First build and would love some advice

[lehtv]

Intel X79 is the chipset for LGA2011 motherboards which support Sandy Bridge-E CPUs. Sandy Bridge 2500K and 2600K aren't compatible. The cheapest SB-E CPU i7-3820 is going to cost about as much as 2600K, as far as I know. I honestly think you should just go with Z68 + 2500K, much better performance for the money. If Photoshop doesn't properly take advantage of the hyperthreading of 2600K, it won't do that with SB-E either. It's not like you'll need 8 RAM slots either. SB-E also lacks an IGP so you can't fall back on it if your discrete GPU becomes unusable (e.g. you have to RMA it or your BIOS flashing fails).

 

[mfenn]

Change of plans haha. The X79 series motherboards are about to be released (November) and the new Ivy bridge CPU's too. So I'm just going to Wait. They look amazing!

To get you excited check this Dual Xeon Sandy Bridge-E and 12 RAM slot X79 chipset Motherboard!! One xeon CPU has 10 cores and 20 threads haha so double that. Might just get that then. The motherboard only costs $700.

"Only $700"? That's pretty far out of reach for somebody with an $1800 AUD budget.

Good for you bud

P.S. If you are so informed why didn't you just comment before saying to wait a few weeks for a new mobo to come out?

Because we know that it is out of your price range and not very useful for what you want to do.

 

[0dervish0]

Intel X79 is the chipset for LGA2011 motherboards which support Sandy Bridge-E CPUs. Sandy Bridge 2500K and 2600K aren't compatible. The cheapest SB-E CPU i7-3820 is going to cost about as much as 2600K, as far as I know. I honestly think you should just go with Z68 + 2500K, much better performance for the money. If Photoshop doesn't properly take advantage of the hyperthreading of 2600K, it won't do that with SB-E either. It's not like you'll need 8 RAM slots either. SB-E also lacks an IGP so you can't fall back on it if your discrete GPU becomes unusable (e.g. you have to RMA it or your BIOS flashing fails).

Hmmm yeah probably not worth it, just would be good to have the latest LGA2011 socket for future compatability. When are the SB-E CPU's coming out? The base lower model mobos only have 4 ram slots, its only the high end ones which have 8.

 

[0dervish0]

"Only $700"? That's pretty far out of reach for somebody with an $1800 AUD budget.

Sarcasm

Because we know that it is out of your price range and not very useful for what you want to do.

I remember reading that the i7 would work with it but they probably mean the SB-E i7 chips.

 

[lehtv]

Hmmm yeah probably not worth it, just would be good to have the latest LGA2011 socket for future compatability.

It's actually not any more future compatible than LGA1155. LGA2011, like the previous enthusiast platform LGA1366, is a dead end, unless it will support Ivy Bridge-E, but then again who'd want to upgrade from SB-E to IB-E? Equally pointless as upgrading from 2500K to Ivy Bridge quad. The improvements are so small between these two generations - Intel Haswell is the earliest sensible upgrade for either platform. For many users, Intel Broadwell to be released in 2014 if things go according to schedule is the probable upgrade.

 

[0dervish0]

It's actually not any more future compatible than LGA1155. LGA2011, like the previous enthusiast platform LGA1366, is a dead end, unless it will support Ivy Bridge-E, but then again who'd want to upgrade from SB-E to IB-E? Equally pointless as upgrading from 2500K to Ivy Bridge quad. The improvements are so small between these two generations - Intel Haswell is the earliest sensible upgrade for either platform. For many users, Intel Broadwell to be released in 2014 if things go according to schedule is the probable upgrade.

Yeah good point. No point trying to future proof with computers as technology changes so much. So are the new X79 motherboards just for the extreme series chipsets? I thought the ivy bridge chipsets would use the LGA2011 socket too. Are you sure they don't?

 

[0dervish0]

Nah you're right the Ivy Bridge will use the LGA1155 socket. Which makes the LGA1155 socket boards a more sensable option. Cheers

 

[mfenn]

Nah you're right the Ivy Bridge will use the LGA1155 socket. Which makes the LGA1155 socket boards a more sensable option. Cheers

To be perfectly clear, Ivy Bridge sockets will be bifurcated just like Sandy Bridge sockets are, with LGA 1155 for the low-end and mid-range ($50-350 per CPU) and LGA 2011 for the high-end workstation and servers ($350-$3500 per CPU).

 

[0dervish0]

I have built the system and here is what I ended up going with:

Intel i5 2500k 3.3GHz CPU (will overclock to 4.5GHz soon)
Noctua NH-C14 HSF
G-skil Ripjaw X 4x4GB 1600MHz RAM
AMD Msi Twin Frozr II r6950 2gb GPU
ASRock Extreme4 Gen3 Motherboard
SilverStone Strider Gold 850W PSU
Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD
Bitfenix sleeved 24 Pin cable
WD 1.5TB Caviar Green HDD
WD 2TB Caviar Green HDD
Corsair Obsidian 650D Case

Took about 8 hours to put it all together and install windows 7 Ultimate and Office 2010.

Here is a low res timelapse video of the build. The original video is high res but had to compress it as the file was 300mb (around 90fps 1080p).

Had some stability problems with it such as I would open lightroom and laod photos and then it would freeze or itunes would stop working. I think it is the SSD causing the problems but I changed it from IDE to AHCI and flashed 1.3.3 firmware and for now it is running smoothly.

Doing some RAM stability testing with eight memtest86 programs running at 2000MB to test my 16GB of RAM at 100% load. Then I ran OCCT for 8 hours with 100% load on the CPU and it passed and GPU passed msi kombustor.

I planning on overclock the cpu to 4.5GHz, Memory to 1600MHz with lower latency, unlock the 6970 GPU shaders and overclock to around 870MHz. But first I have a corrupt HDD that I need to sort out.

Got some nice boxes:

Thank you all for your help and advice, especially lehtv.

 

[mfenn]

Looks nice! You probably paid too much for the case, PSU, and mobo though.

 

[0dervish0]

Thank you mfenn. I'm really happy with those parts. The case was great to work with and looks good, I couldn't get the silverstone silver psu as it was out of stock so I got the gold and was told 850W is a safe choice for future upgrades and yeah I could have paid less for the mobo but I think it was a good decision. If anything I think I paid too much for the GPU as I could have gone without one but thought I can do some light gaming in the future if I get bored.

At the moment I'm having trouble formatting a corrupt HDD and if you have time I would really appreciate your advice. Here is a post about the problem.