Reddit reviews Kingston A400 120G Internal SSD M.2 2280 SA400M8/120G - Increase Performance

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

|Type|Item|Price|
|:-|:-|:-|
|CPU|AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor|$138.00 @ Shopping Express|
|Motherboard|ASRock - B450M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard|$99.00 @ Umart|
|Memory|Patriot - Viper 4 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory|$70.13 @ Amazon Australia|
|Storage|Kingston - A400 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive|$29.00 @ PLE Computers|
|Storage|Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive|$54.50 @ Shopping Express|
|Case|Rosewill - SCM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case|$35.84 @ Amazon Australia|
|Power Supply|Thermaltake - TR2 500 W ATX Power Supply|$45.00 @ BudgetPC|
|Monitor|BenQ - GW2270 21.5" 1920x1080 60 Hz Monitor|$105.00 @ Umart|
|Other|Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Challenger Duo Keyboard and Mouse Combo|$39.95 @ Mwave|
|Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts|||
|Total|$616.42||
|Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-21 16:56 AEST+1000|||

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To prefix; If your'e buying new I highly recommend you save at least $900. I advise you consider the following.

1. Your CPU is the Ryzen 3 2200G. The 2200G provides Vega 8 integrated graphics. Vega 8 does provide a playable experience. If you're interested Vega 8 could provide FPS upwards of 60 in Apex Legends at 720p on lowest graphics and possibly a playable 30 FPS 1080p experience. You'd be better off purchasing a secondhand GPU instead of relying on the Vega 8 of the 2200G as you can't purchase a new GPU at this budget that's better than Vega 8. I've seen second hand RX 570 and RX 580 for approximately $100 Australian. The RX 570 is approximately 350% better than Vega 8 whereas the is approximately 420% better than the Vega 8 and 16% better than the 570. Either of these GPU's is the best second hand option for any budget build, don't consider any second hand NVIDIA cards as they're usually overpriced in comparison the the 570 and 580 secondhand. Purchasing a secondhand GPU is your best option for performance and could be purchased after you've purchased your 2200G.
   
2. Cheapest motherboard supporting the IGPU of the 2200G plus provides an option to overclock the 2200G. You won't find a motherboard better than the B450M-HDV at the price point. A B450 will also support all Zen CPUs if you're looking to upgrade and the upcoming Zen 2 CPUs after an update to the BIOS. An upgrade to a secondhand 2600 once Zen 2 releases and people replace and resell their 2600's would be a recommendation.
   
3. The memory I've listed is 2 x 4 at 3000Hz. Although if you wanted to upgrade to 16GB you'd have to completely replace the RAM due to the Motherboard only having 2 DIMS. Potentially save and purchase a 2 x 8 kit for approximately $110 - $120. It's difficult to purchase secondhand DDR4 memory in Australia, or at least that's my experience. Whatever you do don't purchase 1 x 8 kit if you don't plan to purchase a 2nd sometime within the foreseeable future as you'll impact the performance of your System dramatically with single channel (1 stick) of ram.
   
4. Cheapest 120GB SSD for your operating system. Amazon lists the 240GB M.2 version for $1 more; assuming it's legitimate it's a steal.
   
5. Cheap reputable 1TB Hard Drive. You could get a 2TB Hard Drives instead for an extra $20 - $25.
   
6. I wouldn't recommend this case, it's simply the cheapest on PCPP. For an Extra $25 you could purchase the Cougar MX330 a superior budget case. Alternatively Corsair offers cheaper $60 to $70 cases and the Phanteks P300 for $90 is the king of $100< cases.
   
7. Cheapest PSU with a reputable brand. Although it's important to purchase a PSU that would prevent any type of possible electrical damage to the rest of the system. I'm uncertain as to whether this particular model of PSU would provide the necessary protection.
   
8. Unfortunately due to the Budget I had to select one of the cheapest Monitors. I would recommend you spent at least $200 AUD on a Monitor rather than $100 as you'll get a SIGNIFICANTLY better product for the price.
   
9. Finally I found a cheap Gaming Keyboard and Mouse combo on Mwave. I can not speak for the quality of the products. You'll have to rely on cheaper bundles for Peripherals such as the Keyboard and Mouse at this price range or purchase higher quality peripherals second hand.
   
   My advice would be to both research the secondhand market and continue saving in the meantime. You'll be able to purchase any secondhand components or peripherals while you're saving. If you're desperate to purchase a system immediately a System based on the 2200G would be somewhat sufficient although within the $600 price range you're cutting corners. I would wait until you're able to purchase at least a better monitor.
   
   If you're interested in informing yourself about the secondhand market I recommend Australian YouTuber Tech YES City He's pretty entertaining, Australian and deals with the secondhand market.

Edit
Urgh, just read the secondary HDD requirement :/ how much storage does he need? And could you just go for one large SSD?
End of edit

Let's knock $300 dollars out of the park...

AsRock Deskmini A300 is $139.99 on Amazon right now and includes case, mobo and psu. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QSCCRC9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_ZW3GDbK3M0043)

200GE Athlon will do fine for his requirements at $57.01 and comes with a cooler that will fit in the Deskmini (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HJWVJDN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_V13GDbHW29M1N)

Single 8gb 2400mhz So-Dimm ram for $32.99 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07NPFB6GS/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

120gb m.2 seems like more than enough for his use case so here's one for $21.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-A400-120G-SATA-Internal/dp/B07P22T3VD/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?keywords=128gb+ssd+m.2&qid=1568898494&s=gateway&sr=8-5)

$251.98 so almost 50 dollars profit for you and you can get it all from Amazon to keep it nice and simple.

Just as with flash drives, there's value in getting bigger drives even if you really don't need that much, because larger flash == longer write life.

120GB M.2 SATA for $22 + M.2 SATA external USB adapters make a solid combination and a trivial swap from an existing USB flash drive setup. Unplug a flash drive, plug one of these in, resilver, repeat, and you're done (enable autoexpand on your boot pool first, since that's off by default).

I went with that solution for two reasons -- I was having trouble booting off of an internal NVME drive (though on reflection I believe that was an IPMI issue that I could've solved by going to the physical console), and I don't have room in my case for a PCIe card to add NVME connectors. USB + SATA is more than fast enough for this scenario.

Why not just a USB SSD? (random find,. not tested)

Adapter: $8:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B06VWC158P

m.2 SATA SSD: $20:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07P22T3VD

Total cost ~$30

https://old.reddit.com/r/LaptopDeals/comments/dcvav6/best_gaming_laptops_updated_for_october_2019/

1. Look for a good processor! For gaming, the processor is definitely an important factor. It is more important than in a general use device, since games will benefit from having higher clock speeds and more cores / threads. Most of the U processors are not ideal for gaming, since they often cannot sustain their boost clock speeds. But, they can still make do on a budget. Here is the order of processor strength of the devices I will be presenting: Ryzen 3 3200U < i3-8130U < Ryzen 5 2500U < Ryzen 7 2700U < i5-8250U < i7-8550U < i5-7300HQ < Ryzen 5 3550H < i5-8300H < i5-9300H / Ryzen 7 3750H < i7-8750H < i7-9750H < i7-9700K
   
   
2. Look for a good graphics card! This is the most important aspect for gaming! This is the main factor that will be able to fuel gaming capability. Here is the order of weakest to strongest GPUs that are available on this list: Vega 3 < Intel UHD Graphics 620 < Vega 8 < Vega 10 < MX150 < GTX 1050 < GTX 1050 Ti < GTX 1650 < GTX 1060 < GTX 1660 Ti < GTX 1070 < RTX 2060 < GTX 1080 < RTX 2070 < RTX 2080
   
   
3. Look for an SSD! Most gaming laptops will include an SSD, but some will not. SSDs are much faster than hard drives, but are more expensive for the same amount of storage. However, in this current time, SSDs are finally dropping in price which make them much cheaper upgrades on laptops. Any laptop with an extra M.2 slot can add this 120 GB Kingston A400 M.2 2280 SSD. Any laptop with an extra 2.5" drive slot can add this 120 GB PSY CS900 SATA III SSD.
   
   (I'm just copying/pasting for convenience's sake).

They take less space too https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-A400-120G-SATA-Internal/dp/B07P22T3VD/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=ssd+120gb+m.2&qid=1558265129&s=gateway&sr=8-4

>The very same article states that the "...numbers are only going to keep growing – and it won’t be long before digital purchases account for the majority of software sales".

One thing are numbers, other are expectations. No one said digital sales weren't increasing over physical, I was just pointing out how your argument that "Physical distribution is dead" was just wrong. Here is an article that shows how Q3 2018 physical sales on PlayStation are still over 50%. Decreasing for sure. Not dead.

>You call it abstract but just look the help forums and see how often even system updates that go through several beta stages cause problems or bricks. And now you have deal with this for each and every update on every game?!

I really do not understand your point. As a matter of fact, last time I've checked, software releases also go through beta stages and can cause problems or bricks. Unless you are suggesting firmware version on the cartridges (which isn't by far a requirement) I do not see how this proves as an disadvantage. Install a digital game in your SSD. Now imagine the same game installed in an SSD, but this is external instead of internal storage. What is the catch, really?

>That is not how storeMI/Optane works. Your console wouldn't swap out the full size game into the cache.

Does NBA2K19 needs 31.5GB of storage to run in the Nintendo Switch, plus 5GB of internal memory? How many games on PlayStation 4 do you know that have the ability to play the first few hours of the game without downloading the full package? 15% of the games? 10%? There is a very big difference between what is achievable and how developers handle those possibilities against the investment of time and effort. At the worst case scenario, the full game needs to be loaded to the SSD, and this is how we should approach the problem when we speak about it, instead of believing that developers will actually put effort towards development of a feature that is only usable in the console space out of their good-will, and completely unusable on PC landscape.

______________________

Storage space is a non issue in the future, no disagreement there. As for today, or a console on shelves next year, I am not so sure. When it comes to physical media, there are three options, which I present by decreasing probability (according to my beliefs): physical media is extinct, flash memory becomes the new standard for physical media; a new disc format with higher storage capacity (and ideally better reading speeds) is released.

I seriously can't understand your accounting. Here's a link to a two double-layered BD sized SDD on amazon. 20 US$. Currently discounted to 17 US$ :D.