New Build: Multimedia/Photos/gaming etc.

[OverClockerNoob]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

HD video encoding/photo editing/media recording (i have an HD PVR). We just had a new baby as well and I will need to start encoding videos like crazy.
I also do some gaming. I am not a die hard gamer, but i like to play some of the latest games.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

$2000 ish... if it justifies going more than great.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

fastest most reliable

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

keyboard,mouse, bose speaker system.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Yes, but his build was up to $700, figured i could probably get ALOT better suited system for more.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

No..not unless its SUPER simple (click button and go) and doesn't damage/reduce too much on lifespan.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.

1920x1080, was even looking at dual or triple monitors for when I am programming/photo editing/web surfing for information all at once....

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

hopefully (if the wife doesn't kill me) within about 2 months

10. Basic line of thought:

I currently have a
Xeon X3350
nvidia geforce 8800 GTS 512
abit IP35 Pro
4 gigs DDR2 (using xp 32 bit so only 3.25 seen)
multiple different hard drives for multimedia/server/etc, but I want to keep this computer for just a media server...

Its been a while since I built this rig and have moved so I lost alot of extra parts i could use..

So with all the latest technology 😉 there has to be something that decimates my system and would allow for faster/better encodes. Some of the latest software for HD editing is recommending 4 gigs minimum. A friend that builds for a university uses 6 on theirs and for engineering classess uses 12 gig for the programs.. I don't need all that..

OS: Currently use XP on my main system...1 laptop with vista, 1 laptop with windows 7, and music server with windows 7. I stayed with XP because some of my older hardware was not compatible with vista/7, since I will be completely rebuilding this I think Windows 7 may be the best thing. Not sure if Premium/Home/Ultimate is needed...suggestions would be great.
CPU: WOW not sure with all the latest. I7 if it would make a difference... 32nm...
Main hard drive: SSD (fastest/reliable) will install all programs on this/OS to run from.
Extra HD's: 2 for now:I have noticed that as the drives got larger the reliability reduced. I don't want to spend 250 on the fastest 2TB and then it fails right after warranty... if someone knows of a good 1TB or 2TB that may not be the fastest, but has a good reliablity that would be fine.
1 Extra SSD for the video recording/editing
Case: need a LARGE CASE with space to put lots of fans/hard drives. For now I only need space to put 4 (2 ssds/2 3.5), but might put even more in there.
Motherboard: as many sata as possible/as many e-sata as possible. USB3 (thought I would be ready for it) but if its a deal breaker it can wait.
Graphics card: one that supports CUDA/or something alike...many video encoding/other programs use the card to assist these days... my current 8800 seems like in beta stages... its hit and miss with different programs... If 2 would GREATLY improve my video encoding/editing/recording/etc.. then throw it in...
Powersupply: one that will give me more than enough power to add additional Hard drives/etc.
Cooling: never been much on water cooling(friends do it all the time, but i keep hearing problems at times, would rather not have to worry about it), my current rig has TONS of fans (i even velcroed fans in different places to assist). IF water cooling would GREATLY assist I will dabble into it.
Multimedia reader: front case access if possible.
Monitors: not sure I have seen some 2ms response/etc.. 2 to 3.. and if possible as a expansion of the screen (never done this not sure if its a program or not) idea is to have desktop on the left, with browsing, middle with lets say Avid studio/PHotoshop/etc, and right with some thing else.. not exactly sure.
latest awesome thermal paste: current system used artic silver, not sure if something is better these days.
heatsink: current one is a MONSTER..lol forgot the name but WOW goes from one side of the case to teh next, but on the mother board one of the heat sinks prevents it from blowing BACK so I turned it blowing UP and then put fans on both sides to suck/blow out and seems to work, but if possible have that in consideration...
Bluray burner: would like to get into this as well for space... since I might be doing alot of vidoes with the baby. fastest most reliable/most compatible burner with media. Also able to RIP fast as well.

I'm missing alot of stuff i haven't thought of.. wanted to get the main basic parts to see what might work best with it.. A friend built a system about 6 months ago and his 6gig ram out benchmarked many 8gigs ram system.... so i know its how well parts play together... If you are up on the latest and greatest PLEASE recommend anything else...

well i think I have jotted my ideas down... any ideas would be great....

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I think Quick-sync quality is on par with x86 encoding/transcoding quality. So your best bet is to go with a 2500K or 2600K platform build.

EDIT: i'll be back later to edit this with more info but IMO SandyBridge is the place to start.

 

[dma0991]

Taken from Newegg :
Intel Core i7 2600K $315
ASRock P67 EXTREME4 $160
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GBx2 $80
MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II $240
Intel 510 120GB $270 (Primary)
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB $120 (Scratch disk)
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB $65x2
CoolerMaster Hyper212+ $40
Corsair HX650 650W $120

TOTAL $1475

You could start off from this recommendation. You can add or remove some parts from my list according to what you need. The 650W PSU should suffice even if you would want a GTX560 Ti SLI in the future.

Some parts are not mentioned here as it is personal preference and not my forte. That leaves you with $525 for other parts as well. I could recommend getting a Dell U2311H IPS monitor as I am using it now and it's pretty good to me. 😉

 

[mfenn]

Taken from Newegg :
Intel Core i7 2600K $315
ASRock P67 EXTREME4 $160
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GBx2 $80
MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II $240
Intel 510 120GB $270 (Primary)
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB $120 (Scratch disk)
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB $65x2
CoolerMaster Hyper212+ $40
Corsair HX650 650W $120

TOTAL $1475

You could start off from this recommendation. You can add or remove some parts from my list according to what you need. The 650W PSU should suffice even if you would want a GTX560 Ti SLI in the future.

Some parts are not mentioned here as it is personal preference and not my forte. That leaves you with $525 for other parts as well. I could recommend getting a Dell U2311H IPS monitor as I am using it now and it's pretty good to me. 😉

This looks pretty good to me. I'd probably swap the 510 for a 320, swap the HX650 for an HCG 520, and drop the secondary SSD altogether. That'll leave room in the budget for two U2311Hs and a Windows 7 Home Premium license.

 

[OverClockerNoob]

wow thanks..

looking at the INTEL SSD, some reviews are saying for the price its not really that fast and that the main controller chip is in OCZ's.... I will definitely check this out...

As for the 2nd SSD... thats for actually video editing/encoding... since the SSD's are faster to read and write to, it might help increase speed of encoding/also stability of the encoding...

As for power supply right now I am running a 750...not sure if its overkill, but with all the fans/connections/6 hard drives/etc... i'm sure its working...lol..

Again thanks for the start.. i will definitely start researching those items.. if anyone else wants to throw in some changes/ideas... PLEASE and thankyou.

 

[OverClockerNoob]

Would I have to get 2 graphics cards inorder to do the Triple Screens??? I know the one listed above looks like it can do 2 easily, Would the ONBOARD graphics chip be used if not? How would that affect the quality/etc..would it be BETTER to get 2 graphics cards:???

 

[mfenn]

Would I have to get 2 graphics cards inorder to do the Triple Screens??? I know the one listed above looks like it can do 2 easily, Would the ONBOARD graphics chip be used if not? How would that affect the quality/etc..would it be BETTER to get 2 graphics cards:???

The GTX 560 Ti can only drive two screens and the P67 motherboard can't utilize the processors integrated graphics.

The two choices would be two add a second low power graphics card like the Geforce 210 or to switch to a Z68 board like the GA-Z68A-D3H and use the onboard.

 

[gsellis]

Drive space... Big edit projects need it. Get 2 1-1.5TB drives, one capture to the PC and one for "scratch"/rendering. Lots of special effects, edits, color correction, mean lots of rendered video. Put that storage on a different drive from your source. And it gives you a storage for your ISO files.

So, you get speed by seperating the source (OS/app drive, source drive, render drive), good processor (the more advanced software uses multiple CPUS), good GPU (the most advanced leverage the GPU), and memory (editing packages were created in sparse memory PCs, so they are very good with memory usage).

Important for NLE decisions, what NLE suite? There is tuning based on the NLE.

 

[Morg.]

Clearly, you are interested in multiple desktops, and the 560ti is not your friend, consider buying a hd6950, it has better performance and handles 3 monitors.

The Xeon is completely out of range, it's not going to make sense in a single CPU user configuration.

Besides, as you do not want to overclock, you might want to ditch the K on the 2600.

For the details, it would be interesting if you could give us an idea of what file size we're talking about here, how big is the raw data for one of your projects, how many projects do you work on at the same time, etc.

It seems clear the two most important points in your configuration are io bandwidth and screen real-estate, might want to focus on that first and then look at the rest (the i7 2600k might be totally useless compared to another 100 bucks of SSD and an i5 2500k for example).