SFF or Imac .. ideas welcome.

nintenjo

nintenjo

nintenjo

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Hi,

I recently started working freelance and i am looking to get a new PC for my home / office. So it will basically be used for a lot of 3D work with some gaming in my lunch breaks :)

I have been looking at the new iMacs (27" i7 model) But i have been put off by two things. 1. I wont be using Apple OS as i want a windows 7 platform so it seems a little pointless. 2. They only offer a ATi 4850 card which although is no slouch it id ratehr get somthing with a little more future proofing (if thats at all possible in todays tech world :D )

So i have been scouting around to see what alternatives i could get if i built myself a SFF pc. Ideally i want something very small and compact as i only have a small room and preferably somthing fairly quiet (although not at a sacrifice of performance).

Stats wise.. i5 or i7 .. 6GB Ram 1TB drive (Raid would be great) and a good graphics card DX11 a bonus. It will all run at stock speeds so dont worry about OC'ing.

The iMac was about £1700 all in.. but that includes a "good" quality 27" which id like somthing similar on the PC. 26" minimum.. (but must have very good colour reproduction) As i do a lot of digital prints work for the media.

So im open to suggestions..
 
Going i7 would be a good option, especially with something like an Asus Gene or the mATX, but if you want to go i5 there is an mITX board coming soon.

I'd focus less on going SFF (can prove to be pricey) and more on the screen (Dell 27" Ultrasharp or an NEC Multisync 26" if you can pick one up on the cheap), a smaller screen by the side also helps a treat for tools or whatever, so whatever you're using now have it as a 2nd monitor.

I know that photoshop likes a scratch drive as well, so either partition the hard drive to give it say 50Gb free at all times, or get an SSD as a boot drive if you can afford it.

Just to make sure you know, CS4 doesn't actually accelerate rendering on the card, that's all done on the CPU and memory so don't get a card unless you work in 3d or you're gaming.
 
Yeah SFF quite restrictive so might go for an mATX board and case. Are the 5800 ATi going to run very hot ? as id like to avoid huge number of fans in the case.
 
Ah ok.. well i am thinking of going for the Silverstone SG04B .. which claims it takes a 10.5" card although it looks like a low profile CPU cooler might be needed.

Here is what i have listed got so far:
  • 650W Silverstone SST-DA650 100% modular, 54A on single +12V rail, silent
  • Silverstone SG04B-H Black MicroATX SFF Aluminium Case SLi/Xfire
  • 27" 2709W UltraSharp Widescreen LCD 1920x1200 , 3000:1, 6ms, DVI
  • 2*1TB Western Digital WD10EAVS Caviar Green, SATA 3Gb/s, IntelliPower
  • 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600), 240 Pin, Non-ECC
  • DFI JR X58-T3H6, Intel X58, Sok1366, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1066/1333
  • Intel i7 920 D0 SLBEJ S1366, Bloomfield, 2.66 GHz, QPI 4.8GT/s, 8MB Cache,
  • 1GB XFX HD 5850, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 725MHz
 
That looks pretty good, although I don't think you'll see any real advantage getting Dominator RAM, especially if you're not overclocking. Similarly, you'll probably be alright with the stock cooler that comes with the retail i7.
 
Will the retail cooler fit in that case tho? As the PSU is mounted parallel to the mB above the CPU and ive heard it might need a lower profile cooler.

Fair enough on the dominator RAM .. it just happened to be in stock :)
 
You could pop the fan off the stock cooler as the PSU will act as a fan for the heatsink. Not sure how well it would would on an i7, but is certainly works on Q6600.

I know you said you'd like a minimum of 26" for your monitor, but have you though of looking at the U2410 which is an IPS and one of its marketing points is colour support for photoshop. 24" is certainly big enough for me and with the money you're spending you could think about 2 :D or a second hand 2407WFP to go with it.
 
personally i would go for the i7 860 as slightly higher clocks would be nice get the asus maixmus 3 gene for mobo and patriot sector 5 ram
f3's might be a idea over the hdd you got aswell they are faster and cheaper
the rest looks good to me though
 
I have decided to up my limit on this to about 2k max.. the monitor is one of the sore points still .. as id like a 30" but the rpice just rockets up. I had a dell 2407WFP at work and its very nice... although i know the LED 27" apple screen is stunning in comparision.

Not really being savy with i7 tech.. i noticed there are socket 1136 and 1366 .. what are the main differeces? And which is likely to give me the best future upgrade opertunities?
 
Last edited:
nintenjo said:
id like a 30" but the rpice just rockets up. I had a dell 2407WFP at work and its very nice... although i know the LED 27" apple screen is stunning in comparision.
Click to expand...

iirc the Apple Cinema LED has the same panel as the latest Dell 27xxWFP

nintenjo said:
Not really being savy with i7 tech.. i noticed there are socket 1136 and 1366 .. what are the main differeces? And which is likely to give me the best future upgrade opertunities?
Click to expand...

I hope you mean Socket 1156 :p
 
Ahh thats i didnt know. I might get that Dell then. Although reviews of it havnt been all that good.. Hmmm The dell only does 1680 x 1080 tho. The Apply goes up to 2560 .. so im a bit confused.

And yes i meant the 1156 socket :D
 
If you are looking at iMac, then sff is the wrong segment to look at, sff is more mac mini territory.

Also, think how much money apple will charge for their i7 flagship, nearly 1800gbp, thats a lot of money for the privelege of nice design, and for the latest 1366 i7 and a dell27, you'll still have n a lot of money left over.

Also remember that iMac does not have upgradable grahics hardware, you see, this is where apple try to push the mac pro, which is why they dont have any product that stands betweeen imac and pro.

I was looking at sff as i only ever fill slots with gpu cards but you're also limited with memory slots.

The bottom line in your question imo, is that you want a windows7 rig,with possible raid. Bootcamp om Mac os will not support raid..
also, its struggling a bit with 7 at the mo.

I'd advise to listen to the posters above, and dont be taken in by the apple propaganda machine.
 
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