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New Build including Peripherals ($2,000+ Budget)

M

masterdrakken

Junior Member
Time to upgrade (throw away, build new) my 6-year old AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 rig, most of which is not useable except maybe the BenQ 1625 lightscribe.

Proposed Build:
Case - SILVERSTONE Fortress Series FT02B-W Black Aluminum / Steel Computer Case ($269.98)

Power Supply - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply ($100.17)

Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 AM3 AMD 790FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD (179.99)

CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor ($159.99)

Cooling - XIGMATEK HDT-D1284 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler ($36.49)

Ram - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL ($109.00 )

Video Card - BFG Tech BFGEGTX2851024OCBE GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card ($349.99)

Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional ($149.99)

HD - Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2R5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive ($239.99)

OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM ($174.99)

Network Card $-
DVD Burner $-
Mouse $-
Keyboard $-

Use - At Home, Gaming, Digital Art (i doing more and more work with a pretty large canvas and find myself running 30-60+ layers for each piece). Is a $2k ballpark budget enough? I'm ok with upping to 2.5k

1. Should I upgrade my Dell 2005FPW?
2. Is it possible to get (stable) 8 gigs of ram on the gb790?
3. Video card worth it? or should i go with a radeon hd
4. I have logitech z-5500 speakers, is that the appropriate sound card? I current have an audigy 2 zs, but its beginning to sporadically not recognize hardware on boot. No intention of upgrading to a 7.1 system unless i'm getting a bigger monitor.
5. do i need additional cooling?
6. is psu enough to support proposed specs? no intention of running two video cards.

Should I scrap this entire build and rework?
 
1. My god yes. If you're serious about your art, you'll want at least a 24" IPS panel (Dell U2410 or similar) You've got the budget for it.
2. 8GB will work no problem.
3. Get a Radeon 5850
4. Don't bother with the external sound card. Your speakers have DAC in them, so use the optical or coaxial output on the motherboard. You'll get a pretty much bit-perfect stream to the speakers and the speakers can do the rest.
5. No
6. Should be fine.

I can spot a few other issues that you didn't ask about.
1. Do you really need a specific feature from Ultimate? If not, get Home Premium and save the money.
2. You should be able to get a Phenom II X6 1090T on your budget. It'll help when applying filters to huge Photoshop files.
3. You don't need an separate network card, the NICs in the mobo work well
4. You might want to consider a Blu-ray drive. If not, just get whatever $25 DVD burner floats your boat
5. Mouse/KB are pretty personal choices. Go to BB or similar are try a few out
 
Monitor - Yes, I was considering the U2410 or maybe G2410, around $150 cheaper.

CPU - Right after I posted I began to consider the 1090T for the very same reasons you mentioned. Are two additional cores worth double the price when compare to the 955? Or should I look at it more as is it worth on par performance at half price vs i7?

Video - For the 5850, XFX, VisionTek or Diamond?

Windows 7 - Home Premium it is! I thought they were the same in price then i realized its $179 for retail and $99 for oem.

So no sound card and network card. Getting 8 gigs of ram. I'm think I'll swap my BenQ and NEC in for now. PS3 servers as my blu ray. 😛

So far running around $1800 without monitor, kb, mouse. Thanks for the input!
 
masterdrakken said:
Monitor - Yes, I was considering the U2410 or maybe G2410, around $150 cheaper.

CPU - Right after I posted I began to consider the 1090T for the very same reasons you mentioned. Are two additional cores worth double the price when compare to the 955? Or should I look at it more as is it worth on par performance at half price vs i7?

Video - For the 5850, XFX, VisionTek or Diamond?

Windows 7 - Home Premium it is! I thought they were the same in price then i realized its $179 for retail and $99 for oem.

So no sound card and network card. Getting 8 gigs of ram. I'm think I'll swap my BenQ and NEC in for now. PS3 servers as my blu ray. 😛

So far running around $1800 without monitor, kb, mouse. Thanks for the input!
Click to expand...

The brand on the 5850 doesn't matter too much. If the prices are similar, you might as well get the XFX for the lifetime warranty.

If I had to choose between spending $150 on a G2410 -> U2410 or 955 -> 1090T, I would choose the monitor upgrade every single time. The 1090T will help you in Photoshop, but (IMHO) the better colors and viewing angles of the IPS monitor much more important in PS.

(Not so) quick aside about viewing angles: you might be thinking, "Well I face the monitor straight on, so the viewing angles don't matter!" In fact, viewing angles are very important even if you don't view the screen on an angle. Consider this: the only part of the screen that you are actually viewing right on is the very center. You are actually looking at the corners at quite a bit of an angle. Why does this matter? Color uniformity is the big reason. Imagine trying to get two shades to look right when the colors (appear to) change depending on which part of the screen it's in!
 
IMO if you are tossing $2k at a new rig the $0.15k difference between an X4 and an X6 1090T should not be a debate.

You are/were willing to spend more on your OS, SSD, sound-card, video-card, case, and mobo separately and individually than you are going to spend on the CPU that determines the performance level of the entire asset/investment?

I can't imagine what it would take for me to find myself in the situation where my priorities were such that I could justify dropping $280 on a computer case but I wasn't sure if a $300 cpu was worth my cash. Everybody values their money and time differently though.
 
There's no way I'd be spending that much on a case unless money just totally wasn't any issue. I agree with above poster, put the money towards either 5850, which is cheaper than what you have, or splurge on a 5870 for the hell of it. Or go for an Intel based i7 build (value @ microcenter) or go with the 6-core Thubans, which might benefit you thanks to your digital art.
 
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