Work, Rest and Play spec.

[khrall]

I'm needing to build a new workhorse machine that will allow me to run multiple VM's for training and work purposes. From this machine I also want to use it to convert my blu-ray collection to MKV's to throw on my server and finally to play some games on.


Are there any glaringly obvious problems/recommendations to change on this spec?


YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £359.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £259.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £164.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 830 Notebook/Apple Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC256N/EU) **BTS £20 CASHBACK** £155.99
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £109.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £95.99
1 x Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750M High Performance 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020003-UK) £94.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011/AM2/AM3) (CWCH100) £85.98
1 x LiteOn IHES112-115 Internal 12x SATA Blu-ray Bulk Combo - Black £56.99
Total : £1,401.40 (includes shipping : £13.75).




My reasoning is as follows, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

3770K and 16gb - Encoding and VM's.

UD5H - Dual NIC's, I can assign one to VM's running in VirtualBox or VMware player. It also allows me to add another GFX card later on at some point if required.

Storage - 256Gb SDD - Fast boot drive and ample space to put training VM's on at 20Gb per VMDK. I'll probably add a secondary data drive, using something I have laying around. Most of my real storage is on my Microserver using a P410 controller.

GTX670 - Games!

Case/Cooler - Personal choice, just like the appearance.

BD-Rom/DVD-RW - I don't currently have a BD-Rom in my machine and it was the cheapest.

I currently have a 22" 1680x1050 monitor, but I'll be looking to upgrade it to a 27" 2560x1440 at some point in the near future. Keyboard and mouse are covered and I'll be reusing my Win7 Pro Retail for the build.

So any alterations/pointers?

Thanks.

 

[khrall]

Looks very nice (love that case)

An extra £10 on a retail CPU gives you a 3 year warranty (1 for OEM) a shiny box and a Intel heasink (useful as a backup or to help sell the CPU on later?)

The RAM is expensive, but does leave two slots free for more later.

What OS you running?

Only 1 year warranty on oem cpu, boxed version has 3 years for an extra £10

Nice build

Thanks for the heads up on the retail CPU, seems daft not to take advantage of that.

I decided on 2x8Gb, to allow another 2x8Gb for 32Gb if required later on with the VM's. I'm using Windows 7 Professional, so running 32Gb won't be a problem.

 

[khrall]

I have that SSD - its lovely and fast

One thing I would say is, check that the Blu-Ray drive comes with software because Windows 7 can't play blu-rays out of the box as far as I know... and last I looked there was no (half decent) free software for it.

Edit: Also, depending on what/how many games you play, 256GB might not be enough so you might want to look out for that. I was going to mention storage but you say you have a server.

I very much doubt I'll be watching blu-rays directly on the machine, the drive is included in the spec so I can store my blu-rays on my server.

I don't have a huge amount of time to game these days as I have a 4 month old son, however Daddy always manages to find time here and there . I typically only play 1 or 2 games at a time, so storage isn't a huge issue for that, plus I'll probably put a spare 250Gb-500Gb drive as a second drive.