~$1000 Multipurpose Build - Advice Needed

[emtilt]

It's been about six years since I've built a machine, so I could use some help. I'm building a primary machine for my home, and it will be multipurpose. Primarily, it will be used for when I do work at home, which consists of astrophysics research in the form of working with large data arrays (moderate CPU requirements). Secondary purposes will include office type work, watching HD video, and some (very) light gaming. I will be using two monitors of fairly high resolution. I also need data backups - I'm tentatively considering using two pairs of 1TB HDDs with each pair in RAID1 separately, if this is possible (please advise). An eye towards upgrades is highly desired - this machine needs to last a long time, so the ability to slightly beef up CPU, graphics, and RAM in the future is a big plus.

I've read some guides and threads here and across the web, but I'm still kinda guessing. Here's a breakdown of what I've got and what I need.

Approximate Purchase Date: in the next one-to-three weeks

Budget Range: ~$1000, but this is very flexible and can go up or down by as much as ~$500 as is optimal/necessary. The target is $1000, though, and, obviously, I want to minimize costs, where possible.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Scientific calculations on arrays (IDL, etc), office, video/music/multimedia, light gaming

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg or amazon

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 on one monitor; second monitor TBD but will be equal or higher resolution than current

Additional Comments: I don't care how the case looks or anything like that - function and cost over form.

Here is a **very** rough draft of parts. It is primarily taken directly from the guides on this site, and some component are just guesses. See specific questions at the end of this post.

CASE: Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
MOBO: ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
GPU: SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible
HSF: Do I need one?
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500
SYSTEM DISK: 2x SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive in RAID1
DATA DISK: 2x SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive in RAID1
OPTICAL: LG DVD±RW SuperMulti Drive Black SATA Model GH22NS50 Bulk - OEM
RAM: G.SKILL Value Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT (to be at least doubled on a future pay check)
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM dual booted with a Linux distro
Subtotal: $1,102.84

Some specific questions:
* Is there any real reason for me not to get OEM Windows? A mobo replacement on this machine during the life of Windows 7 seems unlikely....
* What should I change to improve upgradability? Similarly, is this a cost effective machine at this point in time, or can the cost be reduced? I want to optimize these two competing variables.
* Is the RAID1 disk configurations I described possible with this set up? If not, how do I make it so? Or would I be better with a RAID5 setup? Or something else entirely? I really need advice here.
* My choices for MOBO, PSU, CPU, GPU, and HDDs are largely guesses - other suggestions, along for explanations of why I should change, are highly appreciated.
* Would I be better off with one of the i7s?
* Is the graphics card adequate for my purposes, including two large monitors? I just pulled this one off of one of the suggested builds - I have no idea how to pick one. I've always used nVidia in the past, but that was years ago...
* Is going to SSDs for the system disk worth the large increase in cost?


I know I've asked a lot of questions, but any help you can provide will be very much appreciated. The number of choices out there are daunting - I need the help.

 

[fffblackmage]

HSF: Do I need one?

No.

* Is there any real reason for me not to get OEM Windows? A mobo replacement on this machine during the life of Windows 7 seems unlikely....

You should be fine here. You may just need to call Microsoft to validate the key on a replacement mobo.

* Is the RAID1 disk configurations I described possible with this set up? If not, how do I make it so? Or would I be better with a RAID5 setup? Or something else entirely? I really need advice here.

I think it's possible, though I'm not an expert on RAID. However, one thing I do know is that RAID isn't a backup. It doesn't protect you from fire, theft, acts of god, or whatever else.

* Would I be better off with one of the i7s?

Maybe if your scientific software is multi-threaded to use more than 4 cores.

* Is the graphics card adequate for my purposes, including two large monitors? I just pulled this one off of one of the suggested builds - I have no idea how to pick one. I've always used nVidia in the past, but that was years ago...

I don't know if there's even a video card today that doesn't support at least two monitors.

* Is going to SSDs for the system disk worth the large increase in cost?

I think it does.

I know I've asked a lot of questions, but any help you can provide will be very much appreciated. The number of choices out there are daunting - I need the help.

No problem, we all learn by asking questions.

 

[mvbighead]

Here's what I got:

Case - Antec 300 - 59.95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129042

MB/CPU - i5-2500k + Biostar Z68 - 304.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.658273

Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB - 84.99 - 15 (Promo code) = 69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231402

PSU - Antec EW 500W - 64.99 - 15 (Promo) = 49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371035

OS - Win7 Home Premium 64bit OEM - 99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116986

GFX - XFX 6850 - 164.99 (Less 25 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150505

HDDs - Samsung F3 x 4 - 259.96
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

CD/DVDRW - LiteOn - 18.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106289

SSD - Crucial M4 64GB - 114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148441

Grand Total is 1151.16 Shipped Less MIR on Case/GFX Card at $40

Personally, I'd buy a board with the Z68 and use the SSD caching that they support, thus the addition of the Crucial M4. You may not be partial to Biostar, but they typically make a solid board.

I lightened the PSU a little, as the EW model was less expensive, a good, solid, reliable brand. And is up to the task. As for future upgrades, typically things get faster and better in terms of less power consumption. Unless you plan to throw two monster cards in an SLI config, you should be fine.

Upped RAM to 8GB because, well, RAM is cheap and an important part of any system.

All in all, I'm just about $50 over your mark, and I added an SSD and 4GB of RAM.

One last point is that I would, if it were me, consider running a RAID 10 array. You get performance, plus redundancy. Granted, if you want a full copy of data stored on two disks that can be pulled and brought up elsewhere, RAID1 would be ideal. But with disks remaining in the system, you should be backing up to external media anyway. Anyhoo, RAID10 would give you an even snappier system. To me, if you're buying 4 identical disks, it would be the way I'd go.

 

[emtilt]

Thanks for the replies.

Maybe if your scientific software is multi-threaded to use more than 4 cores.

Some is, and I do tend to have a lot of things going at once. I'm torn on whether its worth the price increase, though, because if I start doing something super-intensive, I can always do it remotely on my department's machines, which will crush any home computer in performance in all categories. On the other hand, its nice to be able to get work done at home smoothly without relying on flaky internet connections.

Here's what I got:

Case - Antec 300 - 59.95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129042

MB/CPU - i5-2500k + Biostar Z68 - 304.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.658273

Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB - 84.99 - 15 (Promo code) = 69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231402

PSU - Antec EW 500W - 64.99 - 15 (Promo) = 49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371035

OS - Win7 Home Premium 64bit OEM - 99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116986

GFX - XFX 6850 - 164.99 (Less 25 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150505

HDDs - Samsung F3 x 4 - 259.96
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

CD/DVDRW - LiteOn - 18.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106289

SSD - Crucial M4 64GB - 114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148441

Grand Total is 1151.16 Shipped Less MIR on Case/GFX Card at $40

Personally, I'd buy a board with the Z68 and use the SSD caching that they support, thus the addition of the Crucial M4. You may not be partial to Biostar, but they typically make a solid board.

I lightened the PSU a little, as the EW model was less expensive, a good, solid, reliable brand. And is up to the task. As for future upgrades, typically things get faster and better in terms of less power consumption. Unless you plan to throw two monster cards in an SLI config, you should be fine.

Upped RAM to 8GB because, well, RAM is cheap and an important part of any system.

All in all, I'm just about $50 over your mark, and I added an SSD and 4GB of RAM.

One last point is that I would, if it were me, consider running a RAID 10 array. You get performance, plus redundancy. Granted, if you want a full copy of data stored on two disks that can be pulled and brought up elsewhere, RAID1 would be ideal. But with disks remaining in the system, you should be backing up to external media anyway. Anyhoo, RAID10 would give you an even snappier system. To me, if you're buying 4 identical disks, it would be the way I'd go.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Biostar boards. It seems like it meets my needs as far as features go. How do they tend to be in terms of reliability and other problematic issues compared to brands like ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, etc? Can't find many reviews online.

I'm a little concerned that that SSD is a bit small for my needs, but there may be ways around it. As I mentioned, I'll need to set this machine up as a dual boot, which means both OSs and their core software need to go somewhere. Ideally, both on a system disk with two partitions, but I suppose I could throw the Linux OS on a partition of the data drive. I use Linux less than Windows at home, anyway. What do you think the best arrangement as far as the two OSs and the SSDs/HDDs is?

And, just out of curiosity, why did you pick the graphics card you did? I can't tell what makes it different than the one I had listed, except that it's a couple bucks cheaper.

 

[mvbighead]

Biostar are usually decent and reliable in my experience with them. Nothing over the top, but I usually focus more on chipsets any way.

As for the SSD, I am not sure how/if SSD caching works with Linux... but the idea there is that the drive is not used directly as storage. Instead, it is used as cache for your most commonly read files. This gives you SSD-like performance in Windows, but only puts the most frequently used files on the SSD space. It is not uncommon to see a 20GB SSD used for such a purpose, as that'll take most of the frequently used OS files, MS Office files, Internet Explorer, Media Player, etc. 64GB should be plenty for that implementation. And the caching feature is only available in boards with the Z68 chipset.

The graphics card I selected was cheaper, and, to be honest, I have had better experiences with XFX hardware than I have with Sapphire. Maybe a matter of personal preference, but that's why I selected that one.

 

[mvbighead]

As for SSD caching, give this article a look:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4337/z68-ssd-caching-with-corsairs-f40-sandforce-ssd

 

[emtilt]

Ah, I understand now. That SSD caching is a pretty cool idea. I'm concerned about my dual boot playing nicely with it, though; it seems Linux is entirely unsupported, based on a cursory internet search.

Does the SSD caching leave everything on the HDD, and thus leave the file tables and everything on the HDD intact? That is, does it change how the HDD would look to other OSes, or does it just make additional copies of commonly used Windows files on an invisible SSD? If the main HDD remains completely intact, it seems that the Linux OS could just not mount the SSD and run off the HDD as normal (and also miss out on the SSD benefit). But if the caching actually changes the HDD, for instance by moving files off of it, then it might screw with other OSes quite a bit. Anyone know anything about how this works in dual boot situations?

 

[Idontcare]

* Is there any real reason for me not to get OEM Windows? A mobo replacement on this machine during the life of Windows 7 seems unlikely....

FWIW, I'll share my own horror story here and you can decide whether or not the risk is worth it...I bought Win7 x64 Ult OEM from Newegg, after installation it passed the COA and registration process, worked perfectly fine for nearly a year, and then Microsoft decided to invalidate my license.

After dealing with technical support to get to the bottom of it the bottom line was they routinely go through and invalidate OEM licenses that appear to have been purchased by individuals who are not licensed OEM's.

They verified my purchase with Newegg was a legit purchase, but that I was not a legit licensee of OEM Windows OS and this they (MS) had the right to invalidate my windows license.

This had nothing to do with someone else stealing my license and trying to re-register, nothing to do with someone selling me a Win7 copy and it having a stolen or misused license. This was purely a case of "DIY'er hobbyist can not classify themselves as their own OEM and use OEM licensed MS products".

$175 lesson learned. They (MS) would sell me a non-OEM license for $200, but it was locked to my existing mobo (like an OEM license but not the same category per MS's licensing model).

So...just be aware, Newegg will sell you those OEM packs, and MS will let you validate your OS with it, but they routinely scrutinize the OEM validations and they can (and in my case did) come back and blacklist your license as "non authorized use of OEM license". Not trying to scare you, just sharing my own personal $175 lesson learned.

 

[emtilt]

Wow. That's ridiculous.

 

[boomerang]

If this was my build, I'd be looking at warranty terms on motherboards. It is of course, no guarantee that the motherboard will last through the warranty term, but I find comfort in knowing that the manufacturer is confident enough in their product to warranty it for three years instead of just one.

I also like five year warranties on hard drives.

I see no reason why you couldn't have two pairs of hard drives each in a RAID 1 array. Assuming the controller on the motherboard will allow that configuration. There is one potential downside in that you're relying on the motherboard for those arrays. If the motherboard should fail, you're going to need the same motherboard (same controllers) to access any data on those drives and I can't say with certainty that even that would work. I'm guessing not, because the drives will not instantly be recognized as being in an array. I'm pretty certain that information is not stored on the drives themselves.

Once again, if it was my build I would have a high quality RAID controller card in the system. That card could be moved to another motherboard and the data would absolutely be accessible. Booting off those drives though is another issue.

 

[mfenn]

Thanks for the replies.

Some is, and I do tend to have a lot of things going at once. I'm torn on whether its worth the price increase, though, because if I start doing something super-intensive, I can always do it remotely on my department's machines, which will crush any home computer in performance in all categories. On the other hand, its nice to be able to get work done at home smoothly without relying on flaky internet connections.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Biostar boards. It seems like it meets my needs as far as features go. How do they tend to be in terms of reliability and other problematic issues compared to brands like ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, etc? Can't find many reviews online.

I'm a little concerned that that SSD is a bit small for my needs, but there may be ways around it. As I mentioned, I'll need to set this machine up as a dual boot, which means both OSs and their core software need to go somewhere. Ideally, both on a system disk with two partitions, but I suppose I could throw the Linux OS on a partition of the data drive. I use Linux less than Windows at home, anyway. What do you think the best arrangement as far as the two OSs and the SSDs/HDDs is?

There are two different modes for Intel SRT, "enhanced" and "maximized". In the "enhanced" mode, the SSD works as a write through cache, so all blocks are written back to the HDD. In "maximized" mode, it acts as a write-back cache, where cached blocks may live only on the SSD. In theory, you should be able to use "enhanced" mode in Windows and have the drive appear like normal to Linux. In practice, it would scare the hell out of me.

The build mv suggested looks fine. You should be OK with the onboard RAID as long as you only use ports provided from the Intel chipset. Arrays created there should be portable to any other Z68 motherboard at minimum (and probably to any recent Intel chipset).

 

[mvbighead]

If this was my build, I'd be looking at warranty terms on motherboards. It is of course, no guarantee that the motherboard will last through the warranty term, but I find comfort in knowing that the manufacturer is confident enough in their product to warranty it for three years instead of just one.

I also like five year warranties on hard drives.

I see no reason why you couldn't have two pairs of hard drives each in a RAID 1 array. Assuming the controller on the motherboard will allow that configuration. There is one potential downside in that you're relying on the motherboard for those arrays. If the motherboard should fail, you're going to need the same motherboard (same controllers) to access any data on those drives and I can't say with certainty that even that would work. I'm guessing not, because the drives will not instantly be recognized as being in an array. I'm pretty certain that information is not stored on the drives themselves.

Once again, if it was my build I would have a high quality RAID controller card in the system. That card could be moved to another motherboard and the data would absolutely be accessible. Booting off those drives though is another issue.

With RAID1, this is not the case. RAID1 is a 1 to 1 image on both disks, so the data is there regardless.

Anything other than RAID 1, and you have a point. But RAID1 is simply mirroring contents from one to another.

 

[mfenn]

With RAID1, this is not the case. RAID1 is a 1 to 1 image on both disks, so the data is there regardless.

Anything other than RAID 1, and you have a point. But RAID1 is simply mirroring contents from one to another.

Depends on whether or not the controller puts an evil superblock on the drive.