samsung shop.

There’s no NVMe version of the 860 EVO line, but the 1TB M.2 Samsung 970 EVO NVMe drive currently costs around $160 on Samsung’s website.

This is just one example, but you can already see that the slight price variance generally follows the rule of thumb outlined above.

Our Recommendations

There are a lot of SSDs on the market. It can be hard to figure out which is the best for you, so here are just a few recommendations of the best products in both the 2.5-inch and M.2 form factors.

M.2 Recommendations

Samsung 980 PRO (Click to check current price on Amazon)

Yep, Samsung again. They’ve been on an incredible roll in the SSD space, and the 980 PRO series skate past the competition with ease. The 980 PRO SSDs only come in capacities from 250GB to 2TB, but their PCIe 4.0 NVMe interface, up to 7GBps and 5GBps read/write speeds, respectively, more than make up for their lack of storage space.

Kingston KC3000 (Click to check current price on Amazon)

The Kingston KC3000 SSDs are the Ferraris of the SSD world. They’re built with the latest flash memory technology, utilize the blazing-fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe interface, and come at a premium compared to their competitors, but dang if it isn’t worth it. These SSDs deliver read and write speeds of up to 7GBps (and look great doing it), and their sturdy constructions stand up to years of heavy use.

2.5-inch SSD Recommendations

Samsung 860 PRO (Click to check current price on Amazon)

Samsung has been one of the leaders in digital storage for years now, and they show no signs of slipping. Their 860 PRO series of 2.5-inch drives come in capacities as small as 250GB and as large as 4TB, and their built-in security features help keep your data safe and sound. The only downside is their SATA 3 interfaces, which severely limit their data transfer rates.

Crucial MX500 (Click to check current price on Amazon)

The Crucial MX500 line of SSDs relies on the relatively slow SATA 3 interface, but it makes up for this deficiency with extremely reasonable price points, reliability, and outstanding energy efficiency. You can find these SSDs in capacities from 250GB to 4TB, and the built-in power failure protection and hardware-based AES-256 encryption help ensure your data stays safe no matter what.

Conclusion

So there you have it; the 2.5-inch and M.2 form factors aren’t all that different, but they do diverge from each other in some important ways.

Just be sure to do your own research and double-check whether your motherboard is compatible with whichever SSD you’re looking at before clicking that buy button.

The last thing you want to do is choose a high-performance, high-priced M.2 drive, only to find that you don’t have the appropriate slot on your motherboard to support it.

The post M.2 vs SATA SSD Performance (Pros & Cons + How to Choose) appeared first on Cybersided.

The short answer is that Western Digital’s Red line is intended for high-speed data transfer within NAS environments, while the Purple line is designed to seamlessly integrate into cloud-connected video systems and servers.

That the way-too-simple answer. These two product lines are designed for more complex use-cases, so we really need to get into the details to cover the many ways each option can shine.

This quick guide will help you understand what products are in each line, what their intended uses are, and what makes them stand out from the competition.

What is Western Digital Red?

Western Digital’s Red line of HDDs and SSDs are built to deliver maximum data transfer speeds, storage capacities, and longevity in the face of increasingly virtualized, multi-user and multi-application environments.

Western Digital has proven to understand how difficult it can be for small and medium-sized businesses to safely share information and applications in a timely fashion, so they’ve designed their Red line of storage solutions to make network assisted storage (NAS) environments run as efficiently as possible.

More and more businesses are moving toward hybrid work models with personnel spread across different time zones, but the need to stay connected, collaborative, and secure is as strong as ever.

Take a look at a few of the top Red storage solutions to get a better idea of their capabilities:

Red Products

WD Red SN700 NVMe SSD (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• Capacity: 250GB – 4TB
• Sequential read speeds: 3100MB/s (250GB) – 3400MB/s (4TB)
• Sequential write speeds: 1600MB/s (250GB) – 3100MB/s (4TB)
• Endurance: 500TBW (250GB) – 5100TBW (4TB)

These SSDs are designed for 24/7 NAS workloads and boast exceptional endurance and caching speeds. Their flexible architecture makes them compatible with most NAS systems, and their NVMe caching gives them the power to handle multiple users and multiple applications at once, perfect for use in small to mid-sized businesses.

Made to meet the needs of fast-moving, collaborative business environments, these SSDs’ impressive read and write speeds help nimble teams share files, multitask applications, and even tackle intensive database operations without slowing down.

WD Red NAS Hard Drive (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• Capacity: 2TB – 6TB
• Cache size: 256MB
• Transfer rate: Up to 180MB/s

These HDDs are intended more for home offices than enterprise use, but they still provide the capacity, speed, and reliability you need for 24/7 NAS performance.

Built-in NASware 3.0 technology makes these HDDs compatible with a wide range of devices, software, and systems, and their flexible designs make them ideal for installing in systems with up to eight bays.

Though they lack the capacity and architecture to make them viable in enterprise-level NAS systems, their reasonable price points, longevity, and flexibility make them a perfect fit for personal and home office use.

WB Red Pro NAS Hard Drive (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• Capacity: 2TB – 18TB
• Cache size: 64MB (2TB) – 512MB (18TB)
• Transfer rate: Up to 164MB/s (2TB) – Up to 272MB/s (18TB)

Built for businesses of all sizes, these HDDs are built from the ground up with high-intensity workloads in mind. They fit in NAS systems with up to 24 bays—ideal for data-heavy enterprises with multiple simultaneous users.

These HDDs also boast Western Digital’s best multi-axis shock sensors and 3D Active Balance Plus technology to protect against large and small physical shocks, and their proprietary error recovery controls help protect data integrity when used in RAID applications.

What is Western Digital Purple?

The Western Digital Purple line of HDDs and microSD cards are designed to seamlessly integrate into the front and back ends of cloud-connected video systems and analytics servers, and they have all the capacity, flexibility, and proprietary technologies they need to do the job.

Security cameras are gaining in both popularity and average resolution. Standard HDDs have neither the capacity nor the transfer rates to fully capture multiple simultaneous 4K video streams, let alone handle the demands of increasingly data-hungry AI-driven smart video systems.

Take a look at a few of the products in the Purple line to get a better idea of what they bring to the table:

Purple Products

WD Purple Surveillance Hard Drive (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• Capacity: 1TB – 8TB
• Cache size: 64MB (1TB) – 128MB (8TB)
• Transfer rate: 110MB/s (1TB) – 194MB/s (8TB)

These base-level Purple HDDs are made with the express purpose of optimizing surveillance in networked video recorder (NVR) environments with up to 64 connected HD cameras.

Designed to stand up to the rigors of modern surveillance environments, these rugged HDDs stand up to heat fluctuations, vibrations, and around-the-clock use.

Their outstanding workload ratings of up to 180TB per year and mean time between failures of up to 1 million hours give them the endurance and longevity that business owners need, and their integrated Western Digital Device Analytics technology uses advanced algorithms to diagnose and address issues in real time.

The low end of Purple storage is 1TB, which can be plenty for some users and not nearly enough for others.

WD Purple Pro Surveillance Hard Drive (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• Capacity: 8TB – 18TB
• Cache size: 256MB (8TB) – 512MB (18TB)
• Transfer rate: Up to 265MB/s (8TB) – Up to 272MB/s (18TB)

These HDDs are the perfect smart storage solution for modern AI-enabled smart surveillance systems. Their built-in AllFrame AI technology automatically improves video playback and supports up to 64 cameras or 32 AI streams, and the integrated Western Digital Device Analytics tech provides all the diagnostic data that IT professionals need to maintain storage integrity and optimal performance.

These HDD’s aren’t just brainy, either; their sturdy designs deliver a mean time between failure of up to 2.5 million hours and a workload rating of up to 550TB per year.

WD Purple SC QD101 Ultra Endurance microSD Card (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• Capacity: 32GB – 1TB
• Form factor: microSDHC (32GB) – microSDXC (64GB – 1TB)
• Interface: SDA 6.0

These microSD cards are Western Digital’s solution for the mainstream security camera market. Built with advanced 96-layer 3D NAND technology, these robust microSD cards offer impressive longevity and can operate continuously in temperatures between -13°F and 185°F.

They even have built-in Card Health Monitoring technology that detects problems and lets you know when it’s time to service or replace your card.

Red vs Purple – Does It Really Matter?

Western Digital’s Red and Purple lines may be intended for different purposes, but digital storage is digital storage, right?

Well, kind of.

Both the Red and Purple lines include high-capacity HDDs, but, as you can see, that’s where the similarities in their offerings end.

Red SSDs and the Purple microSD cards really speak to the intent behind their respective product lines; SSDs are much better suited for NAS environments that require rapid data transfers and application multitasking, and microSD cards are perfectly suited for security cameras.

Western Digital As A Brand

Founded in 1970, Western Digital has grown into one of the world’s pre-eminent producers of digital storage media. Their best-in-class hard drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), and secure digital (SD) cards are as cost-effective as they are reliable, and their consistently outstanding performance makes them the go-to solutions for businesses large and small.

Western Digital’s decades of experience has also taught them the importance of tailoring their products for different industries and use-cases, and they’ve turned these insights into an ethos that touches every aspect of their color-coded line of storage products; including the Red and Purple product lines.

Both Red and Purple storage solutions have stellar specs and reasonable price points, but which one is right for you and your business? Keep reading to find out.

It takes more than regular old hard drives to keep up with the data demands of today’s business environment.

Most end users don’t even need to think about their data storage beyond its capacity and maybe its read and write speeds, but business owners don’t have the luxury of slapping any old drive onto their system and calling it a day.

As dataflows keep increasing in volume and demanding ever more resources, more and more businesses are finding it necessary to pursue purpose-built storage solutions with the capacities, speeds, and architecture to match their business needs.

And thankfully for businesses all over the world, Western Digital has made it their mission to meet all of their data management needs.

The post Western Digital Red vs Purple: Differences + Pros & Cons appeared first on Cybersided.

Vertical stacking monitors can save desk space and is especially useful for editing, but this layout is also a lot less practical than horizontally stacked monitors for many applications. Gamers, especially, will likely find vertically stacked monitors to be less-than-ideal.

That’s our way-too-short take, but there’s plenty more to think about before definitively deciding whether a vertical layout is right for your setup.

This quick guide will cover everything you need about the in’s and out’s of vertical stacking monitors. From practicality to individual scenarios that fit this layout, we’ve got you covered.

Pros and Cons of Vertical Stacked Monitor Setups

Multi-monitor setups are becoming more and more common, and for good reason. Having multiple monitors can be a godsend to anyone working with multiple documents or applications at once, and there are real productivity benefits that come from being able to shift focus between them without alt+tabbing, minimizing, or maximizing windows.

Constructing a multi-monitor setup has never been easier or more cost-effective, and more and more users are taking the plunge.

Most multi-monitor setups are horizontal—having two or more monitors sitting next to each other—but sometimes the horizontal approach isn’t viable or desirable.

Vertical stacking, is much less common, but there are some good reasons why it is sometimes preferable to a horizontal setup.

Pros:

• Saves desk space
• Lets you go multi-monitor in space-constrained workstations
• Helpful for working with music editing programs
• Extra screen offers more real estate for watching dataflows
• Great for standing desks
• Lets operations professionals keep an eye on KPIs and real-time performance
• Adds another screen for monitoring security camera feeds

Cons:

• Less useful than horizontal setup for most tasks
• Not very helpful for gaming, watching media, or other personal computing
• Need to buy, construct, and set up a special mount
• Harder to keep track of information than with a horizontal setup
• Generally easier to move mouse left to right than up and down
• Need to look up all the time can be bad for your neck

P.S. – If you want to skip all of this and get the pros of vertical stacking without any of the cons , our recommendation would be to get a mount that can do both vertical and horizontal.

The Ergotron LX (Here’s a link to its current price on Amazon) is a premium choice, but it’s a fantastic mount for flexibility and reliability.

If you think your setup could benefit even slightly from occasionally switching to a vertical stack, it’s probably more than worth it to save yourself the headache and splurge on this.

We’ll cover more vertical mount recommendations later in this guide.

Productivity Benefits of Vertical Stacked Monitors

Horizontal setups are better for most school and office work, but there are some professional applications that work as well or better with a vertical setup. Here are just a few examples:

• Video Editing: Video editing is perhaps the task that benefits most from a vertical stacked monitor setup. It’s very helpful to have a a monitor above your main timeline monitor that is dedicated solely to displaying the video you are working on. This is doubly true for things like color grading, where you may want to have a separate panel for ensuring the perfect colors are displayed in the end result.
• Making music: The layout of many music editing programs is built around vertical track lists, so lots of music producers find it helpful to spread the window over two vertically stacked monitors.
• Security trading: Trading stocks, bonds, and other securities is a data-heavy business with an insane number of moving parts. Most serious traders like to have as many data feeds and trackers in front of them at once, which means they need workstations with as many monitors as possible. They’ll typically go for horizontal setups first, but it isn’t unusual for them to add verticality to their setups when their desks get crowded.
• Operations and logistics: Similar to security traders, operations and logistics managers often need to keep track of workflows and key performance indicators in real time. Vertical monitors are often used for displaying dashboards and at-a-glance information to help them stay on top of their facilities and spot problems as soon as they emerge.
• Security professionals: Security guards often need to keep an eye on several camera feeds at once, and the best way to do that is to cram as many monitors as possible into their workstations.
• Programming: Some programmers like to see their code stacked vertically, not horizontally. Having the window extended vertically lets them check previous code and spot errors without doing a ton of scrolling. It may only save them a few seconds each time they have to retrace their steps, but those few seconds add up to some serious productivity increases in the long run.

Gaming With Vertical Stacked Monitors

Some power users, especially gamers, like to add a vertically stacked monitor to their setup for added versatility. They’ll often put communication apps like Discord on the top monitor so they can check chats and messages, stick their Twitch stream on the upper monitor to make sure their feed is being recorded and displayed properly, or even have Netflix or YouTube running on the upper monitor while they game.

As far as using dual stacked vertical monitors for displaying your full gameplay goes, we’d almost always highly recommend that you don’t. It just doesn’t work as seamlessly as it can with horizontal monitors. Especially when bezels are accounted for.

Gaming is definitely an area in which horizontal or side monitors reign supreme.

Physical Benefits of Vertical Stacked Monitors

If you work in an office, chances are you spend most of your day crammed into a half cubicle or stuck on the side of a table with barely enough room to move your arms. Workspaces have been shrinking for decades now (even most private offices are basically closets now), and many employees just don’t have the desk space for horizontal multi-monitor setups.

The same goes for remote workers who’ve been forced to convert a corner of their bedrooms or kitchens into ad hoc home offices; sometimes there just isn’t enough space for a horizontal setup.

Vertical Monitor Mount & Setup Recommendations

There are a number of different mounts on the market that will work for a vertical multi-monitor setup. Some are freestanding, others clamp onto your desk or attach to your wall. Some of them offer very limited angle, height, and positional adjustments, others are built with versatile arms that let you reposition your monitors as you please.

Not all of them will work with your particular desk or workstation, but you’re sure to find something that fits your needs.

Here are a few of the top-rated vertical monitor mounts and a quick rundown of how to set them up.

Recommended Freestanding Mount

VIVO Dual Monitor Desk Stand (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This low-cost stand provides a stable mount for two 13 to 30-inch displays. The removable VESA plates make installing your monitors fast and easy, and the sturdy mounts offer an impressive tilt and swivel range. You’ll be able to swivel your monitors 360 degrees, tilt them up to 45 degrees forward and backward, and raise or lower your displays with ease.

Installation

1. Follow the included instructions to assemble the stand itself
2. Take the removable VESA plates and lay them against the back of your monitors
3. Use the included bolts and washers to screw the VESA plates onto the back of your monitors
4. Once the plates are secure, lower the first monitor onto the lower clamp, stopping when the VESA plates and the clamps line up
5. Use the included fasteners to attach the VESA plates to the clamps
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 with the other monitor and clamp
7. Run monitor cables through the cable management clips built onto the stand, then plug them into their respective displays

And that’s it. Easy, right?

Recommended Fixed Desk Mount

HUANUO Dual Monitor Mount Stand (Click to check current price on Amazon)

This article is actually being posted from a setup using this setup.

If you’re looking for a little more flexibility than a freestanding mount can provide, look no further. This mount’s two gas spring-driven arms let you reposition, tilt, swivel, and rotate your displays whenever and however you want, and their sturdy constructions support monitors as large as 35 inches.

Its base attaches securely to the back of your desk via clamp or bolt-through grommet (both included) and keeps your monitors nice and stable—a big advantage over more precarious freestanding alternatives.

Installation

1. Determine whether you want to use the clamp mount or the grommet
2. Follow the included instructions to attach the base to your desk
3. Attach the arms to the base, then use the included screws and allen key to fasten them in place
4. Attach the monitor plates to the ends of the arms using the included bolts, washers, and allen key
5. Have someone hold the first monitor in place in front of the mounting plate
6. Use the included (appropriately sized) screws to attach the monitor to the mounting plate
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with the other arm/monitor
8. Slide monitor cables through built-in cable management holes on the arms
9. Plug in monitors

And there you have it. It’s a little more involved than the freestanding stand, but the added range of motion and versatility is worth it.

Recommended Accessories

The best way to make sure you get the most out of your vertical multi-monitor setup without making your neck ache is to use a standing desk, especially when combined with an arm-based mount.

Let’s say you have a standing desk and attach an arm-based mount to it. You can keep your monitors stacked or adjacent when you’re sitting, then rearrange them into a vertical configuration when you raise the desk to standing height.

That way you get the best of both worlds and won’t go home with a neck ache at the end of the week.

Conclusion

There are some real use-cases and compelling benefits from vertically stacked monitors. Having information vertically stacked makes it easier for a whole range of professionals to do their jobs, and just about any employee in a cramped office can benefit from the space-efficiency of vertically stacked monitors.

There are some definite drawbacks—namely the ergonomics of it all—but it’ll be worth your time to consider a vertical multi-monitor setup for your home or office.

The post Vertical Stacking Monitors: Is It A Bad Idea? (Pros & Cons) appeared first on Cybersided.

The short answer is that there’s usually not a performance difference between single and dual rail PSUs. Technically, extra OCP chips in dual rail PSUs can make them marginally safer than single rails, but this usually only applies in extreme high-performance situations.

This quick guide will get you straight into the details you need to determine whether a single or dual rail makes more sense for your PC.

What is a PSU Rail, Anyway?

“Rail” is one of those terms that seem intended to make something mundane seem interesting. A rail isn’t anything cool or exotic or special, it’s a circuit. A circuit that connects your computer’s components to the power supply. That’s it.

Power supplies typically have a few different rails, usually positive and negative 12V, 5V, and 3.3V, and all are necessary for your computer to function, but only the 12V rail is taken into account when classifying PSUs as single or multi-rail.

The distinction between single and multi-rail PSUs comes down to the number of monitoring channels on the 12V rail. A single-rail PSU has one central 12V rail monitored by a single OCP circuit, while a multi-rail PSU’s 12V rail is split into multiple monitoring channels, each with their own OCP circuits.

Having multiple rails doesn’t mean the PSU delivers any more power than a single-rail PSU, it just means the 12V’s output is divided among two or more channels. But the differences don’t end there.

Single vs Multiple Rails in a PSU

So the main difference between single and multi-rail PSUs is whether or not the 12V channel is split into multiple smaller monitored circuits, but how does that difference actually affect the PSUs’ performance?

The short answer is…it doesn’t.

The long answer is only slightly more complex. A 450W power supply will deliver 450W of electricity regardless of how many rails it has, and having more rails doesn’t make power supplies deliver more stable voltage, cleaner electricity, or provide any appreciable benefits.

The additional OCP chips on each rail technically make multi-rail PSUs safer than single-rail models, but the vast majority of PSUs have short circuit protection and other safety features that do just as good a job at preventing shorts and minimizing fire risk.

Having additional rails and OCP chips can be helpful when you’re dealing with extremely high-performance rigs with multiple graphics cards and other power-hungry components, but most users won’t notice a difference between single and multi-rail PSUs.

What’s in the (Power Supply) Box?

A power supply’s job is to take AC electricity from your outlet, turn it into DC electricity, and distribute that to your computer’s components. Simple as pie, right? Well, not exactly.

Power supplies aren’t nearly as exciting or complex as processors or graphics cards, but they aren’t exactly simple. Computer components are a whole lot more delicate than your average appliance, so power supplies have to be precisely designed and tuned to make sure they deliver exactly the right amount of electricity at all times.

A good power supply will keep your computer’s components in that electric Goldilocks zone where the current is just right. Too little electricity and your components won’t work properly or at all. Too much electricity can cause overheating, fry your components’ delicate circuits, and even start fires inside your computer.

Manufacturers are well aware of the dangers of unprotected power supplies. They don’t want their products to damage your computer or burn your house down any more than you do, so they’ve mandated various standards and safety measures over the years intended to mitigate those risks.

Some of those features and standards have been implemented without having much effect on PSUs’ sizes, shapes, or designs, but some have led to dramatic changes.

One standard—and one safety measure, by extension—is of particular interest to this single versus multi-rail discussion.

ATX and OCP Standards

The ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) standard was developed by Intel back in 1995 as a blueprint of sorts for power supply manufacturers. The ATX standards introduced ideal form factors and types of connectors to make PSUs more interchangeable and compatible with a wider range of systems, but Intel didn’t stop there.

As power supply capacities increased, so too did the amount of power being transmitted on any one rail. This raised concerns about potential risks from short circuits, faults, and melted wires or insulation from large currents on unprotected circuits. So, in 2003’s update to the ATX12V standards (version 2.0), a stipulation was added that limited the amount of electricity that could pass through any one output wire.

This new standard was a big blow to the market. Not only did it effectively disallow the use of single high-powered output wires, it also effectively necessitated the development and implementation of a new safety feature known as over-current protection.

Over-current protection circuits are important safety features built into the vast majority of PSUs on the market today. Their job is as crucial as it is straightforward: When a power source provides more electricity than the connected components can handle, the over-current protection circuits automatically shut down the flow of electricity.

The combination of OCP and the max-current standard led directly to the development of the multi-rail PSU design, which manufacturers hoped would allow them to circumvent the standard without reducing the capacity of their PSUs. And though the standard only lasted until 2007’s update to the ATX12V guidelines, its impacts are still felt today.

Multi-rail PSUs are here to stay.

Recommended PSUs

CORSAIR HX Series (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency rating
• Zero RPM fan mode for quite operation
• Single and Multi-Rail modes
• 10-year guarantee
• Premium Japanese capacitors

CORSAIR is one of the biggest names in computer and gaming hardware for a reason: they carry a wide range of products, their customer service is second to none, and their products are consistently high-quality and reasonably priced. Their HX Series PSUs come in 750W, 850W, 1000W, and 1200W capacities, and their fully modular designs are as versatile as they are resilient.

P.S. – Corsair is actually a reseller of Seasonic PSUs, which are often considered the gold standard in the industry. We recently created a guide to picking between Seasonic or Corsair.

XPG CORE REACTOR Series (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• 80 PLUS Gold efficiency rating
• Comes in 650W, 750W, and 850W models
• Compact, modular design
• Premium 105°C Japanese capacitors
• 10-year warranty

Though they’re relative newcomers on the scene, XPG has already staked out a reputation for building some of the most reliable, high-performance power supplies on the market. These 80 PLUS Gold-certified PSUs are energy efficient, compact, and boast intelligent fan curves that minimize operating noise at any power load.

Fractal Design Ion SFX-L Gold Series (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• 80 PLUS Gold efficiency rating
• Up to 100,000-hour lifespan at full power
• Large, nearly silent 120mm fan
• Zero RPM mode reduces fan noise
• Fully modular design

These PSUs may only come in 500W and 650W capacities, but they more than make up for that with high performance, a life expectancy of 100,000 hours, and UltraFlex DC wires that make installation and cable management effortless. Designed for quiet efficiency, these 80 PLUS Gold-rated PSUs operate almost silently thanks to their custom 120mm fans with FDB bearings that don’t start turning unless it’s actually necessary.

SilverStone SX1000 Platinum (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency rating
• Compact SFX-L form factor
• Rated for 1000W operation 24/7
• Single +12V 83.3A rail
• Silent-running dual ball bearing fan

This pint-sized powerhouse may be petite enough to fit in small form factor computers, but there’s nothing small about its impressive 1000W of continuous 24/7 power output. Its single +12V rail design makes it an ideal candidate for overclocking and power-hungry GPUs, and its modular cable design gives it the flexibility it needs to fit into all your future builds. Its 120mm fan operates quietly at all loads, and its intelligent RPM control helps strike the perfect balance of noise and heat management.

Cooler Master V Gold v2 Series (Click to check current price on Amazon)

• 80 PLUS Gold efficiency rating
• Large, silent-running 135mm fan
• Semi-fanless mode with hybrid switch
• 10-year warranty
• 16AWG PCIe cables included

Available in 550W, 650W, 750W, and 850W capacities, these PSUs provide professional-level performance, 80 PLUS Gold-rated efficiency, and impressive longevity at a more than reasonable price point. The V Gold v2 Series features half-bridge LLC resonant converters, DC-DC technology, and premium Japanese capacitors that deliver the performance you’d expect from a company like Cooler Master, and their 10-year warranty means your satisfaction is all but guaranteed.

Final Thoughts & Recommendations

Power supplies are crucial components of any computer. A good power supply provides a stable foundation for the rest of your build, and it’s worth doing the research before you decide on one.

Talk of single versus multi-rail PSUs can be a bit confusing, but the distinction is much less important than you might think.

A good PSU is a good PSU no matter how many rails it has, and it’s probably not worth it to fret too much over it unless you’re working on a seriously high-performance build.

The post Single vs Dual Rail PSUs: Are Multiple Rails Really Better? appeared first on Cybersided.