New System help :)

[Mary-Ann]

I need a new computer build, currently using a Macbook Pro, need a desktop computer though. Help would be nice

 

[mnewsham]

Fill out the sticky found at the top of this sub-forum please. Post it here and we can help you.
Thanks.

Here is the thread that you need to copy and paste into this thread (with answers)
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=80121

 

[Mary-Ann]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
3D rendering with 3ds Max, Cinema 4D and also Maya, and using apps like Photoshop etc.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
My budget is about 3k-4k ish?
don't really have a limit
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Australia. PCCaseGear.com

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.
I'm not sure what is better :S
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I have no current parts as they are all old and not reuseable
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
I have searched threads, not what I'm after
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
I don't plan on OCing
8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
1920x1200
9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
5 weeks time

 

[grohl]

From a macbook pro to building your own PC...nice. Careful, it's fun, and addicting!

 

[ElFenix]

5 weeks time we should be right on the verge of ivy bridge launching. that might be worth waiting the extra couple of weeks for.

i assume from giving a resolution that you have a monitor already.

 

[Mary-Ann]

New 2011 model ones?

 

[ElFenix]

New 2011 model ones?

it's intel's new processor. 2012 model, so to speak.

 

[Mary-Ann]

Intel Core i7 2600K
$329.00
Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARX
2x$129.00 $258.00
Intel 520 Series 120GB SSD
$239.00
ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty Professional Gen3
$255.00
G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL (4x4GB) DDR3
$115.00
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
$39.00
Aerocool Strike X Panel
$59.00
Aerocool Strike-X ST Black Super Full Tower
$249.00
Corsair Vengeance M90 MMO and RTS Laser Gaming Mouse
$79.00
Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard
$59.00
Wacom Intuos4 6x9inch Graphic Tablet PTK640
$369.00
Razer Vespula Dual-Sided Mouse Mat
$39.00
Samsung SH-B123L 12X Blu-Ray DVD Combo Drive with Lightscribe
$75.00
Lian Li CR-36 Black Multimedia Card Reader
$35.00
CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 800W
$179.00

Edit: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Overclocked V2
2x$369.00 $738.00

Is that a good build? I have no idea. I'm getting some gaming stuff because my brother likes to play WoW and he doesn't have a computer.

 

[mnewsham]

If you are doing 3D stuff get an Nvidia card because overall they excel in rendering compared to AMD. Especially if the 7970 is almost 800 bucks! I would suggest two GTX 570's (if buying now, if not wait as the 600 series is coming out SOON)

Also your motherboard is very expensive, where are you buying your parts from?

Get a cheaper powersupply you shouldn't need to spend more then 100 bucks.

As ElFenix it would probably be worth it for you to wait for the new processors.

 

[Mary-Ann]

pccasegear.com Australia cost way more than the US

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from. Australia. PCCaseGear.com

Is 800W enough? or "Overkill"? whatever that means

 

[mnewsham]

Motherboard
PSU
SSD

Do you need a full tower case?(I dont see why you would) If not I like this one.


Those are my suggestions, should save you a good bit of money

 

[Mary-Ann]

Motherboard

I need more than 2 USB 3.0 ports. and it only has 2 SATA3 Connectors. So that suggestion is out of the question.

PSU
SSD

Nice PSU suggestion. But wouldn't I need more? Since it's SLI 570?

for SSD I rather go Intel because 5 year warranty and also Sandforce driven SSDs tend to fail.

 

[Mary-Ann]

Intel Core i7 2600K
$329.00
Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARX
2x$129.00 $258.00
Intel 520 Series 120GB SSD
$239.00
ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty Professional Gen3
$255.00
G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL (4x4GB) DDR3
$115.00
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
$39.00
Aerocool Strike X Panel
$59.00
Aerocool Strike-X ST Black Super Full Tower
$249.00
Corsair Vengeance M90 MMO and RTS Laser Gaming Mouse
$79.00
Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard
$59.00
Wacom Intuos4 6x9inch Graphic Tablet PTK640
$369.00
Razer Vespula Dual-Sided Mouse Mat
$39.00
Samsung SH-B123L 12X Blu-Ray DVD Combo Drive with Lightscribe
$75.00
Lian Li CR-36 Black Multimedia Card Reader
$35.00
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Overclocked V2
2x$369.00 $738.00
Antec High Current Gamer 750W Power Supply HCG-750
$139.00

Sub-Total: $3076.00

Is that alright setup?

 

[mnewsham]

Why do you need more then 2 USB3 and more then 2 SATA 3? What are you connecting that NEEDS that kind of speeds?

Your two regular hard drives will do just fine on SATA 2 and your SSD will run on ONE of the SATA 3.
As for the USB 3.0 What external devices do you have the need USB 3.0? I currently own NONE!

And the case, why do you need such an ugly case? An EXPENSIVE ugly case.

Lastly that PSU is fine it has 4x 6+2 PCIe power.

 

[Mary-Ann]

I rather my HDDs go zoooooom and not walk when they can drive.

I have afew external 3.0 USD Hard drives to make use of.

 

[mnewsham]

I rather my HDDs go zoooooom and not walk when they can drive.

I have afew external 3.0 USD Hard drives to make use of.

You don't understand, no current HDD can fully use SATA 2 (so SATA 3 is useless for them)

That will not get you any extra speed, it is a green drive anyway (5400RPM), so it is NOT a fast hard drive. Your only fast drive will be your SSD which CAN make use of the SATA3.

As for external USB 3.0 drives how often do you need high speed data access from them? USB 2 will work fine for 90% of things. Besides doesn't your case have more USB3 headers on it?

 

[grohl]

Since it seems as if money is no object, this Dell 27 inch monitor is awesome. I happen to have one.

 

[Zap]

Intel Core i7 2600K
$329.00
Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARX
2x$129.00 $258.00
Intel 520 Series 120GB SSD
$239.00
ASRock Z68 Fatal1ty Professional Gen3
$255.00
G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL (4x4GB) DDR3
$115.00
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
$39.00
Aerocool Strike X Panel
$59.00
Aerocool Strike-X ST Black Super Full Tower
$249.00
Corsair Vengeance M90 MMO and RTS Laser Gaming Mouse
$79.00
Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard
$59.00
Wacom Intuos4 6x9inch Graphic Tablet PTK640
$369.00
Razer Vespula Dual-Sided Mouse Mat
$39.00
Samsung SH-B123L 12X Blu-Ray DVD Combo Drive with Lightscribe
$75.00
Lian Li CR-36 Black Multimedia Card Reader
$35.00
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 1280MB Overclocked V2
2x$369.00 $738.00
Antec High Current Gamer 750W Power Supply HCG-750
$139.00

My suggestions:

WoW doesn't use SLI. If you want "the best" then get a single GTX 580. Alternately get a single GTX 560 Ti 448 Core. Or even a single GTX 560 Ti. At that high a level of GPU WoW won't care.

With a single graphics card, you will only need around 500W of power. The XFX Core 550W seems to be a great value as well as great quality.

Note that Blu-Ray drives typically do not come with playback software. You will not be able to watch Blu-Ray movies without such playback software. That software can cost $100.

No overclocking? No aftermarket CPU cooler needed. Just use the stock heatsink that comes with the CPU.

With the money saved on not using dual graphics cards, bump up the CPU to the 2700K. The software you listed (and even WoW) will probably benefit a lot more from that than the zero benefit of dual graphics cards.

That is an expensive motherboard. Typically the more expensive motherboards are expensive due to purported overclocking prowess and capacity for multiple graphics cards. Since you are not overclocking and not running dual cards, feel free to aim for a lower end motherboard. Even the lowest end boards will have gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, SATA 6G. What else do you need? A $150 Z68 chipset motherboard will give you everything. About the only thing you would want to pay attention to would be for USB 3.0 headers if your case choice has USB 3.0 ports that use headers (if they use a pass-through, choose a different case). Not all motherboards have such headers, so that's probably the one thing you'll want to pay attention to.

For $115, you may as well look for a 16GB RAM kit that is two 8GB sticks. This way you leave two slots free in case you want to upgrade in the future.

That case + Strike X panel is kind of pricey. You can totally go micro ATX on the case if you choose a micro ATX motherboard (which are very common). For instance $100 will get you the Silverstone Temjin TJ-08B-E case which is compact and attractive, has enough airflow for your parts and can still hold TWICE as many drives as you are getting.

I won't comment much on the peripherals (keyboard, mouse, pad, etc.) other than saying that many companies make a product look really zingy and slap a "gaming" moniker on it as an excuse to charge more. In actual use they don't work any better than any other quality product.

If you follow my suggestions and save a bundle of money, use that saved money towards a larger SSD. I would suggest one based on the Marvell controller as that is more proven than the Sandforce in terms of reliability - even though you choose an Intel Sandforce. Intel charges a huge premium for their name! You can get a nice 256GB Marvell based SSD for just over $300. Heck, with all the savings (one graphics card, cheaper case, cheaper motherboard) you can spring for a 512GB SSD!!!

 

[mnewsham]

CUDA works with all the applications they listed (except WoW) so wouldn't having MORE cuda cores be better then less?

 

[mfenn]

CUDA works with all the applications they listed (except WoW) so wouldn't having MORE cuda cores be better then less?

Not really. Most CUDA applications don't support using multiple cards and those that do don't necessarily scale very well.

 

[mfenn]

My suggestions:

WoW doesn't use SLI. If you want "the best" then get a single GTX 580. Alternately get a single GTX 560 Ti 448 Core. Or even a single GTX 560 Ti. At that high a level of GPU WoW won't care.

With a single graphics card, you will only need around 500W of power. The XFX Core 550W seems to be a great value as well as great quality.

Note that Blu-Ray drives typically do not come with playback software. You will not be able to watch Blu-Ray movies without such playback software. That software can cost $100.

No overclocking? No aftermarket CPU cooler needed. Just use the stock heatsink that comes with the CPU.

With the money saved on not using dual graphics cards, bump up the CPU to the 2700K. The software you listed (and even WoW) will probably benefit a lot more from that than the zero benefit of dual graphics cards.

That is an expensive motherboard. Typically the more expensive motherboards are expensive due to purported overclocking prowess and capacity for multiple graphics cards. Since you are not overclocking and not running dual cards, feel free to aim for a lower end motherboard. Even the lowest end boards will have gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, SATA 6G. What else do you need? A $150 Z68 chipset motherboard will give you everything. About the only thing you would want to pay attention to would be for USB 3.0 headers if your case choice has USB 3.0 ports that use headers (if they use a pass-through, choose a different case). Not all motherboards have such headers, so that's probably the one thing you'll want to pay attention to.

For $115, you may as well look for a 16GB RAM kit that is two 8GB sticks. This way you leave two slots free in case you want to upgrade in the future.

That case + Strike X panel is kind of pricey. You can totally go micro ATX on the case if you choose a micro ATX motherboard (which are very common). For instance $100 will get you the Silverstone Temjin TJ-08B-E case which is compact and attractive, has enough airflow for your parts and can still hold TWICE as many drives as you are getting.

I won't comment much on the peripherals (keyboard, mouse, pad, etc.) other than saying that many companies make a product look really zingy and slap a "gaming" moniker on it as an excuse to charge more. In actual use they don't work any better than any other quality product.

If you follow my suggestions and save a bundle of money, use that saved money towards a larger SSD. I would suggest one based on the Marvell controller as that is more proven than the Sandforce in terms of reliability - even though you choose an Intel Sandforce. Intel charges a huge premium for their name! You can get a nice 256GB Marvell based SSD for just over $300. Heck, with all the savings (one graphics card, cheaper case, cheaper motherboard) you can spring for a 512GB SSD!!!

:thumbsup: Great advice.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not really. Most CUDA applications don't support using multiple cards and those that do don't necessarily scale very well.

What? All CUDA apps that I am familiar with (distributed computing) can use all the CUDA cores they can get their hands on, SLI or no SLI.

 

[mnewsham]

What? All CUDA apps that I am familiar with (distributed computing) can use all the CUDA cores they can get their hands on, SLI or no SLI.

That was my understanding as well, CUDA has nothing to do with SLI or so I thought.

Could be wrong I guess...

 

[mfenn]

What? All CUDA apps that I am familiar with (distributed computing) can use all the CUDA cores they can get their hands on, SLI or no SLI.

Bolded the key phrase. EP problems that use the BOINC framework aren't actually parallelizing across GPUs, they just assign each of your GPUs its own independent work unit. That is a lot different from making a single app use multiple GPUs.

That was my understanding as well, CUDA has nothing to do with SLI or so I thought.

Could be wrong I guess...

CUDA indeed has nothing to do with SLI, but that doesn't mean that CUDA cores will magically work together without extra programming.

 

[matthewwms]

Wow, I guess it really has been a long time since I looked into computers for 3d animation. I was under the impression that if you'll be using this as a rendering machine you'd want a card like the nvidia quadro series. I was sure that they would considerably reduce your render times.