Let's say, hypothetically, that this PC was $1,199.99 instead of $119999. Would this be worth considering? Skytech has some pretty awful reviews. Anyone have experience with this brand or real-life return experience with NewEgg?
I'm actually considering but it seems like a crazy high percentage of these arrive DOA or fail after a few days per reviews on NE and BB.
So I bought a Skytech build a few months back, and I've been satisfied with it thus far, but there are a few issues to keep in mind.
1. There is about 180 GB's of unaccounted for space. I understand that there are recovery partitions, and the OS takes up space, and 1TB doesn't actually equal the full TB, it's like 980 GB. I've spoken with people on multiple forums, but haven't been able to get it resolved. If anyone has any ideas, or wants to troubleshoot it with me, please let me know. This is a common issue for the manufacturer, and this is a common theme when Skytech's go on sale.
2. The RAM was not set to the correct speed when I received it. I had to manually go in and change it in the BIOS.
3. No consistency to what brands you're going to receive for GPU, PSU, Mobo, RAM, etc. When I bought mine, people in the slickdeals thread were trying to zoom in on the pic to determine what they'd receive, but the results were all over the board.
4. Lack of Customer Service is another common theme. I emailed them regarding my missing Storage, and never heard anything back.
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10-19-2020 at 02:33 PM.
Quote
from i3inkley
:
So I bought a Skytech build a few months back, and I've been satisfied with it thus far, but there are a few issues to keep in mind.
1. There is about 180 GB's of unaccounted for space. I understand that there are recovery partitions, and the OS takes up space, and 1TB doesn't actually equal the full TB, it's like 980 GB. I've spoken with people on multiple forums, but haven't been able to get it resolved. If anyone has any ideas, or wants to troubleshoot it with me, please let me know. This is a common issue for the manufacturer, and this is a common theme when Skytech's go on sale.
2. The RAM was not set to the correct speed when I received it. I had to manually go in and change it in the BIOS.
3. No consistency to what brands you're going to receive for GPU, PSU, Mobo, RAM, etc. When I bought mine, people in the slickdeals thread were trying to zoom in on the pic to determine what they'd receive, but the results were all over the board.
4. Lack of Customer Service is another common theme. I emailed them regarding my missing Storage, and never heard anything back.
In reference to your #1:
A clean, unformatted 1TB drive will have 931GB of available space to allocate due to the difference between a terabyte (decimal 10^12) and a tebibyte (binary 2^40). Subtract any allocation for recovery partitions (usually between 10-30GB depending on the OS and any preinstalled software) or system/misc/diagnositc partitions (typically way less than 1GB), and most computers show a formatted C: partition of around 910 GB, give or take 10 GB. Note that some drive manufacturers, like Samsung, actually sell 512GB and 1024GB drives, so that number would be higher, but not substantially so.
In a File Explorer window, if you right-click "This PC" and select manage, then look under Computer Management (Local) -> Storage -> Disk Management, you should see all connected drives. In the center bottom, whatever disk the C:\ partition is on, that's your primary drive. It should tell you exactly how much unformatted space is available under "Disk X" and show the partitions using space. For instance, I have a 512GB SSD and it shows "Disk 0 Basic 489.03 GB Online".
There is one other reason your drive may be showing less than nominal capacity, and that's called "over-provisioning". Solid-state flash cells have a limited number of write cycles (absurdly high, you should never hit it in reality) and every time a single bit of data is written, the entire block is marked as unused and the modified contents are re-written to the drive. Think of it like replacing tires on a car: if one tire gets replaced, every tire gets replaced. In order to prevent over-wear on flash cells, manufacturers allow the drive's firmware to report a lower total capacity (usually 10%) and then the drive reserves that space internally to even out the wear patterns on the drive to prolong life. Most drives that support over-provisioning have a manufacturer provided utility that will allow you to adjust or disable the feature.
Edit: I should also add that some manufacturers sell 500GB drives, but they're really 512GB drives and the additional 12GB is reserved for internal use and completely unavailable, even using a drive utility.
I don't know that the average person could do that. Takes some knowledge of motherboard standards, PSUs, etc. to find out if you're really getting a good deal. Odds are this PC uses an old, cheap MOBO which doesn't support 10th gen Intel and beyond and doesn't have a PSU that supports upgrading to RTX 30-series and beyond. Could be wrong but since I just built my own PC and had this exact learning curve to get past, figured I'd pass that along. You may be able to build your own PC with these exact specs but much better quality and room for upgrades.
I don't know that the average person could do that. Takes some knowledge of motherboard standards, PSUs, etc. to find out if you're really getting a good deal. Odds are this PC uses an old, cheap MOBO which doesn't support 10th gen Intel and beyond and doesn't have a PSU that supports upgrading to RTX 30-series and beyond. Could be wrong but since I just built my own PC and had this exact learning curve to get past, figured I'd pass that along. You may be able to build your own PC with these exact specs but much better quality and room for upgrades.
It won't support a 10th gen Intel. It's a 9700k. 9 series is a 1151 socket and the 10 series is 1200.
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I think your missing a . in that price
Edit : This deal originally had a price of 114,000. This is a joke.. Now it is fixed so you can't understand it anymore.
Let's say, hypothetically, that this PC was $1,199.99 instead of $119999. Would this be worth considering? Skytech has some pretty awful reviews. Anyone have experience with this brand or real-life return experience with NewEgg?
I'm actually considering but it seems like a crazy high percentage of these arrive DOA or fail after a few days per reviews on NE and BB.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank FrankR2241
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1. There is about 180 GB's of unaccounted for space. I understand that there are recovery partitions, and the OS takes up space, and 1TB doesn't actually equal the full TB, it's like 980 GB. I've spoken with people on multiple forums, but haven't been able to get it resolved. If anyone has any ideas, or wants to troubleshoot it with me, please let me know. This is a common issue for the manufacturer, and this is a common theme when Skytech's go on sale.
2. The RAM was not set to the correct speed when I received it. I had to manually go in and change it in the BIOS.
3. No consistency to what brands you're going to receive for GPU, PSU, Mobo, RAM, etc. When I bought mine, people in the slickdeals thread were trying to zoom in on the pic to determine what they'd receive, but the results were all over the board.
4. Lack of Customer Service is another common theme. I emailed them regarding my missing Storage, and never heard anything back.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank Silound
1. There is about 180 GB's of unaccounted for space. I understand that there are recovery partitions, and the OS takes up space, and 1TB doesn't actually equal the full TB, it's like 980 GB. I've spoken with people on multiple forums, but haven't been able to get it resolved. If anyone has any ideas, or wants to troubleshoot it with me, please let me know. This is a common issue for the manufacturer, and this is a common theme when Skytech's go on sale.
2. The RAM was not set to the correct speed when I received it. I had to manually go in and change it in the BIOS.
3. No consistency to what brands you're going to receive for GPU, PSU, Mobo, RAM, etc. When I bought mine, people in the slickdeals thread were trying to zoom in on the pic to determine what they'd receive, but the results were all over the board.
4. Lack of Customer Service is another common theme. I emailed them regarding my missing Storage, and never heard anything back.
A clean, unformatted 1TB drive will have 931GB of available space to allocate due to the difference between a terabyte (decimal 10^12) and a tebibyte (binary 2^40). Subtract any allocation for recovery partitions (usually between 10-30GB depending on the OS and any preinstalled software) or system/misc/diagnositc partitions (typically way less than 1GB), and most computers show a formatted C: partition of around 910 GB, give or take 10 GB. Note that some drive manufacturers, like Samsung, actually sell 512GB and 1024GB drives, so that number would be higher, but not substantially so.
In a File Explorer window, if you right-click "This PC" and select manage, then look under Computer Management (Local) -> Storage -> Disk Management, you should see all connected drives. In the center bottom, whatever disk the C:\ partition is on, that's your primary drive. It should tell you exactly how much unformatted space is available under "Disk X" and show the partitions using space. For instance, I have a 512GB SSD and it shows "Disk 0 Basic 489.03 GB Online".
There is one other reason your drive may be showing less than nominal capacity, and that's called "over-provisioning". Solid-state flash cells have a limited number of write cycles (absurdly high, you should never hit it in reality) and every time a single bit of data is written, the entire block is marked as unused and the modified contents are re-written to the drive. Think of it like replacing tires on a car: if one tire gets replaced, every tire gets replaced. In order to prevent over-wear on flash cells, manufacturers allow the drive's firmware to report a lower total capacity (usually 10%) and then the drive reserves that space internally to even out the wear patterns on the drive to prolong life. Most drives that support over-provisioning have a manufacturer provided utility that will allow you to adjust or disable the feature.
Edit: I should also add that some manufacturers sell 500GB drives, but they're really 512GB drives and the additional 12GB is reserved for internal use and completely unavailable, even using a drive utility.
It won't support a 10th gen Intel. It's a 9700k. 9 series is a 1151 socket and the 10 series is 1200.