Looking for input for my build

[Earl]

Hi,

I'm currently building a new system for my wife (and partly for myself… hehe) and after gathering approximately what I want I’m now looking for some input.


Here is what we want to do with the system:
• Adobe CS 4 (my wife is a professional media designer)
• 3D modeling (Blender)
• Gaming (things like Aion at 1680x1050)
• Heavy, parallelized calculations including running OpenCL tasks on the GPU
• Normal system use with synchronous use of a virtual machine


And here is what else we would like to see from our system:
• Stability / Reliability ( ECC RAM)
• Good price-performance ratio
• It should be on the silent side
• Overclocking it a bit isn’t out of question
• Reasonable energy efficiency


Here is what we currently have (prices from geizhals.eu, purchasing from Germany):
• CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 (~75€ / 102$)
• Graphics card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 512MB (~95€ / 129$)
• Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO (~75€ / 102$)
• RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 4GB Kit PC3-10667E ECC CL9 (~100€ / 136$)
• HDD : Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1000GB (~65€ / 89$)
• PSU: Arctic Cooling Fusion 550R (~45€ / 61$)
• Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two (~90€ / 123$)
• CPU cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 (~15€ / 20$)
• Monitor: Benq G2200W (~130€ / 177$)
• External HDD : SimpleTech SimpleDrive Rev. 3 1000GB (~70€ / 95$)

Total sum: 760€ / 1035$


My wife would be willing to spend 1000€ / 1362$ maximum on the hardware (there is a 100€ / 136$ margin I guess). So I want to ask if and in what order I should invest into the following upgrades:
• CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 (C3) Black Edition (~130€ / 177$)
• Graphics card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 (~250€ / 340$)
• RAM: 2x Kingston ValueRAM 4GB Kit PC3-10667E ECC CL9 (~200€ / 272$)


Is my base system any good? Is any of the upgrades really worth its money? I’m especially unsure about the motherboard (is it alright?) and the case. I’ve read mixed reviews / comments about the nine hundred two. But in a comparison on silentpcreview.com the Antec 183 doesn’t seem to be much quieter.

Any input is greatly appreciated!

 

[Earl]

Hello,

did I do something wrong? Did I break any rules or something?

 

[SolMiester]

Hi, I would most certainly go for a Quad core cpu over dual, and to be honest would have to recommend an i7 platform over AMD...If you are using OpenCL, I would go nVidia, not AMD, though I might have this wrong, but believe nV compute to be lightyears in front of AMD in performance. RAM, i would double at the least and perhap even contemplate a SSD for o/s and apps and user temp files, the 1TB for storage.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Hi, Earl. Welcome to AT!

I'd say yah done good.

To improve your memory thruput and latency study up on increasing the NB/IMC speed from stock to something in the 2600MHz range.

The Athlon Quad should clock to 3GHz at stock volts with decent temps. If you opt for the Phenom 955BE the L3 cache will give you a little extra kick in your gaming. Look for the HDZ955FBGMBOX model ---- it is the latest 'C3' stepping. 3.6Ghz+ on stock volts would not be uncommon.

If you could squeeze a small 60Gb or so Gen2 SSD for your OS/Apps into your build you should be in great shape. Otherwise, more RAM is always good for your VM (and if your wife is a serious multitasker) - even an extra 2Gb stick.

'Dual channel' is over-rated --- a 20% increase in the NB/IMC speed (to 2400MHz) will more than compensate.





--

 

[Earl]

Hey,

thanks for your replies! 🙂

SolMiester:
I never planned to go for a dual core. About the Intel platform: I guess it's my fault that I've forgot to mention that I want to stick with AMD - because of the price/performance ratio and because I want to support them. 🙂 I've tried to read up on nVidia vs ATI OpenCL performance but it's hard to find recent information. Some old articles stated that the 4xxx series hat OpenCL performance issues. I'll try to get more information. I guess you are totally right about RAM, I'll get the 8GBs. 16 GBs would be nice too but I think 4 GB modules are too expensive at the moment. I'll give serious thought to the SSD but I think they are also too expensive for now. Thanks for the directions!

heyheybooboo:
Thanks for the reassurance! I'll read up on overclocking before trying anything. If I should go for the 955 I'll look out for the model number, thanks for the hint. And as I've already wrote above, I will take the 8GBs of RAM and think about the SSD. 🙂


Any additional hints welcome!

 

[Knavish]

Did you manage to get any info on OpenCL? I've been looking for some kind of benchmarking info as well. I know SiSoft has an openCL benchmark (which might not be fair since it looks like it was produced in collaboration with AMD), but I can't get a list of scores for their openCL test.

I'd like a card to learn OpenCL on, but I'd rather keep it below $200. The Nvidia GTX260 might be a good card, but I'm worried that $200 for such an old card is a ripoff.