Advice on Build

Abes33

Abes33

Abes33

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Joined
1 Aug 2006
Posts
127
Hey all,

This might be breaching forum rules, I'm not sure. I could've covered it up as me doing my own build, but it's essentially the same thing; advice needed on whether the following components are a worthy investment. If this is a problem please take my apologies in advance.

At the moment I'm just considering if the following could meet my needs, and the price I'm being offered for the build. Also, your opinions on certain components that I'm unsure about.

I'm looking for a system that can handle heavy Editing/After Effects work, with potential to move on to higher-spec 3D programs.

I7 QUAD CORE 860S 2.54GHZ

Tried looking in to this Processor and I can't find huge amounts about it. Part of me feels it's not a truly official chip, but hopefully someone can tell me I'm just being ignorant.

MSI P55-CD53 MOTHERBOARD

Again, a bit of an odd-ball in search engines.

16GB 1336MHz DDR3 MEMORY (Not sure what model)

1TB HDD (7200RPM 32MB) (UPGRADEABLE TO 1TB + £80)

EVGA GeForce GTX470 Superclocked 1280 MB

Firewire 800 Card

WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATE/Adobe Master-Suite CS5.5

No confirmation on PSU so far

So, the price put on this system is £780. Considering the software included it seems pretty good, but does someone with more knowledge than I think I'd be able to do intensive After Effects work on this machine?

Thanks in advance guys, any help is much appreciated.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x intel core i7-2600k 3.40ghz (sandybridge) socket lga1155 processor - retail £249.95
1 x microsoft windows 7 professional sp1 64-bit - oem (fqc-04649) £114.98
1 x asus hd 6850 directcu v2 1024mb gddr5 pci-express graphics card £95.99
1 x intel 520 series 60gb 2.5" sata-3 solid state hard drive - retail £87.98
1 x kingston hyperx genesis 16gb (4x4gb) ddr3 pc3-12800c9 1600mhz dual/quad channel kit (khx1600c9d3k4/16gx) £83.99
1 x seagate barracuda 7200.12 1tb sata 6gb/s 32mb cache - oem (st31000524as) £79.99
1 x asus p8z68-v lx intel z68 (socket 1155) ddr3 motherboard £76.98
1 x ocz zs series 550w '80 plus bronze' power supply £43.98
1 x ocuk 22x dvd±rw sata rewriter (black) - oem £13.98
total : £861.32 (includes shipping : £11.25).



more than your budget. included win7 64bit pro, which is adequate.

http://ark.intel.com/products/41316/intel-core-i7-860-processor-(8m-cache-2_80-ghz


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-p55-motherboard,2436-7.html

The system in your op should be OK, especially at that price.
 
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Hmmm, so it does fall quite short in most respects. Thanks for the heads up.

I'm trying to put this in perspective of how much it will affect my experience within AE, I just don't have the expertise to foresee that.

I'm currently using my work's Mac to do all of my effects work, a 2010 Mac Pro. I'd be correct in assuming that either build mentioned in this thread would surpass that no?
 
Hi there,

Basically the i7 860S is a lower-power version of the last-generation i7 quad core CPUs.

As Idleman shows, the i7 2600K is much faster than the standard i7 860 (2.8GHz) and would be even faster than the i7 860S (2.54GHz) you mentioned.

Therefore, you would be much better either buying a new computer (perhaps from OCUK) using current generation parts or buying the parts and assembling it yourself.

As for comparing performance with the 2010 mac pro - it really depends on the configuration of the mac pro. These systems use last generation Xeon CPUs (similar design to the i7 860) but they are offered in quad core, hex core, eight core (two quad cores) or 12 core (two hex cores) configurations and cost significantly more than any of the specs mentioned so far. As for performance, in heavily multithreaded workloads the i7 2600K will beat a quad core mac pro, should match or beat a hex core mac pro - however one of the dual-cpu mac pros will beat it in these tasks.

Also, please bear in mind that at the end of this month Intel are releasing their next generation Ivy Bridge quad cores- including the i7 3770K which will surpass the performance of the i7 2600K.
 
Thank you!

Right, that will all be kept in mind.

A bit of further info. on the nature of this system: this build is basically going to be an extension of my work computer, so I can carry on projects at home and really begin to master After Effects etc. in my own time. I'll also be looking at using Ableton.

I'm quite happy with the Mac at work, although I haven't bothered to check its specs which is a stupid oversight, will do so tomorrow.
 
+1 for going with one of the certified Nvidia cards (like the GTX 570, GTX 470 or GTX 285) if the OP plans to use Premier Pro a lot.

However, if it will mainly just be used for After effects then it seems to work fine with most modern openGL 2.0+ graphics cards.

As for the CPU, here is a benchmark which compares many modern CPUs (including i7 2600K and i7 860) in a After effects cs5.

Also, here is an article which compares the performance of different numbers of CPU cores in after effects.
 
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