First Build - Please critique

tcody

tcody

tcody

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30 Dec 2008
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Hi I've been looking around the forum and mainly the site for about 3 or 4 months, not sure if I would be able to build a pc. After seeing some recent first builds, i'm confident that I can atleast learn!
I am a student on a product design course and at the moment my macbook cannot perform on 3D studio max as well as adobe suite (with large complex files in flash for example).
I am also considering playing the odd game, when I find one i like!
So if anyone can help critique my choice so far, I'd greatly appreciate it.

picture1hnl.png


Am personally not sure about watercooling unless the one above really does make it as simple as it claims.
Also considering SSD's but probably when they eventually drop in price.

Oh and of course I'm an apple fan boy so the case has to rival the mac pro, hence lian li. I will eventually figure out how to boot OSX on a PC so I will need to check that all the hardware is compatible for the releases.
I understand its not as stable but building such a beast should meet my requirements. Im not opposed to windows so If i can do it in windows I will.

Apologies rambled a little, please critique my spec!
I dont need an OS yet
I dont need a screen (making a diy 22" cintiq)

One question about the GPU - how many screens can that run? 2? If i got the HD70 x2 would I be able to run 4? I want to run one 22" and 2 smaller ones. Or 2 22" but perhaps just the one! I have a projector that I would need to connect also. So if I only have the 4890 I would only be able to run one screen and projector... correct? so perhaps I need a double GPU. (By the way I have no idea what I'm talking about, but try to understand!)

Budget of lets say 1300, have a little more if necessary. Also how long would one expect this machine to handle heavy applications? applications aren't really getting too much more demanding are they?

Cheers, Tom
 
I'd say that the processor and graphics are certainly a good choice for the kind of work that you'll be doing but you might want to consider saving some money and buying yourself a really nice monitor (like the 24" Dell Ultrasharp) and optical mouse for the kind of work that you'll be doing.

For instance:

Get a smaller cheaper case, you can probably get something nice enough for around £80 since you're not using large amounts of hardware. It can still be pretty - but that case is quite a lot of overkill! What about this one?

Lose the watercooling - you won't need to do any serious overclocking for the type of work that you're talking about so go for something like the Fenrir Titan and this will still give you the option to overclock if you decide to later

You could probably save around £70 on the RAM too - I think the ones that you selected are good for overclocking but maybe consider the OCZ gold series memory.

You could cosider the 30GB Vertex SSD for your build - this would let you put all of your 3D software and operating system onto the really fast drive since these take the longest to load

One last thing - you don't have a DVD/CD writer there
 
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Starky said:
I'd say that the processor and graphics are certainly a good choice for the kind of work that you'll be doing but you might want to consider saving some money and buying yourself a really nice monitor (like the 24" Dell Ultrasharp) and optical mouse for the kind of work that you'll be doing.

For instance:

Get a smaller cheaper case, you can probably get something nice enough for around £60 since you're not using large amounts of hardware. It can still be pretty - but that case is quite a lot of overkill!

Lose the watercooling - you won't need to do any serious overclocking for the type of work that you're talking about so go for something like the Fenrir Titan and this will still give you the option to overclock

You could probably save around £70 on the RAM too - I think the ones that you selected are good for overclocking but maybe consider the OCZ gold series memory.

One last thing - you don't have a DVD/CD writer there
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.
Everything you said sounds reasonable so I will go back and lower the RAM, and switch to Air.
I already have a 22" cintiq so no need for a new screen as its plenty impressive enough! I have a roccat Kone mouse, not used for gaming, but used just as its great for adobe suite. I will need a keyboard but will probably buy a ridiculously pretty and overpriced one later.

As for the case, its ridiculously pretty and overpriced... i love it...!
And you're right, i'll get a basic DVD drive as well/instead, thanks I completely overlooked that!
 
Get another hard drive for OS and programmes. Green drives are slow, good for storage, but not as your main drive.

A 320gb samsung F1 would do, but you could look at raptor/SSD/RAID solutions if you want better performance and more cost.
 
I'd check if your program can be accelerated by nvidia quadro cards, if so pickk up a 2nd had 8800gt and flash to bios to the quadro one, worst case scenario you brick a £50 card

there's a few guides on the net for how to flash the bios

your build looks good, I'd go with 2 hard drives in raid 0 or 4 in raid 0+1 to boost the storage subsystem performance
 
Ben M said:
Get another hard drive for OS and programmes. Green drives are slow, good for storage, but not as your main drive.

A 320gb samsung F1 would do, but you could look at raptor/SSD/RAID solutions if you want better performance and more cost.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think you're right. I have two external hardrives which I can take out of their cases and put it anyway. I guess I'll go with a velociraptor for now, and raid 0 some ssd's when prices drop.

user1453 said:
I'd check if your program can be accelerated by nvidia quadro cards, if so pickk up a 2nd had 8800gt and flash to bios to the quadro one, worst case scenario you brick a £50 card

there's a few guides on the net for how to flash the bios

your build looks good, I'd go with 2 hard drives in raid 0 or 4 in raid 0+1 to boost the storage subsystem performance
Click to expand...

I think that's a bit beyond me right now! Thanks for the suggestion, it does sound like a cheaper option, but something I'm probably not good at.

I think I will go for the Raid 0 as you suggested, definitely when funds allow. Does it offer much benefit to an ssd though, I was lead to believe that it doesn't. Whats the advantage for an hdd such as raptors?

Anyone have an opinion on the GPU? too heavy? 260 instead? I really have little idea. I'd prefer to have an upgradeable system, so get a 4890 now and another if necessary?
 
I have a question about raid set-ups, I have just done some good ole google research and was wondering about a few things.

Firstly are these SSD's any good? I see they have poor read/write speeds, but are a great price. It is very highly rated by the community, though. So what am I missing?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-000-CS&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1427

Secondly, If I had two of these set-up in a raid 0, and then created two partitions, that would give me the increased performance still and would not be risky in terms of data as they are SSD drives. Is that right? I know partitioning a Raid 0 HDD set-up is risky if one fails, but aren't SSD's supposed to be practically impossible to have a fault. Of course I'd still have a backup drive mirroring both partitions through backup software in the two os's.

Let me know what you think!
 
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