Wow, great post Cerb. One small correction is that the mobo that I am recommending is the Z77 Pro3, not the Z77 Extreme3 (no such part exists to my knowledge).
A mental slip, from having just compared the ASRock X79 Extreme3/4 boards with other LGA2011 boards, at the time. Fixed. I really wish they hadn't used a fan. I've just had too many bad experiences, a couple years into a PC's life, with chipset fans.
Now on to more parts! This is the rest of the internal components.
PSU:
Seasonic 620W - $80
Probably overkill, but not too costly, it's a quality PSU, and maybe you'll add a power-hungry video card one of these days.
Video card:
MSI 560 Ti 448-core - $220 - $20 MIR ($200 net)
Assuming you want to save a buck, but want CUDA options, that should be a nice value. It might even be too much, but the cost over a 384-core 560 is so little, it's hard to pass up,
as long as you actually fill out the rebate and send it in. It's a good card for the money without the rebate, but the rebate is what makes it really worth buying over a 384-core 560, like lehtv picked.
HDD:
WD Black 1TB - $111
Anybody know how the $70 Hitachi performs? At $40 less, it might be really nice, but I can't find a sufficiently useful review, and haven't used it myself.
ODD:
Samsung 24X DVD burner - $18
SSD:
Samsung 830 128GB - $90
or
Samsung 830 256GB - $200
Budget permitting, the 256GB would offer far more room. Also, keep a look out for sales. The Samsung 830 and Crucial M4 256GB have both been down to $160 just within the last few days. Either one would be excellent. At the same price, the Samsung has a slight performance advantage. Plextor's M5 would also be a good option.
Figure your OS will need 20GB or so, then the hibernate file will need 16GB (but, you can disable that, if you don't use it), and the page file will need anywhere from several GBs on up to however much Windows thinks it might need one day. Adobe's software I know has a pretty big footprint, as well, though I'm not as sure of the others. 128GB would work, but it can fill right on up.
So, going from the prior post, that works out to around:
- 256GB: $636 ($616 AMIR)
- Desktop 1155: $1117 ($1097 AMIR)
- Workstation 1155: $1285 ($1265 AMIR)
- Desktop LGA2011: $1528 ($1508 AMIR)
- 128GB: $526 ($506 AMIR)
- Desktop 1155: $1007 ($987 AMIR)
- Workstation 1155: $1175 ($1155 AMIR)
- Desktop LGA2011: $1418 ($1398 AMIR)
Case:
Fractal Design R4 Titanium (
or black) - $120 (non-windowed one is OOS)
It will be moderately quiet, with no added fuss, has room for cabling to be tucked away, and is all around a really nice case.
The
Couger Evolution doesn't look bad, though, at $100.
You can change products slightly, find combos and other deals, or just watch daily price changes, so why keep it down to the dollar, now that the box is more or less figured out? Or, well,
boxes, since our OP hasn't come back. I'm using a plain $100 for the case, $280 for the monitor, and rounding up to the next $10.
- 256GB:
- Desktop 1155: $1500 ($1480 AMIR)
- Workstation 1155: $1670 ($1650 AMIR)
- Desktop LGA2011: $1910 ($1890 AMIR)
- 128GB:
- Desktop 1155: $1390 ($1370 AMIR)
- Workstation 1155: $1560 ($1540 AMIR)
- Desktop LGA2011: $1800 ($1780 AMIR)
CPU cooling:
The included heatsink for the CPU will work just fine. If its noise might be a problem, the
Scythe Mugen ($50) or
Cooler Master Hyper212+ ($30-$10 MIR) are easy recommendations. The Scythe can be much quieter, but is more expensive, and
freaking huge. This is entirely optional.
Now, see how close to the edge of the budget LGA2011 is getting? $90 or $200 left, and you still
really need, at the least (do we count OS against the budget, FI?), a big enough external drive and good backup software (Macrium Reflect?). Not merely that, but as someone who would prefer not to go back to a job of sitting in front of a computer all day, your input devices, desk, and chair can and will make a
huge difference--in the long run, far more than 20-40% more CPU performance for big renders.
Go into any place where the people have been at it for awhile, with any serious content creation. Everyone will have their preferred mouse or trackball, maybe keyboard, and you might even see some 3D mice, Logitech G13s, or Razer (or Belkin) N52s around
(and, if they're CAD folks, the obligatory HP 11C 
). That is not the case for no reason. Even those who manage to not get RSI problems will have improved handling time with an intuitively "correct" input device, and improved speed and precision while using it. That may only save a second at a time, but when that savings is repeated thousands of times each day, it adds up. Peripherals with better ergonomics will also leave you less stressed, simply because you will be able to physically leave your arms and shoulders more relaxed than otherwise.
You can fit a good LGA2011 6-core build in $2000,
if barely. But, if some of that could instead go towards the human aspect of it, both in terms of interface efficiency and your long-term wrist dexterity and strength, you shouldn't think twice about losing a little batch job performance to start working on that--the
station part of your workstation. Or, you could throw in a 2nd monitor, for the time being.
P.S. Feel free to put together a cart and check my record-keeping and arithmetic against it. It's enough to keep track of that I'm not 100% confident in all my results.
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