Alienware Refunded Help me build new x79 system

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HI There.

Ive just had a refund on an Area51 ALX desktop by Alienware.

I have a budget of £2600 and 2 Pallit 3gb 580gtx Cards.
It is going to be used for heavy video editing and some gamming.

I need 32GB ram and x79 motherboard and new cpu. more ddr slots the better.

I would like to have a stable and very quick system that overclocks nicely.

whats the best system for that sort of budget!

thanks
 
if you are using 32GB RAM then you will need windows 7 professional or higher. windows 7 home premium or lower only recognises up to 16GB RAM

when you say you have a £2600 budget and 2x palit 580s does this mean you have the 580s already, and have £2600 to spend on the rest of the stuff.

also, what do you need exactly, just the case and what goes inside it, or do you need other stuff as well.

my last point is, have a look for programs that use CUDA to do video editing and encoding, because it will work faster than any CPU can
 
Ok Thank you

I have vegas 11 pro thats meant to be gpu accelrated but doesnt work, my i7 980x is much quicker rendering.

I also use adobe master edition suit with premier pro and encore and after effects, they are much better at using system resorces and the reason that i need the ram.

have 3 monitors and mouse keyboard, blueray, dvd and 3x 3tb harddrives already. as i also have the 2 580gtx with 3gb ddr5.

water cooler on alienware leaked and killed pc and they have refunded the £2600

i will look at the specs further but seemed very easy to spend that amount thought would take more lol
 
in that case, have a spec from me:

*edit*
see updated spec

bear in mind that i dont know much about the socket 2011 mobos and processors, so i have gone overkill with the cooling and PSU.
normally for a sandybridge + two 580s i would recommend the XFX 850W PSU and something like the antec 620, but i went for a really good watercooler and a 1050W PSU because i would rather overspec than underspec
 
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in that case, have a spec from me:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3960X 3.30GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £819.98
1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 240GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3-FHPX4-240G) ** PRE-ORDER** £473.99
1 x Asus P9X79 PRO Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £239.99
1 x Corsair Professional Series HX1050 Professional Series 1050W Modular Power Supply (CMPSU-1050HXUK) £179.98
1 x EK H3O Watercooling Kit - Supreme LT 120 **2011 Compatible** £122.99
1 x Silverstone Raven 3 RV03B-W Full Tower Windowed Case - Black/Gold £109.99
2 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £71.99 (£143.98)
Total : £2,107.39 (includes shipping : £13.75).

bear in mind that i dont know much about the socket 2011 mobos and processors, so i have gone overkill with the cooling and PSU.
normally for a sandybridge + two 580s i would recommend the XFX 850W PSU and something like the antec 620, but i went for a really good watercooler and a 1050W PSU because i would rather overspec than underspec

What sort of performance would this system have?
 
What sort of performance would this system have?

silly high performance, with silly high overclocking. however, ive noticed a couple of things that i meant to change but didnt so heres my revised build:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3960X 3.30GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £819.98
1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 X2 240GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3X2-FHPX4-240G) £529.99
1 x Asus P9X79 PRO Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £239.99
1 x Silverstone Fortress 2 FT02B-W Windowed Gaming Case - Black £209.99
1 x Corsair Professional Series HX1050 Professional Series 1050W Modular Power Supply (CMPSU-1050HXUK) £179.98
1 x EK H3O Watercooling Kit - Supreme LT 120 **2011 Compatible** £122.99
2 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £71.99 (£143.98)
Total : £2,264.59 (includes shipping : £14.75).

now you have two 3GB 580s in SLI with the fastest processor on the market with an amazing (and probably overspecced) processor cooler and a silly fast SSD (about 3x faster than the crucial M4). all this housed in the best case on the market for air cooling, with noise reduction foam built into the side panels

one thing i will say is, if you plan on going for watercooling the GPUs the silverstone case will be hopeless. it can cope with a 120mm rad like the one ive specced, but not anything bigger. if you do want to watercool the GPUs then the corsair 800D is probably the best bet

also, can anyone give a better recommendation than what ive done for the processor cooler. i dont really want to recommend a custom loop watercooler, but im not sure what else is good enough for the job
 
reaper the raven andfortress cases + water don't mix, they're for aircooling tho people have modded them for watercooling.

corsair 800d, cm haf x, silverstone t07(tho ocuk don't sell) etc better choices.

could look at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=7&subid=2087 pre-fitted in the case just pop the motherboard in and put the waterblock on the cpu socket job done.

if going watercooling why bother with lp ram? have fun and go ripjawz 2x http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-064-GS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517 the 32gb version is £180 so is it better to spend £24 and get pre-matched pair or save and get 2x 16gb kit?

motherboard http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-490-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2174 have the budget so why not? :)

damn it reaper got in while I was typing :(
 
reaper the raven andfortress cases + water don't mix, they're for aircooling tho people have modded them for watercooling.


if going watercooling why bother with lp ram? have fun and go ripjawz 2x the 32gb version is £180 so is it better to spend £24 and get pre-matched pair or save and get 2x 16gb kit?

motherboard http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-490-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2174 have the budget so why not? :)

damn it reaper got in while I was typing :(

raven and fortress cases can cope with the 120 rad just fine, but anything bigger than that and they're stuffed

also, i went for the RAM because there isnt a cheaper way of getting 32GB 1600Mhz RAM thats under CL9 timings. it just happened to be low profile

that motherboard is XL ATX, so it wont fit in the majority of cases
 
I wouldnt need to overclock the gpu's heavily at all.

The main reason for this rig is to edit video, my average wedding is 170gb!
so ideally i would need huge rendering speed.

need really quick stable cpu, I built a smaller rig with a H60 crucial water cooler.

although i just had the water cooling on my alienware area 51 alx let go and run water down the motherboard across the graphics cards, psu and wiring!

thats why im getting a full refund,

I have learned my leson never again!
 
you could get 2x i2700k based systems that'll do the job twice as fast?
i didnt know there was software that, in simple terms, tied two computers together. theres SLI for graphics cards, and the occasional CPU can have a dual socket motherboard, but nothing for the i7 2700k
 
The main reason for this rig is to edit video, my average wedding is 170gb!
so ideally i would need huge rendering speed.
will you be doing much work on files that are 200GB+? the reason i ask is because, with the OS, HDD caching and the video editing programs installed on the SSD thats the maximum your going to have left on the SSD in my build, and i was kinda hoping it could be used as a scratch disk

if that wouldnt be big enough then you could always go for the slower (but still very fast) 512GB crucial M4 instead of the OCZ Revodrive (theres no way i'm recommending the 480GB OCZ revodrive at £1330)
 
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you could get 2x i2700k based systems that'll do the job twice as fast?

That is a valid point, however I have already built a i7980x based system for a friend to help editing, that was my first build.

will look at a 2700k system later, I was offered an alienware auroa r3 from dell but desided to go for the cash got the building bug! that was 2600k

think if i get the 3960x in a year or 2 i miight be able to upgrade to a 8 core one!
 
i didnt know there was software that, in simple terms, tied two computers together. theres SLI for graphics cards, and the occasional CPU can have a dual socket motherboard, but nothing for the i7 2700k


no I mean stick 1 video on 1 pc, another video on another pc. wait job done, put the next lot rince/repeat.

no matter how much faster the 3960x is compared to a i2700k it can't do 2 files(1 after the other) quicker.

but ha ha.
 
no I mean stick 1 video on 1 pc, another video on another pc. wait job done, put the next lot rince/repeat.

no matter how much faster the 3960x is compared to a i2700k it can't do 2 files(1 after the other) quicker.

but ha ha.

I think what you mean is that with 2 computers you can start editing the next project whilst you render the last!

mind adobe encode I belive can network render!

just looking at that motherboard it doesnt have firewire! i still have one older camera that uses that!
 
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