Spec'ing a High end PC - advice please!

jnmann

jnmann

jnmann

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26 Jul 2009
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85
Not sure how to post my 'basket' here so I've detailed everything below:

Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W)
ASRock Z77 Fatal1ty Professional Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
OCZ Agility 3 Raid Pack 2x 120GB (240GB) 2.5" SATA-3 SSDs
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 WindForce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics
BeQuiet Dark Power Pro P10 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Dell Studio S2240L 22" IPS Widescreen LED Monitor - Black x 2
Avexir MPower Series 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Quad Kit
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649)
Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
Pioneer BDR-208DBK 15X Dual layer BluRay RW / 16x DVDRW Black - OEM
BitFenix Ghost Silent Tower Case - Black
Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / etc
Microsoft Wireless Desktop 2000 (M7J-00020)

Total build price in the region of £1900.

Machine is to be used for pretty much everything except games playing. I want to be able to use it for video editing/photoshop and so on.

Few quick questions.

Hard Drive - I've gone for 2 SSD's in Raid for quicker read/write. Read different views on this and wonder if this will be a benefit?

Motherboard - Is this the best option for the money?

Memory - Pretty sure 16Gb would be adequate but rather than update later I want to get this right from the offset. Will a quad kit like this work in a non quad motherboard or better to go for 2 x 16Gb dual kits?

Graphics Card - I'm out of touch on these :-) Any advice appreciated here.

Case - Really (really) wanted a Fractal Design but as none currently available I've gone for this, want something very minimalistic and quiet, is this a decent case?

PSU - Is this powerful enough and a decent brand?

Appreciate I'm asking for a lot of advice in one thread here! really want this PC to be the dogs...ahem, bees knees and something that will be future proof for a good few years. if that means spending a little more now then so be it.

Looking for a very fast system but not too noisy that will do anything I throw at it with ease.

Many thanks :-)
 
raid not needed with sdd
memory 2x8gb kits will be fine (so can upgraded later if needed, not 4x4 etc)
if not gaming you dont need the high spec of card tbh

cases,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=2362&catid=2279

psu depends on if you go for a little case etc so pick case first then spec a psu

everyone else will say i5, but i'd go with you and stick with the i7 tbh

and if you want a quite one, depends on self built or a oc one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_int.php?prodid=FS-118-OP

blue ray player is oem, so no software will come with it, and windows doesn't support blue ray so will need software for it at added cost


but your basket looks good
 
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Thanks for the quick response :-)

Why do they sell ssd kits like this then?

So 16Gb would be more than adequate? I've rarely run more than 2Gb tbh but find this is a problem nowadays.

Graphics card not incredibly important? Worth lowering the spec or run with this?

Not really interested in overclocking, I think the system should be more than adequate as it is.
 
Uncle Petey said:
You sure about all that Zak?
Click to expand...

the extra speed gained by raid in sdd against none raided systems for general use yes, then again its what raid your talking about 0 / 1 etc

for most sdd alone is plenty fast enough, if not get a card, i don't raid and never will.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=1657&catid=2101&subid=2199

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-080-OC

£299.99 inc VAT faster than 2 raided sdd's

if more speed is needed, fit one of those ^^

and for me jnmann, i'd lower the spec on the vga and spend it elsewhere on the system.

i'd love to say raid, but i like single card /drive setups won't do sli or crossfire either, but thats just me, it's an opinion and plenty will say different and have many reasons why one way or another is better.

h88p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

- Maximum Read: 1050MB/sec +
- Maximum Write: 1000MB/sec +
This Raid Pack contains 2x 120GB SSDs £187.58

* Speeds in RAID 0

my link and choice,

- Maximum Read: 1000MB/sec
- Maximum Write: 900MB/sec

none raided card

quote from wiki "RAID 0 is also used in some gaming systems where performance is desired and data integrity is not very important. However, real-world tests with games have shown that RAID-0 performance gains are minimal, although some desktop applications will benefit.[1][2] Another article examined these claims and concludes: "Striping does not always increase performance (in certain situations it will actually be slower than a non-RAID setup), but in most situations it will yield a significant improvement in performance." end quote
 
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i've read a lot about them, but i'd be lying if i said i knew anything about them, hopefully someone else here can advice on it, i have never used one but from what i've read they are good for cache but i can't see by how much as they are slower than most standard speeds sdd's now days, for speeding up a standard hdd then yes, but i have no idea how much more a sdd setup this type of drive would help at all

sorry :(

but yes to the sdd card question, a bit more in price but data to me isn't worth the risk with raid0
 
OK, I've swapped the memory to 16Gb 1866mhz so shaved a bit there. Also removed the SSD kit and popped in the 240Gb SSD Card as suggested, lowered the graphics card to a
Asus GeForce GTX 650 DirectCU 1024MB GDDR5 again saving a fair bit.

Price wise we're still in the same ball park but I do think the card will be better :-)
 
I am most confused?

Why have a GPU if not gaming just use the IGP. The bluray drive is OEM so no software but VLC 2.0 is free and can playback blurays. RAM over 1600mhz makes very little odds on the 1155 socket.

I could have suggested something like this........

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £245.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £199.99
2 x Dell UltraSharp U2212HM 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Midnight Grey £161.99 (£323.98)
1 x Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi Tower - Black £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI332G160C9QK) £119.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-05955) £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) £99.98
1 x Gigabyte Osmium Mechanical Gaming Keyboard £99.98
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £99.98
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £72.98
1 x Pioneer BDC-207DBK 8x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (OEM) £49.99
1 x Logitech G400 3600DPI Gaming Mouse (910-002279) £25.99
Total : £1,749.05 (includes shipping : £16.85).



Of course this can be altered to get the price down but I have done my best to get you nice kit for the cash.
 
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nice bit of kit as always, better to have more choices

video editing/photo shop like a bit more juice than maybe on board, but agree doesn't need a higher spec card for it, maybe do you think a low spec but more ram in it for size of screens / res etc? 2 x 22 etc

only an idea, the pro sdd is nice, but may not be quick enough for needs, as spec a raid setup with wish list, i just gave him a different option

and whats your thoughts on quote"30Gb SSD as a scratch drive?"

not worth then?

as i have no idea with them tbh, never used them or seen anything that deferentially say one way or another they are needed with sdd, maybe hdd yes?

also while win 8 maybe a % quicker than win7 in most use, the learning curve and newness one make me not recommend it as yet for most, i use it but have told most to stay away until sp1 at least, stable it is, most stuff works with it ive found so far, but drivers for some hardware are still in beta if out at all, so for me i'd wait and stick with win 7 for now and get the cheaper upgrade deal when its needed, as ticket for it comes now in the box with win 7 etc, isn't it £14 or something to upgrade, cheap anyway "Buy a Windows 7 PC & Get Windows 8 Pro for £14.99"
 
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As I said it can be adjusted. I certainly could have added a faster bluray drive, retail version even for not much more.

The mobo is plenty good enough, has some nice geeky features over the Z77X-D3H. It has HDMI and Display port outputs (i used the better dell screens that have display port and HDMI), you can dual screen off the mobo fine. If he finds the HD 4000 IGP lacking he can add a GPU later on easy enough. Nvidia adds CUDA support but the intel CPUs have quicksync, depends wether his software supports it.

I'm not a big fan of RAID O. If one drive should fail you lose all the data even if the second drive is ok. We often spec the samsung drives as we like the controller. Currently for most users I suggest the 830 which is better than the standard 840, the 840 Pro (technically its a different drive to the basic 840) is better but I've used the 830 and think it's great bang for buck, could save a good £50 there if we used that instead.

That Revo drive is using the sandforce controller (x2), you don't see many good speccers recommending SSDs with that controller now. I've not used one personally and for the price of it I'm not going to either. It's looks like it's basically RAID 0 using the PCI-Express rather than the Sata. At £300 i could get two 256GB 830 SSDs and RAID them giving me twice the capacity of the Revo drive and the better controller. As I said though I'm not a fan of RAID 0.

Case will be down to him, I'm not really sold on the Bitfenix Ghost. The 650D I used is more money but he will have it forever and day and it does show off the internals nicely. He might need some extensions for the PSUs aux 4/8pin power connector but they are cheap enough under £10. PSU is very good and has more than enough Juice and is gold rated for efficiency.

Does he need a mechanical keyboard? I dunno they are nice and it tied in with the colour scheme well. Again this is a place he could save a lot of cash, considering he used a cheap(ish) wireless desktop set even a half decent keyboard (£20-30) and the G400 mouse is an improvement over that.

The H100i lets him see more of the internals, if he finds it too loud when he overclocks the CPU, he can change the fans easily enough and they aren't expensive to replace. It's a custom build so a lot of the styling is really down to him. For that budget I can spec over and over and over again.......as my sig says infinite possibilities.
 
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1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 240GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3-FHPX4-240G) £299.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £245.99
2 x Asus VE276N 27" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £199.99 (£399.98)
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI332G160C9QK) £119.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Seasonic G series 650w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) £99.98
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GT 640 OC 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £89.99
1 x Pioneer BDR-207EBK 12x BluRay RW / 16x DVD±RW 128GB - Retail £85.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Crucial 50GB Adrenaline Cache SSD £75.98
1 x BitFenix Ghost Silent Tower Case - Black £74.99
1 x Intel 330 Series 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £53.99
1 x Logitech MK120 Desktop Set (920-002552) £15.98
Total : £1,889.46 (includes shipping : £22.20).

 
gone for larger monitors, enough left for dual stands if needed.
fitted cuda enabled as supported in photoshop etc with 2gb memory with plugin only, none native support, depending on version of photoshop in use that is (h88p://forums.adobe.com/thread/978924) so either this or any 7000+ series 2gb card would do
fitted 32gb of quad ram, also for photoshop etc
retail blueray rw

intel sdd for boot, cached with crucial sdd drive, with revo for data and seagate in storage use, also using crucial for cache.

jury is still out for me on benefits on a sdd cached but as a none sdd is in the system etc have spec'ed one anyway

stayed with win7 pro for memory support, can upgrade later if needed with win8 pro cheap.

psu is plenty for build, gold of course.

gone retail with cpu as no overclock has been mentioned, but if needed change for better cooling ie oem then something like the Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler

have chosen a Logitech keyboard mouse set, but then again these are personnel choices etc.
 
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Zak i really wish you wouldn't spec :( I don't want to come over as an Uber douche but some of the advice you are giving people lately is extremely poor.....especially when you have suggested cheap ass PSUs for under £20. You seem to have a knack for wasting other peoples money :(

The only issue I had with windows 8 (when i tried the preview edition) was the metro UI didn't like my VX3000 webcam. I installed the windows 7 drivers and added MSN seperately which was a little bit of faff but got it working in the end. Skype will be replacing MSN so I have now removed it from my system. To be fair the webcam is old and I should replace it, so I'm not holding it against windows 8.

You obviously didn't read my post at all. I'm all for helping people but I'm not going to sit and type out everything that I think is wrong with your spec as I'm here to help the OP not educate you technically. I'll wait to hear back from the OP and try and finalise a spec. I'm sure other more experienced members will chime in with some ideas too. Everyone is entitled to an opinion of course but you are making more work for us by having to right your mistakes and explain them.

Please don't take offence. We can all make mistakes, I am not suggesting I am the be all and end all of PC advice. We are all here to help each other, as it's Xmas hols many of the more experienced members have been absent or not online as frequently as they normally are. With a budget like this there are usually lots of good specs suggested, I would urge the OP to wait and to read reviews and get a better understanding of the tech so he can spec himself.
 
zakblood said:
gone for larger monitors, enough left for dual stands if needed.
fitted cuda enabled as supported in photoshop etc with 2gb memory with plugin only, none native support, depending on version of photoshop in use that is (h88p://forums.adobe.com/thread/978924) so either this or any 7000+ series 2gb card would do
fitted 32gb of quad ram, also for photoshop etc
retail blueray rw

intel sdd for boot, cached with crucial sdd drive, with revo for data and seagate in storage use, also using crucial for cache.

jury is still out for me on benefits on a sdd cached but as a none sdd is in the system etc have spec'ed one anyway

stayed with win7 pro for memory support, can upgrade later if needed with win8 pro cheap.

psu is plenty for build, gold of course.

gone retail with cpu as no overclock has been mentioned, but if needed change for better cooling ie oem then something like the Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler

have chosen a Logitech keyboard mouse set, but then again these are personnel choices etc.
Click to expand...

hmmm...

Quad Channel RAM? - Duel will be more than enough. I have 8GB (soon to be 16) for CS4/5 & Lightrooms, with no issues, Quick & Clean.

I also think the BlueRay writer is not needed, more of a gimmik. (personal view) :D

EDIT: Also, Win 7 Premium should be more than enough. Unless your a professional photoeditor, 16gb should be more than enough.
 
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no offence taken, only been building for 20 odd years, and all advice is a choice or opinion, your's tends to be better spec and i respect your opinions as well.

ive used some very high stuff with mixed results, and some very low end stuff with some great results, so i guess it's all down to luck, i will take the advice and keep reading more and try and do a better job, i don't like wasting time or money and only normally pick stuff i've used myself or have known close friends and colleagues to have used and liked.

message understood, i will get better with age, like a good wine, im still learning, only 45 so plenty of time left as yet, my head isn't a closed book, and plenty of room left to learn in it
 
Gone for an X79 option for you as you won't be gaming at all and only editing tasks: (I went a bit over:D)

Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail
2x Hazro HZ27WB 10-Bit 27" Widescreen Professional Monitor - Black
Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW)
Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001)
Corsair Carbide 400R Midi Tower Case - Black
Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2)
Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11)
KFA2 GeForce™ GT620 2048MB GDDR3 64bit DVI/VGA/PCI-E Graphics Card
Samsung SH-224BB/RSMS 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black/Silver/Biege) - Retail

Total : £1,965.91 (inc VAT + Shipping) - could lower the CPU cooler to something around the £30 mark and perhaps lower the SSD to a solid 128GB SSD such as the samsung 830 or Crucial M4 and it would be under £1900.

Two 1440p monitors there though, I put an Nvidia GPU in there simply for CUDA (not sure if it will benefit much at all, others can confirm) and obviously got the i7 3930K CPU which outperforms the Ivybridge at editing tasks. The difference is there but you would have to decide if the difference is worth the extra money - some comparisons here:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/552?vs=551

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/cpu-charts-2012/compare,3143.html?prod[5745]=on&prod[5754]=on




@Zak - building for 20 years and speccing £18.99 PSUs? I'm surprised...
 
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high end spec got a £100 psu, low end build got a £20 psu, what ever fits the budget, i own a £45k motohome but only drive a £7k Suzuki alto, it's what ever fits tbh and works.

last post wont add more or amend it, thread has enough info in it for me,

h88p://www.wikihow.com/Buy-a-Power-Supply

says it all tbh, look at the returns as well for most top end brands, and comments also on forum / site for any given so called top end psu.

£20 / £200, if unlucky any can fail, spending over the odd's doesn't mean you won't get a bad one, same as buying cheaper also doesn't mean it will fail quicker
 
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