My Core 2 Q9550 is running long in the tooth

[mrSHEiK124]

Hello all,

I use my PC for a lot of work in Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Photoshop Lightroom. I do a little bit of DAW work for fun [Reason, Sony ACID], I game [lightly], to give you an idea of how little it is, I'm still considering whether or not I want to buy BF3, and BF2 was the last PC game I was serious about.

Here's what I'm considering buying, I guess I just need your input/opinions.

Antec Performance One Series P183 V3 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Don't try changing my mind on this one. I love my P182, and would only consider the P193 as an alternative to this.

HITACHI Deskstar 7K3000 HDS723015BLA642 (0F12114) 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - This is going to be my RAW/AVCHD storage drive.

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - OS Drive, Apps, Rendering Output

An older 300 GB Raptor - Scratch disk

Assorted 1 TB drives - Backups

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 996988

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA 012-P3-1571-KR GeForce GTX 570 HD w/Display-Port (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support ...
PANTONE Huey Pro
-$39.00 Instant, -$30.00 Combo, $40.00 Mail-in Rebate Card, $439.98, $370.98
I'm going with this because it comes with the screen calibrator [again, I do work in Lightroom, color is important, I'm using a pretty good monitor ATM, HP LP2275w]. If there is a better card than the 570 HD for raw power in Premiere Pro and AE, please advise me.

Mainly looking for advice on the RAM, CPU cooler and PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820104255
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231403
I think the Mushkin I picked is as good/better than this stuff? Any advice.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=35-118-091 - To me, this is $20 less than what I'm paying for it since I need the card reader that's being offered for free anyways.
CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Right now I have the older modular 620W Corsair. I absolutely love it.
ENERMAX MODU87+ EMG700AWT 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Enermax has always been good to me

Do I really need 700W? I'm going to be running 5-6 hard drives, the 570, and probably slightly overclocking the 2500k what with the unlocked multiplier.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Nah, save yourself a few dollars and go with the 600W 80+ Gold Enermax: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817194054

Otherwise looks fine!

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Hard drives don't consume much power.. maybe 10w at the most, ???, not sure. If you really want a BOMB psu, get the Kingwin Platinum 500w. The Seasonic X 650/660 is still a top contender PSU, same with their fanless Gold PSUs.. those are my personal favs.. but there are a BUNCH of very good PSUs out there for cheaper and most people tend to lean towards the latter.

You're going to be using MPE with Adobe ???

I'm guessing the 2500K will be fine but personally I'd get the 2600K - that's just me. I mean you are talking about AVCHD files etc. I don't know how much faster Adobe PP 5 is vs PP 4 but my Q9550 at 3.4Ghz was a dog with it.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Hard drives don't consume much power.. maybe 10w at the most, ???, not sure. If you really want a BOMB psu, get the Kingwin Platinum 500w. The Seasonic X 650/660 is still a top contender PSU, same with their fanless Gold PSUs.. those are my personal favs.. but there are a BUNCH of very good PSUs out there for cheaper and most people tend to lean towards the latter.

You're going to be using MPE with Adobe ???

I'm guessing the 2500K will be fine but personally I'd get the 2600K - that's just me. I mean you are talking about AVCHD files etc. I don't know how much faster Adobe PP 5 is vs PP 4 but my Q9550 at 3.4Ghz was a dog with it.

Ah. Then I def don't need the 750W. I wish Corsair still sold the 620 I have now. PSU Calculators are giving me 748W (NewEgg) and 635W (eXtreme). The 620W I have now was also about 100W overkill from eXtreme's calculation. Enermax ECO 720W $84.99/AR Good compromise?

My X3360 @ 3.57 GHz is a dog at PP 5; unless my 260 GTX can accelerate things, like on transitions. Probably going for the 2600K just for the cache [I passed on the X3370/Q9650 two years ago, but this is more reasonably priced].

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Nah, save yourself a few dollars and go with the 600W 80+ Gold Enermax: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817194054

Otherwise looks fine!

Looks tempting! I bought a modular power supply a couple of years ago and haven't really been able to fathom ever using a regular one. It's nice not to have extra PCI-E and molex cables hanging out :awe:

 

[fffblackmage]

You shouldn't need anything more than 600W for PSU.

btw, you don't plan on just reusing the P182?

That Asus Sabertooth P67 is $210 on newegg. I'm not sure what features you're looking for in particular, but a good mobo shouldn't cost much more than just $150.

How much space do you really need? SSDs will be way faster than any vraptor.

If you're simply backing up large files, than you may be better off with 2TB "green" drives. They'll be just about the same price as a 7200rpm 1TB drive, but offer twice the capacity with similar sequential performance.

You're paying way too much for ram.
$65 - G.SKILL Value Series 2x4GB DDR3-1333
You can even get two sets of them at $130 - only $14 more than that 8GB set of Kingston ram you picked. More ram will likely be of more use than marginally faster ram.

 

[mfenn]

You shouldn't need anything more than 600W for PSU.

btw, you don't plan on just reusing the P182?

That Asus Sabertooth P67 is $210 on newegg. I'm not sure what features you're looking for in particular, but a good mobo shouldn't cost much more than just $150.

How much space do you really need? SSDs will be way faster than any vraptor.

If you're simply backing up large files, than you may be better off with 2TB "green" drives. They'll be just about the same price as a 7200rpm 1TB drive, but offer twice the capacity with similar sequential performance.

You're paying way too much for ram.
$65 - G.SKILL Value Series 2x4GB DDR3-1333
You can even get two sets of them at $130 - only $14 more than that 8GB set of Kingston ram you picked. More ram will likely be of more use than marginally faster ram.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

OP, most of my suggestions will hinge on what's happening to your old computer. Are you giving it away or keeping it around? You have a lot of parts that can be very easily reused.

 

[mfenn]

Looks tempting! I bought a modular power supply a couple of years ago and haven't really been able to fathom ever using a regular one. It's nice not to have extra PCI-E and molex cables hanging out :awe:

Sure, now they're just taking up space in a drawer where they can be easily separated from the computer or otherwise not available when you need them.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

OP, most of my suggestions will hinge on what's happening to your old computer. Are you giving it away or keeping it around? You have a lot of parts that can be very easily reused.

Being left as is [save for a lot of the hard drives] and reused as is where raw speed isn't as necessary. I'm sure my dad will send the fastest e-mails ever.

Here are the drives coming out
1 TB WD Green
1 TB Samsung 5400 RPM
640 GB Caviar Blue
300 GB VelociRaptor
150 GB Raptor

There's noise coming from the drive cage right now, but I think the bearings in the stock fan are crapping out. The 150 GB Raptor is an RMA replacement, it will probably see a new life as a scratch drive.

One of them has to stay behind to be the OS drive in my old machine. I'm not buying any more green drives, I've already got two TB there and I hate them since they're only good for backup. If I got a 64 GB OS SSD [$200 for 128 GB? Again, Raptor or Caviar Black] I'd need to figure out a way to store things I usually keep in my user folder [Pics, Docs, Music]. The 600 GB VelociRaptor was meant to be a less hassle OS drive/export [from Premiere] destination/storage. Maybe even a second Hitachi in RAID 0 for quick access to two-three simultaneous AVCHD streams?

I keep a lot of RAW images and AVCHD around; the more space the merrier, SSD's don't fit. Unless someone can explain how I could use one to make Premiere run faster without breaking the bank or spending more $ than a 2nd Raptor.

Sure, now they're just taking up space in a drawer where they can be easily separated from the computer or otherwise not available when you need them.

Eh. I have a little cabinet next to my desk, the box to my Corsair was right when I left it when I needed to add SATA power cables. It's worth it, I suck at cable management [not patient enough].

 

[mfenn]

OK, here goes:

- Case: Good
- HDDs: Junk anything smaller than 1TB (including Raptors). Also, don't buy a 600GB Raptor or that Hitachi. For the $315 you were planning to spend on drives, you're better off getting 5 Samsung F3 1TB drives. 10K drives are really just not that much faster than a good 7.2K drive given the huge cost difference. Spindle count trumps all anyway. For the same price, the 5 drives above get you more capacity and more performance.
- RAM: OK, but you're not likely to notice a difference between it and the 8GB of G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB in this combo (see below).
- CPU: Good, though you probably want to get the i7 2600K because it performs better at encoding
- Mobo: Waste of money. The GA-Z68X-UD3 in the combo I linked earlier can do more than the Sabertooth can (Z68 chipset) and costs less.
- GPU: Good, especially considering the combo
- PSU: This XFX 650W is (a) more than enough power, (b) modular, and (c) not insanely expensive

Hope that helps!

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Hmm. Thought about it a bit more. Haven't got enough money for all this, and it isn't as fast as I thought it would be [compared to what I have now].

Bought this SSD and this RAM, adding to the identical kit I already have for 8 GB total. Fresh install of Windows 7; gonna use the SSD for Windows and some programs and the 300 GB Raptor for my files. Should last another year this way methinks. I want a more serious boost in processing performance [Q9550 is still as fast as AMD's X4s...], and I'm curious to see if AMD comes up with anything decent or if they've just given up on the performance crown.

Before people jump down my throat for not buying an m4 or newer SandForce SSD, I wanted this one. Not the Intel 510 drives, not any other drives; I've only got SATAII over here anyways.

 

[mfenn]

The 320 is still a good SSD, you won't see me complaining about it! The RAM does seem really high though. I guess it is OK if that's what it takes to match your existing set though.