So, let's just get this out of the way: I'm using a Digital Storm custom AMD machine. No, I don't have a sponsorship. Yes, I won it in an online giveaway. No, I'm not the luckiest human being on the planet, I just seem to exist on a polarized wavelength that provides experiences rarely in the middle of the spectrum. It's like being gifted Excalibur but, ya know, the version of Excalibur that's going to curse you and infect you with some sort of rare disease and randomly drain your bank account. That's the kind of luck I have. Anyways, let's get back to the system in question.
It's equipped with an AMD Ryzen 2700X CPU and an AMD Radeon VII GPU. Those are the two main components in this build and it happened a few months before the launch of the Navi GPU and Zen 2. All in all, it's a pretty sweet deal for me despite being what you might call a "budget" build from a boutique outlet during the end of life phase for AMD's Zen refresh.
This is quite the upgrade from the AMD rig that I had built back in 2012 featuring dual AMD Radeon HD 6950's in CrossfireX, an AMD FX 4350 processor, and pretty standard options in terms of storage. Despite the added power under the hood, probably the most noticeable upgrade has been the inclusion of a SATA III Solid State Drive. Going from a Western Digital Caviar Black HDD to a SSD has essentially been a game changer for how I think about my setup.
Part of the deal with AMD is the StoreMI technology which uses machine learning to accelerate your HDD by creating a single partition and swapping information from your system RAM and to your SSD to create faster storage access. I've read conflicting reviews but I have to admit that I find the combination of features to be absolutely fantastic for my uses. There are definitely quirks but once you get past the initial setup then it's mostly a set it and forget it type deal that is definitely a creature comfort that I enjoy immensely.
The number one benefit to this is I no longer have to manage storage for my system and it's all automated based on use. If I'm playing Final Fantasy XV a lot then my computer compensates by adding it to the accelerated tier which will make load times much faster and allow me to get into the game much quicker. If I haven't played it in a few weeks then the system knows to put it on the back burner and empties it out of the accelerated tier to allow for programs that I'm using on a more regular basis.
There are quirks to this, of course, like having a game you want to be speedy that isn't currently in the accelerated tier. The two options are to uninstall StoreMI and to go back to having two separate drive partitions and to manually control where everything is located, or there's the option to leave StoreMI on and then load, and quit, the program in question several times until it's added to the accelerated tier. I'm lazy and choose the latter, but, honestly, most of the time it just isn't necessary.
For game reviews I will, as of the time of this writing, be using various services to download and play retail versions of the games. Currently I use GOG, Epic Games Store, Steam, Uplay, and Xbox Game Pass services.
Happy Wednesday y'all!
Staggerbilt Reviews
