Feedback on this Build

[dsc106]

I'm not terribly worried about the exact price for budget, but I don't want to overspend for nothing, and I don't want to underspend when for a bit more I could get a lot better... Looking around the $2k ballpark.

USES: Video Editing/Media/Creative (Adobe CS6 Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects); High-end Gaming; Possible Hackintosh

Looking for feedback on these specific components and if I should reconsider anything:

$200 Lian Li Full Tower Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112343

(thoughts on this case VS alternatives? worth the $$?)

$420 EVGA GTX 670 FTW OCed
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130787

(or should I just get the 680?)

$200 Corsair 850W Gold
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139015

(I hate worrying about power. Will be running 4x2TB HDDs + 512gb SSD, want to be able to upgrade video card without thinking, headroom/stability for overclock, etc.)

$250 32gb Corsair RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233246

(get 2 sets of that @ $125/ea - is this a good choice? good enough for an easy, moderate OC on the 3770K to ~4.2-4.4ghz?)

$270 New MSI Motherboard w/Thunderbolt
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130642

(I saw an ASUS one just came out, but its almost $500 - crazy! I want thunderbolt for future peripherals as I do video work)

$130 14x Blu Ray Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136249

(Figured might as well get the faster 14x since it's not THAT much more?)

$350 Intel 3770K IvyBridge

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...6501&Tpk=3770k


Any recommendations on a great cooler? I'd like to push the processor to 4.2-4.4ghz with stock case cooling on the LianLi and a good CPU cooler if possible. I 'm not interested in haggling with my OC... I just want to boost the performance to a very safe range and never think about it again.


I've got a 512gb SSD I already own that I'll be dropping in here, along with some extra 2TB HDDs from my old system. Already have monitors/keyboard/mouse (2x 24" IPS LED Apple Cinema Display monitors)


OK, Critique away! Thanks!

 

[mfenn]

OK, there's quite a lot of fat in this machine. You've got what's really a $1000 machine (not counting drives) dolled up to be a $1820 one.

- Case: Nice, but really expensive. The Corsair 550D is has a similar monolith style, but costs less at $125 AR.
- GPU: In a world where GPU Boost exists, a factory OC isn't worth the $20. A better cooler however, is worth it.
- PSU: Way overkill. A modern computer just doesn't draw that much power, any single digit number of drives is so far down in the noise level that it's not worth worrying about. This $100 750TX has more power output than you could ever dream of using.
- RAM: Unless you know for a fact that you need more than 32GB of RAM, you're wasting your money here. An $80 16GB setup (buy 2) is almost certainly more than you will need.
- Mobo: Thunderbolt on PC is just way too immature right now to consider dropping $270 on. You can bet that there will be $50 PCIe expansion cards when it matures a bit. Get a GA-Z77X-UD3 for $145.
- ODD : $130 is an obscene amount of money to spend on an optical drive. $70 gets you a perfectly good LG. Most drives cannot rip more than 1X without firmware hacks, by the way.
- CPU: Good :awe:

 

[Roland00Address]

- I second the 750TX, your computer is nowhere near 500w, it is more in the 350 to 400w range. Compare it to the power consumption benches of the gtx670 and 680 on anandtech under a load scenario. The 670 used 317 watts and the 680 used 362 watts. This is using the 6 core sandybridge-e with a 30% overclock (4.3 ghz turbo is disabled for consistency) which is less power efficient than a ivybridge cpu. Harddrives and SSDs don't take much power consumption either, each individual 2tb harddrive does about 10watts at load and 5 watts at idle. So all you did was use another 50 watts or so with peripherals under a worse case scenario (and there is going to be no worse case scenario that will use all 4 2tb drives at 100% load at the same time. Pretty much you still have 250 to 300 watts of flex room at all times.

- The same bluray burner is 40 dollars cheaper at frys.com with free shipping. You do have to pay tax but that will probably be a good amount cheaper still than newegg
http://www.frys.com/product/7055771

- If you don't mind using the newegg business trip combine with a coupon code you can get a gtx670 for $350. See here (you did say in your other thread this is a business expense)
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2249324

- Your memory choice is fine, though you can save 30 bucks if you the get the corsairs xms3 with 11-11-11-30 timings instead of 10-10-10-27 timings and the vengeance heatsinks.

- Nothing wrong with your cpu and motherboard choice, but if you don't need thunderbolt you may be better served with going x79 ($210 to $410) and a 3930k (about $595 for cpu). A sandy bridge e hexcore is faster than the ivybridge cpus in adobe cs5 and newer
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-benchmark-core-i7-3770k,3181-15.html

 

[dsc106]

Thank you for the excellent feedback so far! I definitely don't want to waste money. Couple thoughts to run by:

With the LianLi case, it is a Full Tower. I've decided that I definitely want a full tower case after making many PC builds - I don't ever move my system much, I hate things being cramped and I love the idea of having PLENTY of room to expand, or even just to get my hands in there and work with things.

I found a Corsair Obsidian series that was full tower, and it is actually $70 more than Lian Li:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139001

Thoughts on this Full Tower VS the Lian Li full tower? I've heard very good things about Lian Li, and I am looking at this case a lifelong investment as I continue to build/upgrade my PCs using it (I have a couple of other mid-tower cases where I can trickle down old parts into). I want a case I can finally "settle on" and call home.

Regarding the overpowered PSU... maybe I should scale it down. My only thought here, besides the peripherals, was if I ever want to add in a 2nd GPU (which I probably would at some point), or upgrade to a dual-GPU card, or some crazy high powered card in a couple years. Swapping PSUs is the most P.I.A. thing in the world, and it's cheaper just to buy a higher powered one up front. Or if I want to drop in a higher powered CPU. I've also heard that PSUs run better at 50% load?

I definitely want 32gb of RAM for After Effects/Premiere Pro CS6. I have 16gb in my current system and I find myself running out.


Re: GPU, good to know on the cooler! I can OC myself. Thoughts on GTX 670 vs 680?


Regarding thunderbolt, I thought I had read somewhere that intel specifically said because of the 10gbps bandwidth that Thunderbolt would NOT work as a PCi-E add-in card and needed to be built into the motherboard??

 

[bononos]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231568 What about this Gskill for the same price $125 but better latency - 9-9-9.

The trend in cpu/gpus is towards more moderate power consumption so unless you are thinking of possibly some future quad sli 690, a smaller psu is adequate. You can use some online psu calculators to estimate your needs if you are planning to sli your 670 and remember that the estimates are of your pc working flat out 100%.

If your psu is oversized and power consumption is <20% of its rated power then its efficiency might suffer if it is built (and only just) to 80+ certification standards. 50% of rated load is the most stringent test in the standard.

 

[dsc106]

With the LianLi case, it is a Full Tower. I've decided that I definitely want a full tower case after making many PC builds

I found a Corsair Obsidian series that was full tower, and it is actually $70 more than Lian Li:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139001

Thoughts on this Full Tower VS the Lian Li full tower? I've heard very good things about Lian Li

I definitely want 32gb of RAM for After Effects/Premiere Pro CS6. I have 16gb in my current system and I find myself running out.

Re: GPU, good to know on the cooler! I can OC myself. Thoughts on GTX 670 vs 680?


Regarding thunderbolt, I thought I had read somewhere that intel specifically said because of the 10gbps bandwidth that Thunderbolt would NOT work as a PCi-E add-in card and needed to be built into the motherboard??

Any other thoughts here?

 

[ElFenix]

ram has 0 bearing on overclock on modern intel platforms. get as much for as cheap as you can. heat spreaders are also worthless and are more a pain in the rear than anything as they interfere with many good CPU coolers.

for CPU coolers the TRUE Spirit 140 is pretty darn good and the TY-140 fan is fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-passed...G1PG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1338606441&sr=8-3

the thermalright archon is better but not by much
http://www.amazon.com/Thermal-right...VULU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338606505&sr=8-1

 

[mfenn]

Thank you for the excellent feedback so far! I definitely don't want to waste money. Couple thoughts to run by:

With the LianLi case, it is a Full Tower. I've decided that I definitely want a full tower case after making many PC builds - I don't ever move my system much, I hate things being cramped and I love the idea of having PLENTY of room to expand, or even just to get my hands in there and work with things.

I found a Corsair Obsidian series that was full tower, and it is actually $70 more than Lian Li:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139001

Thoughts on this Full Tower VS the Lian Li full tower? I've heard very good things about Lian Li, and I am looking at this case a lifelong investment as I continue to build/upgrade my PCs using it (I have a couple of other mid-tower cases where I can trickle down old parts into). I want a case I can finally "settle on" and call home.

There's nothing wrong with the Lian-Li if you are sure that you want a full tower. It's just damn expensive.

Regarding the overpowered PSU... maybe I should scale it down. My only thought here, besides the peripherals, was if I ever want to add in a 2nd GPU (which I probably would at some point), or upgrade to a dual-GPU card, or some crazy high powered card in a couple years. Swapping PSUs is the most P.I.A. thing in the world, and it's cheaper just to buy a higher powered one up front. Or if I want to drop in a higher powered CPU. I've also heard that PSUs run better at 50% load?

The thing is, you will pretty much never be running at 50% load. Your system will use maybe 75-100W when idling (which is what it will be doing for 95% of its life). Even GTX 680 SLI or a GTX 690 will use no more than 550W maxed out.

I definitely want 32gb of RAM for After Effects/Premiere Pro CS6. I have 16gb in my current system and I find myself running out.

Sounds good, just wanted to be sure.

Re: GPU, good to know on the cooler! I can OC myself. Thoughts on GTX 670 vs 680?

The GTX 670 is nearly as fast as a GTX 680 and costs over a $100 less. It's a no brainer IMHO.

Regarding thunderbolt, I thought I had read somewhere that intel specifically said because of the 10gbps bandwidth that Thunderbolt would NOT work as a PCi-E add-in card and needed to be built into the motherboard??

Architecturally speaking, everything except for the RAM in your PC has to talk PCI or PCIe. Even "integrated" chips are just hanging off an internal PCI(e) bus.

10Gbps is not that much by the standards of PCIe, even a PCIe Gen2 x4 slot has 60% more bandwidth. There's no reason that an add-on Thunderbolt card won't be made.

 

[dsc106]

OK, well if I add in thunderbolt later via PCI-Express, what are the top 2 full-featured, high quality motherboards I should look at? I hear Gigabyte boards tend to work best as a hackintosh, which is something I want to do...

recommendations on mobos?

 

[mfenn]

OK, well if I add in thunderbolt later via PCI-Express, what are the top 2 full-featured, high quality motherboards I should look at? I hear Gigabyte boards tend to work best as a hackintosh, which is something I want to do...

recommendations on mobos?

The GA-Z77X-D3H and ASRock Z77 Extreme4 are quite good.