New Hardware Build: Assessments?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by RiViT, Mar 23, 2011.

  1. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    Hi All,

    I'm new to this forum and I'd like to get an opinion on whether or not all these bits and bobs will work properly together. I've been researching this build for about two weeks, tweaking and all that, and this is what I've come up with:

    * Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 ATX Mid Tower
    * Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W ATX
    * GIGABYTE SKT.1366 Intel X58 DDR3 ATX (Man. ID: X58A-UD3R)
    * Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8MB LGA1366
    * Corsair DDR3 PC3-10666 3 X 4G memory, triple-channel (total: 12 gb)
    * EVGA GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 320-bit PCI-E
    * Western Digital WD5002AALX 500GB Hard Drive *W3 (x 2)
    * Samsung SH-S243D/BEBE 24X DVD-RW SATA
    * Microsoft Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit DVD English OEM


    The system will have two uses. My wife will be playing WOW and I will be creating 3D animation using Messiah and various other 3D apps.

    1) My main concern is not that this is the fastest system around, but that all the parts are matched to each other. I won't be overclocking, so I haven't listed a CPU cooler.

    2) My aim is to eventually upgrade this system without having to replace anything already bought. First upgrade will be to double-SLI, second to triple-SLI. Final upgrade (if there ever comes a need) will be to 24gb RAM.

    4) Have I missed anything?

    5) Has anyone had a less-than-happy experience with anything on this list?

    I'll be buying all my parts from PC Cyber here in Ottawa and having them do the assembly (I'm a bit nervous, what can I say? I haven't done a build since 1999).

    Any and all advice/opinion will be very much appreciated.
     
  2. Calef

    Calef Master Guru

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    Hi there,

    your build seems pretty solid to me, just some ideas for you to think about:

    1) You won't ever need a 1kw PSU, especially if you are not overclocking and respecting point 2). A good one with about 400-500W is more than enough and saves quite a bit of money. Recommendations:
    - Seasonic S12II-520Bronze 520W
    - be quiet! Straight Power E8 CM 480W

    2) Your upgrade plans for SLI are not the smartest move imo. By the time a GTX470 will start being old, there will be plenty of new cards around, being way faster in single configurations and saving you the hustle and increased power draw of a SLI system. Upgrading to SLI later on sounds pretty good on paper, but is in reality almost always a waste compared to what you could achieve by selling your aged graphics card and buying a brand new single GPU. This is especially true if the only gaming requirement is WoW, since it seems to handle multi GPU systems pretty poorly.

    3) Just a minor point: Do you need a Windows professional version or do you just buy it for the cool name? ;) Most people won't ever use the added features...

    4) IF you should decide to go with my money saving tips, you might be able to afford a nice little SSD for your OS and the most important programs, this makes your OS much more responsive and greatly improves the overall working experience (not so much in games, very much in tasks involving excessive random read/write on your disk... which is almost anything you do on your desktop ;) )
     
  3. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    Hi Calef,

    Thanks for responding!

    Ah! Excellent! This is the kind of advice I'm looking for.

    Wow, I never looked at it that way, but you're right. With the new Ti series available now, I'd likely be better off to go that way.

    Have you used any of the newer ATI cards? I had read that they aren't as fast as nVidia at the moment, but the benchmarks on the PassMark site don't seem to agree.

    I'd also heard that double- or triple-Crossfire doesn't always work well for some games (the only one I'm really concerned with is WOW and if not for my wife, I wouldn't care about that either, to be honest).

    The Pro version is mainly to by-pass the 16gb limit (imposed by Home Premium) for eventual RAM upgrades. Of course, by the time I get there--if the same holds true as you pointed out for video cards--it's entirely possible that this is a moot point.

    I had shied away from SSD mainly because I'd have to get a minimum of 120 gb to avoid running out of room. I'm sharing this machine with my wife and between us we have ~100 gbs of apps/games to install so far. Of course, some of this can be off-loaded onto a second computer we'll be keeping from our current set-up.

    Of course, the speed of an SSD is extremely alluring. I appreciate the reminder. :)

    A friend has convinced me to look deeper into AMD/ATI as well. Any thoughts on this?

    Thanks a bunch for all your help!

    -RiViT
     
  4. Calef

    Calef Master Guru

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    Well I am using an AMD (there is no ATI anymore, they belong to AMD now ;) ) HD5850, neither the newest nor the most expensive one but I am completely satisfied for what I got for ~200€ 1.5 years ago... It's always a matter of preference, most of the time nVidia has the "top dog", the fastest card on the market, but also takes a premium price for it. From a price/performance point of view, you should most likely not buy the fastest card available. At the moment I would recommend having a look at the nVidia GTX570 or the AMD HD6970, both of them have good performance at a reasonable price. And if you have fun at some modding and want to save more money, you can buy a HD6950 2GB version and try and unlock it to an 6970, which is quite possible it seems (though of course without warranty or anything).

    I would not say either AMD or nVidia has better products, it always comes down to a price/performance comparison and both companys have good products in this respect. Just look at benchmarks, think about what you expect from the card and how much you are willing to spend, and find the best card for yourself ;)

    As for WoW, both Crossfire and SLI don't work to good in this game, so you shouldn't take either of it imo. Other games, SLI seems to make slightly less problems overall, but generally both technologies are pretty equal nowadays.

    As for your Windows, of course then go for the pro version, just wanted to make sure you are not buying only for the sake of having the pro version ;) (yes, sounds stupid, but many people think it's misteriously faster or more stable or anything in pro version, which is just wrong).

    And regarding the SSD, that's a good point, I think you will also be very satisfied without one. It's definitely nothing you "need", pure luxus and indeed very expensive as soon as you need a little more space than 80GB.
     

  5. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    switch it to the 2500K and then I'll approve it. I can't recommend Nehalem at this stage.

    deltatux
     
  6. Sever

    Sever Ancient Guru

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    as deltatux said, choose socket1155 and choose either an i5 2500k or i7 2600k. both these CPUs at stock clocks will outperform the 950 in most benchmarks. the 2600k at stock clocks has enough grunt to outperform a moderated overclocked 950. add a beefy overclock to the 2600k and its good enough to even match the i7 980x hexacore.

    on top of that, the new dual channel memory controller in the socket1155 CPUs is far superior to the older triple channel memory controller in socket1366 setups. if you look at all the memory benchmarks, the socket1155 memory controller wins by a fair margin.

    if youre aiming to upgrade without replacing anything, then i'd suggest starting off with a slightly less power hungry card that packs a punch, like a gtx560. then in future if you do decide to upgrade, you can keep the 560 as a physx card, and just run whatever other cards you want.

    as for the whole amd vs nvidia decision, check which one your 3d rendering programs support. if they support cuda, stick with nvidia. if they support ati stream, then go with amd/ati. performance-wise, cards from both companies are similar when you look at cards in a similar price range. make a decision based on what will help you more with everything else you do on your computer.
     
  7. TruMutton_200Hz

    TruMutton_200Hz Guest

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  8. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    Hi Calef,

    Ah, that's good to know. Since WoW is the only game we're interested in running, SLI/Crossfire is off the list.

    I pretty much started over again from scratch after taking in all the advice from here as well as another site (and from talking with a friend). I also did a lot more digging into reviews, etc.

    Here's the build list in its current incarnation:

    * ANTEC Dark Fleet DF-30 Mid Tower Black
    * OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply
    * ASUS P8P67-M (Rev 3.0) S.1155 INTEL P67, M.ATX *W3
    * Intel Core I7 2600K 3.4Ghz 8MB LGA1155
    * Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 Memory (8 gbs)
    * Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI-E
    * Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB (data drive)
    * Samsung SH-S243D/BEBE 24X DVD-RW SATA
    * Microsoft Windows 7 Home Prem 64 Bit DVD English OEM
    * OCZ Vertex 2 3.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (system drive)

    I cut back on the OS (Pro to Home Premium) and the amount of RAM to accommodate the SSD. Yeah, I know, I said I wasn't going to go for one, but the speed is just too tempting. A friend of mine has been running his OS from one for several months without problems and his boot-up times are just amazing.

    I switched to an 1155 board and cpu and also changed the WD black to a WD blue to get the extra cache.

    I read in a review that the GTX 560 Ti needs about 500 watts (plus 100-150 overhead for the rest of the system) so 700 should be sufficient, right? It's not a gamer's PS, but I gather that OCZ makes a pretty solid PS from feedback and research.

    Anyway, if there are no glaring errors in this set-up, this is what I'll be going for.

    What do you think?

    -Ron T.
     
  9. Sever

    Sever Ancient Guru

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    looks go so far. samsung spinpoint f3 1tb drives are also good. i would recommend this drive if you can find it for cheaper than the WD. ive got three of these in my PC and theyve lasted longer than my WD and seagates.

    and with the GPU, see if you can find an msi twin frozr edition of the 560. they should be around the same price, but they run cooler and are less noisy. performance is more or less the same.
     
  10. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    I'd take a SAMSUNG F3 instead. As for the CPU, do you really need a Core i7? Would you use any professional software? If not, I'm sure you can save the $100 and put it towards a GTX570 instead by getting the Core i5 2500K.

    deltatux
     

  11. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    I had a look, but my local store only has 5400 rpm versions of these drives. Is this what you're using? How does the speed/seek compare to a 7200 rpm drive under practical circumstances?

    I found one of these and, for $10 more, what the heck! The internal clock runs a little slower, but am I going to notice? Doubtful.

    Thanks, Sever!

    -Ron T.
     
  12. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    Hi deltatux,

    I'll be using Messiah Studio mostly, but other 3D apps, too. I think Messiah will benefit from the extra speed; it's an x64 app and allows control over individual cores for rendering.

    It'd be nice to save the $100, and maybe by the time I buy this system sometime next month, I may decide that's more important. I'll have to do some digging into OC specs for the i5 2500K.

    Thanks for the info.

    -Ron T.
     
  13. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    if you're using professional applications then the 2600K may be good.

    Not sure what this Messiah Studio is so I can't comment.

    deltatux
     
  14. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    Hi TruMutton,

    Wow! Marvell sounds like some pretty neat technology. I'm going to have to dig into that a bit.

    Yeah, Vertex 3 sounds pretty amazing. I couldn't find anything about when it will be available, though. Definitely a future upgrade possibility!

    Thanks!

    -Ron T.
     
  15. Calef

    Calef Master Guru

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    Looks very promising! I think you will be happy with your new system :)

    Only a minor point, your PSU is still a bit of overkill. But since it doesn't seem to be too expensive, just go for it, a little extra definitely can't hurt (anything else than your wallet, that is :p).
     

  16. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    Thanks! I think so, too.

    Yup, you're right. I calculated the power requirements at 470 watts. I'm thinking a little room for OC won't hurt, although I may never get around to it.

    Thanks for all your time and all the great info, Calef. Cheers!

    -Ron T.
     
  17. RiViT

    RiViT Guest

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    New Build Delivered!

    Hi Guys,

    After many delays, mostly waiting for components that are barely available yet, we got the new computer today. Naturally, there were a couple of last-minute substitutions because of supplier back-ordering, but nothing Earth-shattering. I had to change the Antec TruePower 650 for a Corsair TX 650 and I also have to give up on the Lightscribe DVD burner. No biggie on the latter and the former just might work out better than the original choice.

    After we got it set up, my wife beat me to the chair and installed Wow. A big difference for her. Where she could only manage somewhere short of "Fair" graphics settings and still had the occasional frame-rate glitch with the old machine, she now has it cranked all the way to "Ultra" with absolutely smooth performance.

    I can't wait to see what some of my 3D apps will do... if I can ever get her away from the damn thing! :)

    I also found a little surprise on the motherboard box. I thought it maxed out at 16gb of RAM, but it'll handle 32gb!

    I just want to thank you guys again for all the helpful suggestions and feedback. I think this computer is going to do the job without any trouble at all.

    -Ron T.
     
  18. Li4m79

    Li4m79 Ancient Guru

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    your rig is almost identical to mine!! Have fun man!!!
     

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