Please Spec me Big!

Mint_Sauce

Mint_Sauce

Mint_Sauce

Soldato
Joined
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My laptop can't hack the real manly tasks I'm throwing at it and so I'm in need of anoter desktop machine, possibly selling the laptop I have now and swapping back to desktop as I'm looking to spend a fair amount on getting performance from a good rig.

I need to build myself a powerhouse machine, mainly for work which is processing RAW image files by the bucket load and requires hard drive bandwidth, so fast dual RAID setup probably required. That's the main thing along with 4gb RAM and also a faaast CPU.

I'm budgeting 2k on the whole system. I need a good large monitor which will reproduce colour/contrast very well. I'm hoping the dell 24" is a good graphics monitor as I've wanted one for aaages! If not then i'll go smaller for better colour reproductions etc.

I'd like it to be a good gaming machine secondly (Bioshock itches), so a nice GFX card as well if possible for the money. I don't have any previous components having sold all my last machine off. So it's a full on spec up from mouse to CPU.

I don't really want to be spending more than 2k and am happy to overclock to get the most out of it. If it really comes to it I may stretch to more but I think it should be do-able without any real problems. I don't need dual 8800s etc. Thanks for any takers on this, I'm not fully up to date on components at the moment so the help is really appreciated! :)
 
Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme Heatsink (Socket AM2/LGA775)
Noctua NF-S12 1200RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pin
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM X2
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Sound Card - OEM
Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply
Akasa Eclipse 62 Aluminium Case - No PSU

Total : £1,843.35
 
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As above, but change the seasonic with the corsair hx620w, practically the same psu, (both being made by seasonic) but the corsair has a higher 'max load' and is a touch cheaper.

Aslo, when you say dual raid, do you mean 2 raid 0's? ie 4 drives? or just the 2?
 
Thanks stickroad, are onboard raid controllers up to the job of proper Raid controllers? So, I would be able to use the motherboard RAID and it would do just as good a job as a seperate card?

Also, how about 4x hard drives set up in 2x Raid arrays, is that possible and what about speed gains, worth it?

EDIT: Just seen V¦per's reply, not sure on raid and the different setups. Would be looking for speed not data integrity so striping is it rather than mirroring? Whatever will allow the drives to get the data to the RAM/CPU as quickly as possible!
 
heh, answered :)

Motherboards will do a pretty decent job of raiding hdd's, but it all depends on what you wish to use, ie, the software 5 and 5e isn't too good apparantly. but for raid 0 and raid 1, they are pretty good.
 
mmmm, the software I'm using has a lot of hdd activity over RAM/CPU so that's why i'm looking for fast hard drives in raid. Working with large RAW and TIFF files (around 150mb each and over 26 of them at a time), I need a machine able to handle them like they are but mere thumbnails. My laptop does get there in the end but there's a lot of internet browsing I have to do before its come up with the goods.
 
So far, from a lot of help off these boards (thanks everyone!) here's the first revision of my new build. Nothing is set but this is the foundations so I have something to work with. Any suggestions on changing things etc?



Thanks again, beans on toast for a while...
 
I think this is a better use of your money:

It features 8 GiB of RAM that's sufficiently fast to get good clocks out of the CPU, a more sensible sound card that'll do the job very well, faster hard drives, and a better monitor.
 
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Your missing a graphics card btw :P


The BFG 8800 OC GTX would be good. Also, if hes been doing this on a laptop. Does he really need 8gb of ram? And 160 quid on a case? The antec P182 is a great case and like 75 quid. Would hold all the hard drives i beleive and cools great. Plus sound proofed.
 
Thanks, yeah - I do need a case. I decided on the other monitor as I believe it's better for the graphics work I'm speccing the machine up for although the Dell warrenty etc is tempting...

Case, the one I wanted I forgot what it was called but had an inset part at the front for the hard drives so they're seperate from the rest of the system. Got good reviews although was expensive... Overclockers don't stock it though. :(

4GB is fine for me at the moment, need the hard drives to be best running in RAID so the fastest ones around would be the best for me!
 
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8igdave said:
Your missing a graphics card btw :P


The BFG 8800 OC GTX would be good. Also, if hes been doing this on a laptop. Does he really need 8gb of ram? And 160 quid on a case? The antec P182 is a great case and like 75 quid. Would hold all the hard drives i beleive and cools great. Plus sound proofed.
Click to expand...

Problem is, my laptop just can't handle it! This has 2GB ram and is pretty high specced for a laptop but it just struggles!
 
ok, new revised spec...



What about the RAM, I think that's about the last confusing point for me at the moment, oh, and the hard drives. The whole SE16 and RE2 types on the HDDs confuses me (Just solved this problem: http://techreport.com/articles.x/10516/14).

Thanks again everyone, I'll try and overclock this when I get it and post up results.
 
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The cost could be about £150 cheaper if you shopped around, OCUK is not the only shop in the world ;)

The cost is £1,879.74 including shipping and tax.

You may also need an extender for the 24pin on the psu:

ocuk.jpg


Also for a mouse the death adder is ment to be very good. And its cheaper around 38 quid.


:EDIT: what do you type to get it to appear as a thumbnail?
 
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Thanks, to make it appear as a thumbnail, I upload to imageshack and use the first Thumbnails for forums link. Just paste it.

Are the extenders readily available? Just a simple plastic connector plug is it?

The Abit IP35 Pro won't allow me to use gigabit ethernet on an external Raid stack as fast as the motherboard I specced otherwise I would have gone for it.

I'm not keen on Creative, I've always found their software to be 3rd rate.Would anyone suggest an alternative with EAX etc or do creative basically still have the edge for games?

What's the difference between the Thermalright and the Tuniq CPU coolers?

And finally (or is it!) what's better overall 4x1GB or 2x2GB sticks? As they're relatively cheap, I wouldn't mind opting fo 4x1GB sticks and then in the future if I find i really need 8gb I can sell off the 4x1GB and buy 4x2gb sticks? What's better performance wise?



Aaaaand, the DVD drive i'd like lightscribe so I can send master disks off to clients all printed semi-pro. At least it would look a lot better then my retarded hand writing, that's why I've opted for the drive I have. :)
 
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ok, here's my finalish spec. Anything I've missed, any last minute changes I should make or will this be a kick aaaaassssssss system?? Gone for 8gb RAM as I believe I may use it with what I'm doing and if that's the case then it will come in very handy. Not sure how this might affect any overclocking but 3.5Ghz would be pretty good in itself.

newbuild4tk0.jpg
 
Added four sata cables, probably get some with the mobo but though better be sure.

Also, added:
Pioneer DVR-212D 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM

Itching to hit the buy button... Please shout if there's something i've missed or better options!
 
Well.... not 100% sure I need 8GB but this is for doing serious graphics work on. I know 8GB is probably way overkill but if I can speed things up then its got to be worth it. Maybe 8GB will cause more problems with programs than it's worth, I don't know about compatibility but hopefully with Vista it will be managed well and work to my benefit.

Basically, with 24+ 150mb+ TIFF files all being processed at the same time, the more RAM I can throw at the problem the better. 4GB is probably just about right but 8GB may give that bit more performance...

Do you think it's worth it? I'm not sure really. 8GB is tempting if just for the fact it's there and I don't have to think, what if...
 
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