First Time PC Build- (Gaming and Graphics Work)

[l0stUser]

Hello,

I am currently in the process of finalizing my component selection for a first time PC-build. This new system will be used for a variety of purposes such as high-performance gaming, graphic design, and game creation. I am hoping that this system will help put me on the right track towards pursuing a career in the video game industry or to hone my skills towards a career in graphic design. I plan using this system to create PC game mods and other forms of content until I can transfer into a school that offers training and education in my field of choice. I have hit a few snags in process, that I am asking for your help to deal with. First, I have to pick between either an Ivy Bridge system or Sandy Bridge-E based system. The Sandy Bridge-E system will have a Core i7-3820 with the option to upgrade a to a more powerful six CPU in the future. Second, I need to decide on a video card that can satisfy all system usage. I would highly prefer a GeForce GTX 670 based video card, but am concerned about its performance in certain non-gaming applications I will be using compared to a Radeon 7970 based card. On top of that, some might argue that I should use a professional graphics card. However, such cards are poor for gaming, are more expensive, and might not be needed anyway given the complexity of my work as a beginner who is also learning how to use the necessary software. I plan on starting with one graphics card and maybe adding a second card in SLI or Crossfire. Third, I need help deciding on monitor that is good for graphics work as well as gaming. In this case I am leaning towards the Dell UltraSharp U2410 but am strongly concerned about the tinting issue that has plagued this monitor from its release to the present day. Lastly, with respect to the Sandy-Bridge E build (should I decide on it) a CPU cooler I was suggested on another forum looks a tad bit to cumbersome for a first-time builder. I ask if there are any equally good alternatives to the cooler that is listed below with the Sandy Bridge-E system.

System Usage- High Performance Gaming (60 fps & max settings in the latest games is highly preferable), graphic design, and game creation (starting with PC game modding and other beginner level game creation tools). Programs I will be running include Adobe CS6 Design and Web Premium (Photoshop, Illustrator, In Design, etc), Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite Student Edition (3D Studio Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, Sketchbook Designer, and other included programs). Pixologic Z-Brush, and Microsoft Office.

Budget- I cannot go too much higher than $2200

Country- United States

No specific brand preference

The current part I will be using are speakers.

Overclocking sounds like a compelling project to try. However, it is unlikely that it will happen.

I am looking at a resolution of 1920x1200, I cannot go any higher as a result of my budget
I plan on building this system within the summer, by the end of July most likely

Here are the specs so far for both the Ivy Bridge build and the Sandy Bridge-E build

*Ivy Bridge

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770k- Part of $544.98 combo deal with Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.975513
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master RR-H612-20PK-R3- $49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...er%20612%20PWM
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V Pro- Part of $544.98 combo deal with CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.975513
Memory: Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB Dual Channel Kit- $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226314
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB- $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...000DM003%201TB
Solid State Drive: Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe MX 120GB- $114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e%20MX%20120GB
Optical Drive: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS- $16.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827135204
Graphics Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 670- $399.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130782
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2410- $529.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...asharp%20U2410
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 500R- $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139010
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum-860- $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...20Platinum-860
Keyboard: Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard- $46.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0X4%20Keyboard
Mouse: RAZER Abyssus- $39.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16826153056
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM- $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116992

*Sandy Bridge-E
Case: Corsair Carbide 500R - $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811139010
Motherboard: ASUS PX79 Pro - $319.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131800
CPU- Intel Core i7-3820 - $299.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Core%20i7-3820
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 Socket LGA 2011 Edition - $85.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608024
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB Quad Channel Kit - $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226272
Solid State Drive: Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe MX 120GB- $114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e%20MX%20120GB
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB- $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...000DM003%201TB
Optical: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS- $19.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827135204
Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 670- $399.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130782
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2410- $529.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...asharp%20U2410
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum-860- $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...20Platinum-860
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional- $139.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116992
Keyboard: Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard- $46.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...000DM003%201TB
Mouse: RAZER Abyssus- $39.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16826153056

 

[krnmastersgt]

I hope you did plenty of research regarding the game industry, it's quite competitive and very hard to really enter as far as development is concerned. But you're here for hardware advice so let's address that.

Firstly some errors in logic here:
You say you don't want to attempt overclocking, yet you're buying an overclocking variant CPU, an aftermarket CPU cooler, and a board capable of overclocking. Overclocking with modern tech is quite simple and yields some decent returns, ESPECIALLY considering how much you're already putting down for the hardware itself, do reconsider it.

Secondly you were debating between a 670 and a 7970, you seem content with the 670 but think it will give you issues when not gaming? What possible issues could a top of the line card have outside of gaming? Please do explain what you're concerned about.

Sandy Bridge-E is extremely expensive for the CPUs and their respective motherboards, I would recommend against them as you don't seem to be doing anything to warrant needing so many cores/threads compared to the 3770K. I'm not even entirely sure an i7 is required for your projects as many of those programs will likely scale well enough on an i5 quad, the Hyperthreading might not even be necessary and costs quite a bit more.

I see you've chosen Windows 7 Professional, is there a particular feature that you need that Home Premium doesn't offer? Home Premium can utilize up to 16 GB of RAM.

Would like to note that both your builds exceed your proposed budget by at least 2-300, so not really sure why you're not following your own budget.

With a little wiggle room for rebates, assuming you aren't taxed by NE here's a build: (can save bits more here and there, for sake of ease this is all done through Newegg)
CPU: i7 3770K $350
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 $135
RAM: G.SKILL Value 8 GB x2 $40 each
Video Card: Gigabyte GTX 670 $400
Solid State Drive: Samsung 830 128GB $130
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB $80 AP
Case: Corsair Carbide 300R $80
PSU: XFX Core 850W $91 AR (overkill on the wattage but only a few dollars more than the 650-750W units, so why not)
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212 EVO $35 (only necessary if you're going to OC, would suggest the 212+ but those no longer have MIRs so for the extra $5 just grab the EVO)
Keyboard: CM Storm Quick Fire Pro $100 (Very nice quality mechanical keyboard, my personal preference but I suggest a mechanical keyboard for this kind of budget)
Mouse: Razer Abyssus $40 (your choice)
Optical Drive: Asus 24X DVD Burner $17 AP
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium $100 (I see no reason why you need Pro)
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2410 $539

Total: $2228.29 - $25 MIR - $15 Promo Codes = $2188.29

 

[l0stUser]

Secondly you were debating between a 670 and a 7970, you seem content with the 670 but think it will give you issues when not gaming? What possible issues could a top of the line card have outside of gaming? Please do explain what you're concerned about.

My concern stems from the possibility that the performance of GeForce cards in graphics applications including the ones I plan on using is deliberately crippled. More specifically the OpenGL performance, and something called GPGPU which is allegedly pertinent to such applications. On another computer hardware fourm I was pointed to AMD Radeon cards twice as being better suited for graphics applications as opposed to GeForce. I wrote to the Autodesk community with respect to this mater and never got a response, which is part of the reason I came here. I need to get my concerns regarding the graphics card and monitor addressed before I can make a final decision.

 

[krnmastersgt]

My concern stems from the possibility that the performance of GeForce cards in graphics applications including the ones I plan on using is deliberately crippled. More specifically the OpenGL performance, and something called GPGPU which is allegedly pertinent to such applications. On another computer hardware fourm I was pointed to AMD Radeon cards twice as being better suited for graphics applications as opposed to GeForce. I wrote to the Autodesk community with respect to this mater and never got a response, which is part of the reason I came here. I need to get my concerns regarding the graphics card and monitor addressed before I can make a final decision.

I am unfortunately unaware of the performance differences between the 670 and the 7970 for GPGPU, I am also unaware of why the OpenGL performance might be an issue? If you're worried about the performance of the GPU for just number crunching/rendering and such and know that the 7970 at least doesn't have these issues then go for it, bear in mind though that the 670 does beat it in regards to gaming performance.

Also considering how much you're sinking in the Dell Ultrasharp, have you looked into Catleaps? Not the highest quality panels (A-) but they are quite cheap to make up for it.

 

[l0stUser]

Also considering how much you're sinking in the Dell Ultrasharp, have you looked into Catleaps? Not the highest quality panels (A-) but they are quite cheap to make up for it.

My main concern with the Dell UltraSharp as I mentioned is the tinting problem which would render it useless in color management for graphics. I might get lucky an obtain a unit that does not have the problem, as a bunch of people have not had it. However, this seems to be the monitor my research has been pointing towards. I have not heard of Catleaps. The $2200 budget was established by my family. However, they turned around and said I could go a tad bit higher (realizing that for system usage the cost might be justified), but certainly not higher than 200-300 dollars. With regards to Windows 7, I have information indicating that the Home Premium edition can only address up to 16Gb, this hampers my upgrade path. In addition some of the software I plan on using requires the Professional version of Windows 7.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Well if the software demands it I suppose you have no choice in the matter. Also note that even though Pro can go beyond 16 GB, 8 GB Ram modules carry a decent price premium still. Both changes can be made for less than $100 more than the build I proposed.

And the Yamakasi Catleap's are I guess what should be called factory rejects. They didn't make the grade for the original displays, I forget what, but were expensive to make and at most had 5 defective pixels, many do get units that don't have any or can't really tell where they are. While it may not be acceptable to some people to have a single dead pixel on a ~$800 monitor, I think accepting a few that you won't notice most of the time for ~$300 (27" 2560x1440) is worth the cost trade off.

 

[lehtv]

OS Win 7 Pro $140 [Newegg]
Monitor Dell U2412M $300 [Amazon] (or eBay catleap for the same price)
KB Logitech Illuminated $72 [Amazon]
Pad CM Storm Speed RX L $20 ($10 AR) [Newegg]
Mouse Zowie AM $60 [Newegg]

$592 for the peripherals and OS, leaves $1600 for the PC itself. I picked the mouse, keyboard and pad based on what I know from personally using mice, keyboards and pads. You can of course go for a mechanical board like Cooler Master Storm Trigger or get a Razer mouse if you wish, up to you. But typing on the Illuminated is pretty good, it's comfortable, the backlight and media keys are great. And Zowie mice are as good as they get IMO.

Here's what I'd build for $1600:

CPU i7-3770K $350 [Newegg]
- hyperthreading is a good idea at your budget and for your apps

Cooler Thermalright HR-02 Macho $52 [Amazon]
- extremely quiet especially if you remove the fan (it will cool stock clocks easily)
- extremely overclockable if you use the fan

Mobo Asrock Z77 Extreme4 $135 [Newegg]
- best bang for buck SLI board
- realtek ALC898 high end integrated sound

RAM 2x8GB G.Skill Ares $105 [Newegg]
- leaves two slots open

GPU Asus GTX 670 $400 [Amazon]
- probably the quietest 670 around, same price as reference units

SSD Crucial M4 256GB $204 [Amazon]
- will fit all the software you want to use, lots of games, and then some (e.g. partition for temporary project files, or a cache partition for your 2TB HDD)
- fast, reliable Marvell controller with mature firmware

HDD Seagate 2TB 7200 $108 [Amazon]
- great $/TB, seems to get more than average DOA's but Amazon is nice to deal with in such a case (still very unlikely of course)

DVD Asus DVD burner $17 [Newegg]
- it's a DVD burner...

PSU NZXT Hale82 650W $81 AP ($51 AR) [Newegg]
- quality Seasonic build with 5 year warranty
- modular
- long EPS cable for easy routing
- 4x PCIe for 670 SLI

Case Antec 1100 Super Mid Tower $100 [Amazon]
- excellent cooling and very roomy, perfect for SLI
- high quality craftsmanship
- side window

= $1552. With peripherals and OS, $2144. $40 back in MIR. + Shipping

EDIT Noticed your update regarding budget... Not sure what I'd change, really. Maybe it's better to leave the extra $ for later upgrades. Or maybe you should consider a Dell U2711, $760 on amazon. 2560x1440 IPS.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Nice build as well (wasn't aware the Dell monitor could be had so much cheaper elsewhere).

One thing to note with the RAM, if you are able to order it today you can save $15 on that very kit with the promo code: EMCYTZT1872.

 

[lehtv]

Nice build as well (wasn't aware the Dell monitor could be had so much cheaper elsewhere).

It's a different Dell though. U2410 is a slightly older but slightly better model, but definitely not worth $240 more than U2412M which is also a 1920x1200 IPS.

One thing to note with the RAM, if you are able to order it today you can save $15 on that very kit with the promo code: EMCYTZT1872.

Should note that on the NZXT PSU as well, the 10% off promo is valid till tomorrow and I have a feeling the rebate will be gone as well. But there are always othe PSUs 😛

 

[krnmastersgt]

Actually on the note of the monitors, if you're fine with 1920x1080 and 1 inch less real estate: http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/dell-u2312hm-ultrasharp-ips-lcd-monitor/33732.aspx from the Hot Deals section looks to be a good bargain. You could pick up 2 of them if you sacrifice a little bit from the components in the system, or even just going off the build I linked and replacing the monitor should come out to be cheaper.

 

[mfenn]

OK, so a general observation first: building a high-end gaming machine isn't going to suddenly turn you into a great graphic designer, modeler, or whatever. That takes years and years of hard work. I know plenty of digital art students who have both great and crappy machines, and the ones with crappy machines don't seem to turn out any lower quality material.

My concern stems from the possibility that the performance of GeForce cards in graphics applications including the ones I plan on using is deliberately crippled. More specifically the OpenGL performance, and something called GPGPU which is allegedly pertinent to such applications. On another computer hardware fourm I was pointed to AMD Radeon cards twice as being better suited for graphics applications as opposed to GeForce. I wrote to the Autodesk community with respect to this mater and never got a response, which is part of the reason I came here. I need to get my concerns regarding the graphics card and monitor addressed before I can make a final decision.

What you are getting at here is the fact that Nvidia artificially restricts their consumer-level (GeForce) cards' double-precision floating point performance. While AMD doesn't do this (to my knowledge), it's pretty much a moot point for two reasons:
- The majority of all GPGPU applications are written in CUDA which only works on Nvidia cards anyway.
- The majority of GPGPU applications outside of scientific research areas only use single-precision floating point operations.

 

[l0stUser]

OS Win 7 Pro $140 [Newegg]
Monitor Dell U2412M $300 [Amazon] (or eBay catleap for the same price)
KB Logitech Illuminated $72 [Amazon]
Pad CM Storm Speed RX L $20 ($10 AR) [Newegg]
Mouse Zowie AM $60 [Newegg]

$592 for the peripherals and OS, leaves $1600 for the PC itself. I picked the mouse, keyboard and pad based on what I know from personally using mice, keyboards and pads. You can of course go for a mechanical board like Cooler Master Storm Trigger or get a Razer mouse if you wish, up to you. But typing on the Illuminated is pretty good, it's comfortable, the backlight and media keys are great. And Zowie mice are as good as they get IMO.

Here's what I'd build for $1600:

CPU i7-3770K $350 [Newegg]
- hyperthreading is a good idea at your budget and for your apps

Cooler Thermalright HR-02 Macho $52 [Amazon]
- extremely quiet especially if you remove the fan (it will cool stock clocks easily)
- extremely overclockable if you use the fan

Mobo Asrock Z77 Extreme4 $135 [Newegg]
- best bang for buck SLI board
- realtek ALC898 high end integrated sound

RAM 2x8GB G.Skill Ares $105 [Newegg]
- leaves two slots open

GPU Asus GTX 670 $400 [Amazon]
- probably the quietest 670 around, same price as reference units

SSD Crucial M4 256GB $204 [Amazon]
- will fit all the software you want to use, lots of games, and then some (e.g. partition for temporary project files, or a cache partition for your 2TB HDD)
- fast, reliable Marvell controller with mature firmware

HDD Seagate 2TB 7200 $108 [Amazon]
- great $/TB, seems to get more than average DOA's but Amazon is nice to deal with in such a case (still very unlikely of course)

DVD Asus DVD burner $17 [Newegg]
- it's a DVD burner...

PSU NZXT Hale82 650W $81 AP ($51 AR) [Newegg]
- quality Seasonic build with 5 year warranty
- modular
- long EPS cable for easy routing
- 4x PCIe for 670 SLI

Case Antec 1100 Super Mid Tower $100 [Amazon]
- excellent cooling and very roomy, perfect for SLI
- high quality craftsmanship
- side window

= $1552. With peripherals and OS, $2144. $40 back in MIR. + Shipping

EDIT Noticed your update regarding budget... Not sure what I'd change, really. Maybe it's better to leave the extra $ for later upgrades. Or maybe you should consider a Dell U2711, $760 on amazon. 2560x1440 IPS.

With respect to the Power Supply, are you sure that is enough wattage in case I do decide to overclock, and/or implement SLI or Crossfire? With respect to the Solid State Drive, and Mechanical Drive I was originally planning on putting my games on the mechanical hard drive with my other media, and use SSD caching to improve load times. That said it is murky if I need the extra SSD storage your suggesting for the other software and operating system in addition to setting up a cache partition. With regards to the case, how does the cooling performance compare to the Corsair case I originally picked?

 

[lehtv]

Yes, GTX 670 is fairly low power despite requiring 2x6-pin. Stock voltage overclocking of ivy bridge doesn't really have much of an impact to power consumption. GTX 670 have hard locked voltage so their OC potential and thus power consumption potential is limited.

Guru3d: 433W gaming load power consumption for the whole system at the wall that's with an overclocked first gen i7.
Anandtech:
Techpowerup: 295W peak power consumption at the wall for the cards themselves, add another <150W for the rest of the system

With regards to the case, how does the cooling performance compare to the Corsair case I originally picked?

Should be about the same. In Anandtech's review of the Corsair 300R, you can see the 1100 among the comparison cases performing well. I can't find a direct comparison between 1100 and 500R unfortunately

 

[krnmastersgt]

The power supply: Yes 650W is enough for even an SLI 670 configuration, theoretically you could power it off an extremely efficient 550W or so (we're talking literally no loss in power conversion), a good quality 650W should be more than enough.

The solid state drive: So you never intended to use the SSD as a boot drive, but rather are going to utilize Smart Caching? If so you could just pick up a cheap ~60 GB SSD as that will be more than enough to just enhance your game collection's load times.
I don't see why you would do that with a system like this though, you could easily fit lehtv's 256 GB SSD into your budget and that allows you to put on the OS, all your games, and even some of your productivity software with space leftover.

Regarding the case: Doesn't really matter, you're choosing between 2 of the best upper mid-range cases on the market. Both are well designed enough that with the fans that ship with the system (or a few more you add on) the components will remain cool (cool in regards to ambient temps anyways). If you like the 500R more than the design of the 1100, go for it as it's the part of a system that you spend the most time looking at.

 

[l0stUser]

The solid state drive: So you never intended to use the SSD as a boot drive, but rather are going to utilize Smart Caching? If so you could just pick up a cheap ~60 GB SSD as that will be more than enough to just enhance your game collection's load times.
I don't see why you would do that with a system like this though, you could easily fit lehtv's 256 GB SSD into your budget and that allows you to put on the OS, all your games, and even some of your productivity software with space leftover.

Allow me to clarify as there is a misunderstanding: The SSD will be used as a boot drive storing my OS installation and applications with the exception of games. The games will be stored on the mechanical hard drive with my other media to conserve space on the SSD. I want use SSD caching to improve load times. That said I am looking at a least a 120GB SSD

 

[krnmastersgt]

Why not just load them up onto the SSD to begin with? That would result in the fastest load and launch times for the games, though tbh the load times off a 7200 RPM drive are good enough for the most part (I see nothing wrong with waiting 5-10 seconds for 20 minutes of playing around on a map).

 

[l0stUser]

Why not just load them up onto the SSD to begin with? That would result in the fastest load and launch times for the games, though tbh the load times off a 7200 RPM drive are good enough for the most part (I see nothing wrong with waiting 5-10 seconds for 20 minutes of playing around on a map).

Would SSD caching not provide those benefits or is there a significant performance disparity by relying on SSD caching vs. putting the games directly on the SSD? My concern with this is that as my game library gets bigger, the less attractive it is to put it directly on the SSD is verses using a mechanical hard disk with SSD caching to improve load and launch times.

 

[krnmastersgt]

It would provide much of the same benefits, I just personally prefer installing the full game to the SSD as every aspect of it will launch and load faster. Not to mention that by doing this I'm not required to split the SSD into 2 or more partitions which means I'll write over the same cells more frequently with the primary partition.

I was also under the assumption this rig was primarily for learning game dev/graphic design but its starting to seem like you're much more interested in just playing games as opposed to trying to make them. In either case you should be focused on a few key games that you want to attempt to mod as opposed to just haphazardly playing dozens of titles, which should all fit onto a nice 256 GB SSD without much concern for space.

 

[l0stUser]

It would provide much of the same benefits, I just personally prefer installing the full game to the SSD as every aspect of it will launch and load faster. Not to mention that by doing this I'm not required to split the SSD into 2 or more partitions which means I'll write over the same cells more frequently with the primary partition.

I was also under the assumption this rig was primarily for learning game dev/graphic design but its starting to seem like you're much more interested in just playing games as opposed to trying to make them. In either case you should be focused on a few key games that you want to attempt to mod as opposed to just haphazardly playing dozens of titles, which should all fit onto a nice 256 GB SSD without much concern for space.

Thanks for the clarification on the SSD caching. I must mention that this system is primarily for learning game dev/graphic design as opposed to just playing them. The reason for the growing game library is the assumption that one needs to able to see as many titles as possible, as the individual would know more about the medium. This is something I have heard a number of times from my inquiries. Nonetheless, you have a point about focusing on a few titles so I can fit everything onto a 256GB SSD. I will keep it in mind as I make my final decision.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Thanks for the clarification on the SSD caching. I must mention that this system is primarily for learning game dev/graphic design as opposed to just playing them. The reason for the growing game library is the assumption that one needs to able to see as many titles as possible, as the individual would know more about the medium. This is something I have heard a number of times from my inquiries. Nonetheless, you have a point about focusing on a few titles so I can fit everything onto a 256GB SSD. I will keep it in mind as I make my final decision.

Having a broad understanding of many games is definitely useful knowledge, however you should just keep a few of the games that you actually play just because you truly enjoy playing them/are working on mods for to get your feet wet on the SSD. Many smaller games will have such short load times off any decent 7200 RPM drive that it'd be a waste to store them on the SSD.

You want to have a large library of knowledge in regards to games, but more importantly you want to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the some of the most popular titles so that you understand what makes a big title popular or have it just flop.

 

[lehtv]

Many smaller games will have such short load times off any decent 7200 RPM drive that it'd be a waste to store them on the SSD.

Agreed. If it weren't for the intention to use several different production, design, editing etc. applications for projects, I'd have suggested a 128GB SSD instead.

You want to have a large library of knowledge in regards to games, but more importantly you want to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the some of the most popular titles so that you understand what makes a big title popular or have it just flop.

I agree it's good to understand strengths and weaknesses in game design, but not so that you could copypasta the same ideas and hope your title will also be successful on the same merits... but rather that you could learn from the ideas and mistakes of others in order to make your own innovative design that is fresh and interesting. Not only is it good for business to stand out, but it is also true to the art form 😛

/sidetrack

 

[l0stUser]

Getting back on topic, it was recommended that I stay away from Sandy Bridge-E cpus and motherboards. It is not possible to configure a Sandy-Bridge-E system within a reasonable budget with the lowest end Sandy-Bridge-E and later upgrade to a higher end Sandy Bridge-E or Ivy Bridge-E CPU? Is the the Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770k enough for the most important things: the creative software? Then again I am a beginner and the complexity of my work might not get to the level where it would require Sandy Bridge-E or Ivy Bridge-E (when it comes out) for the useful life of this build.

 

[krnmastersgt]

With the HT from the i7, the 3770K will be more than enough for your intended purposes. I don't think you'll ever find the 3770K lacking for your personal projects, and if you somehow did I think you'd feel that any SB-E system is probably lacking too.

 

[lehtv]

Sandy Bridge-E is only cost effective if your income is related to processing speed, so I wouldn't recommend it to any hobbyist except those with particularly flexible wallets.

 

[mfenn]

Allow me to clarify as there is a misunderstanding: The SSD will be used as a boot drive storing my OS installation and applications with the exception of games. The games will be stored on the mechanical hard drive with my other media to conserve space on the SSD. I want use SSD caching to improve load times. That said I am looking at a least a 120GB SSD

SRT doesn't work that way. You have to dedicate a drive up to 60GB to the caching, and you will run into a ton of trouble trying to combine the two functions (boot and SRT) into a single drive. With a 256GB SSD, you don't really need to worry about space anyway, so I would just nix the SRT idea altogether.