New PC Build

ajr2764

Hi guys. I've been using the same PC since 02/03 when I built my first one. I've managed to get by for so long but I'm finally at the point where the hardware is limited my ability to do work. I've been doing some research and putting together a parts list on newegg. I plan on starting to buy parts in the next month or so. I dont use my pc for gaming only work.

Anyways tell me what you guys think of a system that has the following:

-Antec 902 case
-I5 2400 3.1ghz
-asus sabertooth p67 mobo
-Evga geforce gtx 550ti
-rosewill 500 w psu
-gskillz sniper series ram 8gb(2x4gb)1866
-WD 160gb 7200rpm sata 3.0 drive
-win 7 pro 64bit

With all of that plus some other equipment it will run me like $1000. Some questions are should I go with more ram considering the low cost and is there any issues with software compatability on 64 windows. I'm still using xp pro on my system. Oh and Im running the following right now:

-p4 3.2ghz(single core)
-3Gb pc3200
-win xp pro
-geforce fx5500
-sata 1.5 drive 80gb
-350w psu

Thanks for the input.

EarthQuake

Might want to pick up the 2700K, its significantly faster for rendering etc but only $100 more, you could go for a little less expensive mobo, not sure why you need a "military grade" modo(reading the specs on newegg) or advanced temp control stuff unless you're overclocking, which is sort of a waste if you're spending more on a mobo to OC instead of just buying a better cpu.

Case is a bit expensive/ugly as well.

I would recommend trimming the fat on overpriced stuff that isn't going to make your computer run any better like the mobo and case, and getting the i7, and maybe a SSD for your os/apps. Everything else seems good though, win 7 64bit should be hassle free.

ram is so cheap why not go 16gb, but really 8 gb is a decent amount.

Recent thread that may be helpful: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92669

Entity

Yeah i'd go with an i7 as well. Baking, rendering and generally any processor intensive task will be significantly faster. It's a better investment as well, and you can overclock the shit out of it. You can save even more cash by getting an older generation card (since you're not going to do any gaming) the 4 series Nvidia cards are pretty solid, or you could even try to find an 8800gt (great card)

ajr2764

You made some valid points guys I'm going to revisit newegg and redo my list.

ajr2764

OK so the 2700k is a little more I looked at the i7 2600 and 2600k at
$300/$320 don't see any difference except the graphics.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%2050001157%20600005573%20600030236&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=343%7C19-115-070%5E19-115-070-TS%2C19-115-071%5E19-115-071-TS

Entity

Yeah the specs seem near identical except for the HD3000, which is good if you're building a HPTC and want to save space. It's useless if you're going to have a dedicated GPU, so the 2600 might be the better choice.

SnowInChina

if you get the i7 and an asus board, i guess you will be running your system on "performance" bios settings
if thats the case get a new cpu cooler instead of the boxed one
iam getting some fancy temperatures while baking/rendering stuff (75°C)

btw the i7 is totally worth it

ps.: some asus boards with the p67 chip tend to act up sometimes. they just get stuck in the bootcycle or cancel the boot and boot again. you might want to read into that before getting one, i dont know if it has been fixed yet
i´ve experienced that too with my p8p67. after detaching my pc from power and reattaching it it stopped, but its no final solution

other than that everything runs like it should and was totally worth the money

arrangemonk

military grade = you cant see or touch its private parts XD

EarthQuake

ajr2764 wrote: »

OK so the 2700k is a little more I looked at the i7 2600 and 2600k at
$300/$320 don't see any difference except the graphics.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%2050001157%20600005573%20600030236&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=343%7C19-115-070%5E19-115-070-TS%2C19-115-071%5E19-115-071-TS

Yeah sorry I meant the 2600K. Afaik the "K" version is unlocked for overclocking, not sure there is any meaningful difference if you're not going to OC.

Though the K does bench about 1000 points higher here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html So, for $20 might as well go for it?

ajr2764

ok so im going with the 2600k since it seems like Ill get the most out of it. Now with the motherboard Im trying to step down a notch in price from the sabertooth. Ive selected some msi,asus and asrock(which i dont know the name really)boards. Im gonna check out the reviews on these and see what people are saying.

What im really wondering is if in the memory specs its shows oc next to the speeds does that mean buying the higher memory speeds wont do anything for me unless overclocking?

Would like to know some opinions on the selection below.

www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627%20600093976&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=280%7C13-157-265%5E13-157-265-TS%2C13-130-583%5E13-130-583-TS%2C13-130-571%5E13-130-571-TS%2C13-130-582%5E13-130-582-TS%2C13-131-771%5E13-131-771-TS

EarthQuake

Right, the the listed OC specs for memory are only relevant if you plan on OCing. Just get the fastest stock memory that the mobo supports.

One of the cheaper MSI sounds good, whichever has the features you need. Generally with motherboards I find that 99% of them have the features I want, so its just a matter of finding one in my price range that has good reviews. From that comparison i can't really see what extra the Asus board offers, other than being Asus brand.

Vysuki

I have a quick question about hardware choices and this seems like a good thread to do it in.

Would you go for the new i7 - 3930k with 32gb of quad channel ram and a lower spec gpu or an i7 - 2600k with 16gb of duel channel ram and a puncher graphics card if both worked out the same?

Tom Pritchard

If you're gaming, I'd go with the 16GB RAM and the punchier graphics, but if you're just doing 3D work, mainly, I'd go with the 32GB RAM and lower spec graphics, but don't go too low, because there's only so far you can go before it's not really worth it.

EarthQuake

Vysuki wrote: »

I have a quick question about hardware choices and this seems like a good thread to do it in.

Would you go for the new i7 - 3930k with 32gb of quad channel ram and a lower spec gpu or an i7 - 2600k with 16gb of duel channel ram and a puncher graphics card if both worked out the same?

Honestly unless you're regularly working with 50million+ poly models, and baking/texturing 8192x8192 textures 32GB is probably overkill for any reasonable use. But again, ram is cheap.

As far as the 3930K, well its about 2x the cost of the I7, with maybe 1.4x the performance? Generally I wouldn't advise anyone to buy a $600 CPU unless its for dedicated server/rendering use. When you look at the 2600K vs the 2500K, the 2500 is about 2/3rd the performance and 2/3rd the cost, the price curve there makes a lot of sense for the 2600.

However, a CPU that is 1.4x faster than the 2600K is just nuts, lolol and compared to the 3960K its actually reasonably priced. Still, I find it very hard to recommend anyone buy a $600 CPU unless you REALLY need it, in a year you'll be able to buy one just as fast for half the cost, and you'll regret spending so much.

Spreadsheet time:


We can see from this that from the low to moderate range, the price vs performance curve is pretty much flat, it gets a bit worse at the high end(3930K) and gets absolutely insane at the ultra-high end(3960X).

source: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Generally, you want to buy CPUs in that moderate range, before the price/performance range spikes.

Now if we take a look back in history, lets go off of of claydough's post here(as I'm sure he'll pop in this thread any moment lol): http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1489952&postcount=21. Two years ago he bought an I7 980X, which is listed at about $1500 on the above site, I'm not sure what he paid for it(probably about $1000, the price has spiked on this for whatever reason), but today the $320 I7 2600K is equivalent, and the $600 I7-3930K is significantly better.

If you want your moneys worth, you can buy mid-range(but still very good) hardware every two years and save money over buying super high end stuff every 4-6 years. Hell, this "mid range" stuff will likely last 3-4 years anyway for most people.

ajr2764

Think I'm going to go with this Mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131711

or something equivalent, there were so many at around the same price and EQ yea it's a waste to get a $200+ mobo if your not overclocking.

This Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231442, 1333 seems to be the common stock speed supported by these asus boards. Going from 3gb to 16gb cant wait. I've been reading up on the SSD and I think I would like to take advantage of the speeds and noise reduction. Prices are high for such low capacity, but I have the majority of my files on a external 320gb drive. Planning on still hooking up my current 80gb sata drive for backup, heard win7 pro 64 clean install can be like 20gb or so.

EarthQuake

Good choice, IMO a SSD is a great choice, it adds a noticable snappiness to the whole system. I would get something big enough for the OS + your main apps, I would say get a 120GB or so, but you may get by with a 60/90gb drive. Prices have been dropping pretty reliably on SSDs so the cost isnt toooo bad.

ajr2764

Ok so tax money is here.. and finally going to start buying the parts to build my new workstation. Been reviewing my new egg parts list and making adjustments to it so I'm thinking of this psu instead of my original because of the 80 plus rating and reviews seem pretty good. Is this enough power for a i7 2600k rig?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026

ajr2764

Took another look a video cards and I still came back to the same one due to the price and reviews, evga geforce gtx 550ti. I have read around here of some issues sum have with maya and open GL issues. What are some of your opinions on this card and series in general? Here's the list of cards from my search options.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600007855%20600030348%20600007779%20600094002%204017&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=20

EmAr

That card should be a good choice unless you run into those openGL issues and most people seem to not experience them. The bad thing about those problems was that nVidia would ignore them and advice people to buy Quadro's instead. I don't know the current condition.

I bought an AMD card(6850) to make sure openGL works alright. The only problem I've got so far is that you need a special driver to make RAGE play the intro and outro videos. Other than that, performance is really good.

ajr2764

well think Ill take a chance and hope everything will run smoothly for me.

EarthQuake

For an I7 rig and that 550ti card, 430w might be a little low, 500w or 550w 80+ would be a bit safer.

nick2730

i5, for 100 bucks its not worth an i7 your talking a few seconds off renders tops

EarthQuake

nick2730 wrote: »

i5, for 100 bucks its not worth an i7 your talking a few seconds off renders tops

You pay about 33% more for about 33% more speed, in terms of high end CPUs a linear price jump means an excellent value. Just look at the $600/$1000 intel cpus and the performance jump you get there, the $100 is certainly worth it for the I7, unless you simply do not have an extra $100, than an I5 is fine i'm sure.