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New NON-GAMING (OMG!?!?) Rig -Advice?

S

spitz10

Member
Hey all, used to be on these forums non-stop in my college years - always needing help with my latest gaming rig. Well, I guess I've matured 🙂 now and moved onto more "professional" computing tasks - I've actually started my own photography company and need a new build to accommodate that. I'm sure I will still play some games every now and then (still play CS:Source every now and then), but 95% of my focus is now on multitasking/photoshop/lightroom.

Basically, I can't decide if I should be going P55 or X58. Logic would say P55 for sure with the lack of gaming (can't imagine ever needing SLI/CF), but the "problem" here is I have a Microcenter close by and went ahead and picked up an i7 930 (will just sell it if I don't use it). X58 also has more room for RAM (I think), and from what I know, Photoshop and the like live on RAM.

The only things I am almost positive on are:

ATI 5830 (can use 3 outputs for my 3 monitors - 1 3007wfp-hc and 2 2405wfp)
Corsair TX 650W (can grab it for $70)

Obviously my main concerns are raw photo/video editing speed, multitasking, and I guess future proofing for the newer technologies (SATA/6GB and USB 3.0) would be nice. As always, trying to keep costs down as much as possible, but no set budget.

Anyways, forgot how awesome these forums are, and thanks ahead of time for any help. Here is my current rig (jic this matters at all):

E6750 w/CM 212
4GB Patriot Viper
8800GT
(2) 1 TB WD Black
Earthwatts 500W
CM RC-690 Case
 
I would go with the X58 since you already have the processor. Might as well use it. The ASRock X58 Extreme sells for $165 at Newegg. Pretty solid board for the price. Also has a firewire port which will come in handy big time for video editing.
 
Yeah, P55 would normally be more cost-efficient for you, but since you already have the CPU in-hand might as well go X58. The X58 Extreme is a good board, but I would spend a little more $190 and get the X58 Extreme 3 which is an updated version that has USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s.

I would NOT go for a 5830. Any Radeon 5000 series GPU can drive 3 displays. A 5770 or 5750 will play CS:S just fine and will be cheaper and cooler.
 
For what you've listed, you can probably get by by just bumping up to a 775 quad-core. Sell the 930 and use some of the money to find a used Q9550 or something (I have a spare one after I upgraded if you're interested).

Otherwise, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to salvage your parts to help pay for a 1366 setup. That's basically what I did/am doing. I'd also go for a used 5770 or 5750 to use for the Eyefinity.

Selling the 930 and picking up a 1156 w/ 8Gb RAM wouldn't be bad. The P55 UD3 is a cheap 1156 motherboard with USB/SATA3 options. This vs. the 1366 would probably come out to = $$. The 860 does offer the more aggressive TurboBoost so you don't have to mess with it yourself.

I say go back to the MC and see if they are still having the deal on the i7-875K for $200 or whatever it was. Then decide on a platform from there 🙂.
 
Man, I love these forums....much better than the photography forums 🙂

Quick Notes:

- I will be keeping my old rig and taking it up to our lake house to use to edit pictures there over the weekends. So won't be scrapping anything.

- Thanks for the 5750/70 advice. I am pretty sure I looked at the 5830 because I thought the upgrade cost ($<50) over the 5750/70 was worth it (mainly just in case I get the bug again to play games, haha). But, if its gonna eat up more power and bring more heat to the system, I'd def rather go with the 5750/70.

- I don't really want the fact that "I already have the 930" to affect my decision. Of course, if a 930 at that price (with presumably something like that ASRock extreme 3) is going to give me the best value (over the P55 alternative) then yea, I'd like to use it. Looks like the 875k is back up to $299 at MC.....
 
The $200 875K deal was always in-store only, so it might still be around, but you would have to go to MC to get it. If the 930 is still within the return period, you might want to just do that and get a 750 (or 760 if they have them). It'll be about $40 cheaper for a CPU that is very nearly as fast as a stock-clocked 930.

The real savings of P55 is the total platform. You can get a good motherboard with all of the features you want like the GA-P55A-UD3 for $140. If you need more than 4GB of RAM, check out these 4GB G.Skill sticks. At $105 each, you're not really paying much of a premium for the 4GB DIMM, and that leaves your options open to go up to 16GB in the future.

Your old 500W PSU should be enough power for an i5 750 and a 5770, so you should be able to save some money there as well. You might want to look at putting some of the savings toward an SSD, like the Intel X25-M 80GB. An SSD with your OS, apps, and pagefile will really speed up editing, especially if you multitask a lot.
 
Ok, I will check MC to make sure that deal still isn't around in-store.

Yea, the X58 mobos are freaking pricey (I've never paid more than $100 for a mobo, so this is throwing me off a bit). It does look like I could save $50 or so on the board by going P55, and while the i5 750 seems to be really good value as well, considering it costs the same as the 930 pretty much, would something like the ASRock Extreme3 + 930, not be worth the $50 or so over the GB UD3 + 750? It seems like it would be, but maybe I am wrong.....I guess it kinda depends - obviously the 930 should be a bit faster, but are there advantages by going with the 750 (heat, power consumption, more likely future proof socket, etc.)?

Also, if I could get the 875k for $200, would that be better than the 930?

I've definitely considered going the SSD route in exactly the way you described. Honestly, I just know very little about them, and they still seem to be so expensive.....I just kinda assumed I'd wait a little longer til I felt like I needed them and let the price come down - storage always seems like the easiest thing to upgrade....
 
spitz10 said:
Ok, I will check MC to make sure that deal still isn't around in-store.

Yea, the X58 mobos are freaking pricey (I've never paid more than $100 for a mobo, so this is throwing me off a bit). It does look like I could save $50 or so on the board by going P55, and while the i5 750 seems to be really good value as well, considering it costs the same as the 930 pretty much, would something like the ASRock Extreme3 + 930, not be worth the $50 or so over the GB UD3 + 750? It seems like it would be, but maybe I am wrong.....I guess it kinda depends - obviously the 930 should be a bit faster, but are there advantages by going with the 750 (heat, power consumption, more likely future proof socket, etc.)?
Click to expand...

Both Intel sockets are going away next year, so neither one will have much more longevity than the other. The Microcenter price for the 750 is $160 I believe, and the UD3 is $50 cheaper than the Extreme 3, making your total savings more like $90, at which point the 750 looks like a much better deal.

spitz10 said:
Also, if I could get the 875k for $200, would that be better than the 930?
Click to expand...
Yes.
spitz10 said:
I've definitely considered going the SSD route in exactly the way you described. Honestly, I just know very little about them, and they still seem to be so expensive.....I just kinda assumed I'd wait a little longer til I felt like I needed them and let the price come down - storage always seems like the easiest thing to upgrade....
Click to expand...
No harm in waiting I suppose, but keep in mind that you will always want to do a fresh Windows install when switching to an SSD because the partitions will be aligned to the physical flash in such a way that cloning software will not replicate.
 
Haha, I've done enough windows installs to last a lifetime.......certainly always fresh installs when moving drives to new system.

Anyways, just called MC, and the i5 750 is 170 and i7 875k is 300, so I guess that at least rules out the 875k.

Based on current prices, as mfenn showed there is about a $90 difference between the following:

1. ASRock Extreme3 + i7 930 = $ 390
2. GB UD3 + i5 750 = $300

Mfenn seems to be of the thought that option 2 is better suited for my needs. Everyone agree??
 
Also, I've been reading about the respective overclocking of each system, and neither seem too tricky. With that said, now that I am not gaming nearly as much, I can't see myself doing significant overclocking - more just the easiest/basic OC without screwing with voltages or anything....just enough to take the "free boost" inherent in all these chips without adding too much heat or stress on the system.

Anyone have a strong preference either way when OCing either of these respective combos? Either notably easier than the other?
 
I joined this forum in my college years to learn and gather knowledge on building gaming systems. Well, I guess I have matured. I have now moved into far more expensive computer gaming needs.
 
Ok been reading around more....how much truth is there to the thought that the 930 will be better than the 750 for multitasking and programs (ie: photoshop) that use lots of memory bandwidth (because of the increased RAM bandwidth of X58 and hyperthreading on the CPU)? The 750 gets alot of praise, but it usually seems to be in the games department, which again, are of much less interest to me.

The $90 is certainly enough to make a difference in the decision, but if I knew there was definitely going to be an advantage to the X58/930 option (particularly in the areas I am focused on), I wouldn't have much problem forking over the dough.
 
spitz10 said:
Ok been reading around more....how much truth is there to the thought that the 930 will be better than the 750 for multitasking and programs (ie: photoshop) that use lots of memory bandwidth (because of the increased RAM bandwidth of X58 and hyperthreading on the CPU)? The 750 gets alot of praise, but it usually seems to be in the games department, which again, are of much less interest to me.

The $90 is certainly enough to make a difference in the decision, but if I knew there was definitely going to be an advantage to the X58/930 option (particularly in the areas I am focused on), I wouldn't have much problem forking over the dough.
Click to expand...

😀😀😀😀

Sorry, that just cracks me up every time. The memory bandwidth means nothing for the types of programs you're talking about. That only comes into play for people running superPI and that have high-end databases. You're going to be far more limited by getting data into and out of memory (i.e. the disk) than you will be by the extra memory bandwidth.
 
Haha, ok so I guess not much truth......

With that said, would a program like photoshop or adobe premier (presumably in conjunction with other memory heavy programs) benefit much from tri-channel RAM and/or the added capacity space (which say could allow you to put in 12GB)? Also, is there anything to the hyperthreading thing (aka does it actually help much)? Its strange - AAT's benchmarks put the 750 in front of the 920 (best 930 comparison) in many things that Tom's Hardware has the opposite (in fact, sometimes it was even lopsided in the 920's favor).
 
Last edited:
spitz10 said:
Haha, ok so I guess not much truth......

With that said, would a program like photoshop or adobe premier (presumably in conjunction with other memory heavy programs) benefit much from tri-channel RAM and/or the added capacity space (which say could allow you to put in 12GB)? Also, is there anything to the hyperthreading thing (aka does it actually help much)? Its strange - AAT's benchmarks put the 750 in front of the 920 (best 930 comparison) in many things that Tom's Hardware has the opposite (in fact, sometimes it was even lopsided in the 920's favor).
Click to expand...

More memory can help if you're working with large resources, but if you check out the 4GB G.Skill sticks that I linked earlier, you will be able to take a P55 up to 16GB very cheaply.

Hyperthreading helps for some workloads, hurts for others. It's a coin flip really.

Every review site does things a little differently. AT I trust. Tom's.... well let's just no go there. 🙂
 
Gosh, I always hate this part of the build......I've got it (basically) limited down to two options and just can't seem to decide.....

Option 1 - the X58 Route:

CPU: i7-930 ($200)
Mobo: ASRock Extreme3 ($190) OR GB X58A-UD3R $(200)
RAM: (still looking for advice) G.Skill 6GB DDR3 1600 Set ($155) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231304

Total: @$550

Option 2 - P55 Route:

CPU: i5-750 ($170)
Mobo: GB P55A-UD3 ($130)
RAM: 2 X GSkill 4GB sticks ($210)

Total: @$510

Overall, it seems like I save $40-50 total if I went with option 2, and I'd also have 2 extra gigs of RAM (although slower.....man, I still don't if/why that matters at all). At the end of the day, I'm not really going to get hung up at all on $40-50, so if the X58 option should give me better performance, its worth it.

The one thing that does keep pushing me towards the P55 route is the low heat and power consumption from the i5-750 (for whatever reason, I've become a "softy," and place way more value than I used to in cooler temps and lower power draws). With that said, considering the value in the Corsair TX650 (which is already on order), the power consumption doesn't really have much impact (except for the slightly lower electric bill cost), and also, I read that you can undervolt the 930 and still get like 3.8 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231304), presumably negating most of the i5-750 advantage there.

So what will it be??
 
Are you getting USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/S on that P55 motherboard? If not, how much would it cost to get one that has those features? I'd let that be the final deciding factor.

6GB triple channel vs. 8 GB dual channel won't matter much bandwidth wise, but the extra 2GB MIGHT come in handy in the future.

By the way, never overclock on a work-related machine. Sure, you can probably get it 99.9999&#37; stable, but it's never worth the extra risk. I'd take that into account.
 
Yes, the P55 board has those features.

Yea, I'm assuming 8GB was slightly better than the 6, but I guess I could also easily upgrade to 12 if necessary.

I THINK I am leaning to the X58 now.....in addition to my photo editing, I will also soon be doing alot of video editing in which case it does seem like the 930 might actually be notably better (most other things they seem to be only marginally better/worse than each other).
 
Ok, been talking with a guy who does photo editing and he claims he can easily chew up 12GBs RAM working in a big file. He also does video editing and says he gets through 12GBs there as well. The guy is pretty tech saavy overall, just not sure I believe him. I'm not even saying I would get 12GB if it really would help, but I was just more under the impression that those RAM levels almost NEVER get reached unless its under EXTREME situations like the database stuff that was mentioned.
 
spitz10 said:
Option 1 - the X58 Route:

CPU: i7-930 ($200)
Mobo: ASRock Extreme3 ($190) OR GB X58A-UD3R $(200)
RAM: (still looking for advice) G.Skill 6GB DDR3 1600 Set ($155) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231304

Total: @$550
Click to expand...

I like this. You will never reach 6GB of memory use unless you like to work on 20GB worth of files at once. As for Speed for video rendering you will benefit from the X58. I work with Video, Photo Editing, and 3D special effects and I haven't had any problems with 6GB.

The only thing I have a problem with is the graphics. A Geforce card has CUDA support which would speed up renders a lot. I know it's nice to have 3 monitors but that kills the card (especially if they are three HD monitors) because it splits video ram among them equally. If you want three, get two Geforce 9800s (or better cards) with 1GB vRAM. This will help with video previews and I'm guessing photo editing as well. I've edited a lot of 4K photos at 1080p but have little experience with .RAW files.
 
Gosh, you guys are killing me 🙂!

I had everything so perfectly chosen, and now I don't know again! Anyways, here is what I had chosen (1-3 won't change):

1. i7-930 ($200)
2. Gigabyte X58A-UD3R ($200)
3. Scythe Mugen 2 ($35)
4. Corsair TX650 ($70)
5. CM RC-690 Advanced II ($90)
6. GSkill 6GB C8 1600 ($150)
7. Sapphire Vapor-X 5770 ($155)

First off, when I went to check out, I found a couple combo deals that bring some other items into play. For instance, via combo deal, I could get the GSkill 6GB C9 1600 for $125 vs. $150 for the C8 (any opinions?). Also, I could get the Corsair TX750 for $10 LESS than the 650....should I do that??

But mainly, this nvidia/cuda/should-get-2-video-cards-over-one is what is messing everything up for me. First off, doesn't AMD have their "stream" that is similar to NV's CUDA that should provide similar upside. Additionally, is it true with 3 monitors in one card that your video card will perform worse on your "main" monitor?? Even if that is true, is there not a way to "disable" something if it was really an issue?
 
spitz10 said:
Gosh, you guys are killing me 🙂!
First off, when I went to check out, I found a couple combo deals that bring some other items into play. For instance, via combo deal, I could get the GSkill 6GB C9 1600 for $125 vs. $150 for the C8 (any opinions?). Also, I could get the Corsair TX750 for $10 LESS than the 650....should I do that??
Click to expand...

Get the CAS 9 and the 750TX, save your money!

spitz10 said:
But mainly, this nvidia/cuda/should-get-2-video-cards-over-one is what is messing everything up for me. First off, doesn't AMD have their "stream" that is similar to NV's CUDA that should provide similar upside. Additionally, is it true with 3 monitors in one card that your video card will perform worse on your "main" monitor?? Even if that is true, is there not a way to "disable" something if it was really an issue?
Click to expand...

ATI has their support behind OpenCL now. NVIDIA also supports/will support OpenCL alongside CUDA. The problem is that while OpenCL and CUDA accomplish similar functions, there is quick and easy way to convert code between the two. There are a lot of programmer man-hours invested into Premier CS5's CUDA support, so that likely won't change to OpenCL until CS6 at the earliest. Short answer: don't expect Premier acceleration on ATI for a couple years at least.

Regarding the "perform worse on your main monitor" issue, I'm wondering where you heard that? It is most definitely NOT true. Whether you use Eyefinity or Window's native multi-monitor support, all of the monitors will be equal as far as graphics performance goes.
 
Ok, this is a bigger deal than I thought 🙂.....

First, how much of NV's claims are hype (AKA is it really going to be much better than the equivalent ATI card?) and how much is truth: http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe_photoshop.html.

If that is pretty accurate, then it seems like a no-brainer that I should be getting an NV card over ATI. Of course, thats not what I wanted to hear since I have been looking at ATI cards this entire time and finally found one that met my requirements (silent cooling).

Also, I think I misspoke a bit about the monitor thing....all I am basically saying is, if I am using 3 monitors with just one card (the 5770), is it true that if all I am doing is working on my main monitor (3007WFP-HC) and have nothing on the other screens other than some file windows open, that my performance is going to suffer (relative to if I just had one screen) due to the other monitors using up some of my vRAM?

If 3 monitors really will chew up equal amounts of the vRAM, and I NV's claims are accurate, looks like I will be looking for 2 nvidia cards now (and of course, the second card does not need to be powerful...).
 
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