new build

[digows]

mainly for webdesign, CS5, indesign, some video editing, but would like to play some new games at good quality.

what games could i play on this setup and at which settings?
will this setup work great together?


ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

or should i pay more and get this one ASUS Rampage III Formula

Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601960

ASUS ENGTX460 DIRECTCU/G/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Kingston HyperX 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K3/6GX

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

this is just a draft so feel free to change anything)

need advice on computer case - nothing fancy minimalistic design but good quality

also LED monitor fullHD 24'' max

thanks for your time and help

[digows]

here is my previous build - new-system-build
AMD and it still runs stable and fast. it was much cheaper then Intel's similar setup... should i go ahead and try Intel? or should i save some buck?

[digows]

for win 7 64bit
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

for program files and storage
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

[digows]

Any suggestions?

[Nuclear Krusader]

Have you already bought the parts that you listed?

If you haven't, forget about X58 and look into Sandy Bridge. The Asus Sabretooth is the board to go.

Good choice in terms of video card, although it might not run the newest games at the max specs.

Good choice of HDDs as well. You'll need to partition the 1TB: first partition = 200 GB for your scratch disk, and the rest for your data.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Hmm, the mobo's sold out. You might want to wait for them to resupply.

Newegg.com - ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115070

Note that you'll need dual-channel for this new setup, rather than triple-channel. Just buy a kit from Crucial or Kingston. But decide on the mobo first.

[digows]

Thanks.
Did't buy anything yet, trying to figure out which way to go...
Sandy Bridge kind of expensive and i herd there was some problems with it.

[Nuclear Krusader]

The problems have been sorted out. That's why that board is sold out: it's the revised board and lots of people were waiting for it.

[digows]

How is SABERTOOTH different from this one or even this one?

[Nuclear Krusader]

The 149-dollar is a micro ATX board, and the other one is full ATX. The Sabretooth has thermal shielding and give or take features vs. the ones you listed.

Here's some info regarding the problem with Sandy Bridge and the revisions: Quickly and Easily Identify ASUS New B3 Revision Motherboards

[Hpro]

Originally Posted by Nuclear Krusader Have you already bought the parts that you listed? If you haven't, forget about X58 and look into Sandy Bridge. The Asus Sabretooth is the board to go. Good choice in terms of video card, although it might not run the newest games at the max specs. Good choice of HDDs as well. You'll need to partition the 1TB: first partition = 200 GB for your scratch disk, and the rest for your data.

Hello,
My thoughts would be not to partition. I never use to Partition Drives .. Better two drives one for the System and one for DATA..
hpro

[Nuclear Krusader]

It's not advisable to use either the OS partition or the data partition for Photoshop's scratch disk. If you use the former, PS competes with the Windows swap file, if you use the latter, the presence of data brings the performance of PS's scratch-filing down. Hence my recommendation.

[digows]

ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

ASUS ENGTX460 DIRECTCU/G/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9

is it better now?

still need advice on the case and monitor

thanks.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Check the components G suggested on this other thread: Need help choosing mobo, psu and case

Just change from newegg.ca to newegg.com

[glc]

If you don't plan on overclocking, get this CPU and ram:

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600

Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9

You need an optical drive.

Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Writer

Newegg.com - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Newegg.com - ASUS ML239H Black 23" 5ms IPS Panel Full HD HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor LED Backlit LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 ASCR 50,000,000:1 (3,000:1) (IPS panels are best for editing)

[digows]

isn't DDR3 1600 better?

[Nuclear Krusader]

No; unless you're overclocking you won't see any performance gain.

[digows]

thank you all!

[BIGDOG76]

If you haven't purchased yet I have a couple pointers for you. If you can get a GTX 470 that is the lowest level card that is officially suppoted by cs5 premiere. I don't do much graphics, but the hardware support is probably the same for ps. The 460 might work, but might dissapoint you editing video. Wait for a sale if you have to. I don't play games so I canmt help you there.

For the best performance you'll want at least 3 HDD's. 1 system, 1 scratch, and 1 storage. You will notice a difference in perfomance with this. I recommend Seagate Baracuda (12th generation, 7200.12) I would stay away from WD. 500GB for system, 500GB for scratch, and 1TB+ storage. Don't use drives smaller than 500GB as that is the newest tech and will give you more data density and faster read/write speeds. Don't bother with RAID unless you need more storage or you can afford agood hardware RAID card that supports RAID 3.

I would second the above suggestions for the sandy bridge, again the newest tech. Make sure you get the B3 stepping with the fixed sata II controller.

With 6GB of RAM you will be using the page file quite a bit while video editing so I would consider 12GB or 8GB with the suggested sandy bridge setup. You might even want 12GB or 16GB for indesign depending on how large of prjects ypu are doing and how many images in them, etc.


Good Luck.

[BIGDOG76]

1

[Nuclear Krusader]

Take a look at this:

Adobe Premiere CS5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Unlock Enable MPE Hack Mod Tip

Seagate is still not trusty enough. Have they sorted out their problems with their drives' firmwares yet?

[BIGDOG76]

Originally Posted by Nuclear Krusader Take a look at this: Adobe Premiere CS5 Video Cards with CUDA Acceleration Mercury Playback Unlock Enable MPE Hack Mod Tip Seagate is still not trusty enough. Have they sorted out their problems with their drives' firmwares yet?

Hi Nuclear Krusader,

That is an interesting post on the unlocking hack. I had heard something about that and knew there had to be an easy fix, but I have a 470 so didn't research it. I browsed the post and bookmarked it, I will take a closer look at it later, but it looks pretty thorough. It looks like you also may need to edit the file after you install any updates. Although it looks like a quick edit, it may get frustrating depending on how often they issue updates. Also if the OP needed to contact support their first statement would be we don't support your card. I personally would still go with the 470 for perfomance, as I do a lot of HD video editing, but if the OP is only going to do a little video editing he would be better off with the 460 and spend the extra $$ on RAM as he would also need a bigger PSU to upgrade to the 470.

As far as the Seagate drives I probably should have also specified to avoid 11th generation drives (7200.11) as those were the ones with the firmware issues. I have successfully set those up on clients computers though as their are updates to the firmware that work, but I would avoid them anyways.

The 12th generation drives (7200.12) uses 500GB platter technology (the first to introduce it to consumer level) which gives you much more data density, higher read speeds, less rotational weight, less heat, and longer life. I currently have 8 of these in my editing machine, 2 in RAID1 for the system, 2 in RAID0 for the scratch /tmp, and 4 in RAID3 for the storage. I have had this going for over 6 months dual booting Win7/Mint10 and have no problems with either OS, and have great performance.

Samsung Spinpoint are another good option if you are weary of the Seagates.

I used to use WD almost exclusively, but they have gone downhill lately, especially with their consumer level drives, so I stay away from them now. They also removed TLER (time limited error recovery) from their caviar editions so you would need to buy the much more expensive RE (raid edition) models to use them in a RAID array. The worst part is they would work fine for a while until you start to get a lot of data on the disks, then they would likely start dropping from the RAID array. For a new user who didn't understand this (or even an experienced user who didn't realize they made this change) this could cause data loss and at the very least a lot of frustration and rebuild time.

All HDD's will fail eventually so no brand will replace the need for backups.

BIGDOG

[glc]

I still recommend the WD Black drives for the best compromise between speed, reliability, and warranty coverage. Those are a bit above "consumer" quality. Sorry, but I just don't trust Seagate or Samsung.

You can certainly use a Nvidia card less than a 470 as long as it has SOME Cuda cores. I even see people reporting decent results with a GT240 in CS5.

[BIGDOG76]

If you can swing it, I would recommend a BD drive. You can get one that writes DL-BD (50GB/disk) for about $100. This will give you some future proofing and a great way to keep backups.

When you purchase a HDD, don't worry about the SATA III (even new drives barely use all the bandwidth supplied by SATA I)or the cache. Do your research on the drive and make sure it is using 500GB or larger platters, Samsung is using 667GB platters in their F4 2TB, but it is only 5400 rpms. I am assuming they are having problems reading at the higher speeds, but they will fix that soon I'm sure. That said the F4 will save you power and heat and due to the density it reads as fast as 7200 rpm drives. If you are doing HD video stay with the 7200 rpm models, otherwise the 5400's will be fine.

[BIGDOG76]

Originally Posted by glc I still recommend the WD Black drives for the best compromise between speed, reliability, and warranty coverage. Those are a bit above "consumer" quality. Sorry, but I just don't trust Seagate or Samsung. You can certainly use a Nvidia card less than a 470 as long as it has SOME Cuda cores. I even see people reporting decent results with a GT240 in CS5.

The caviar series is their consumer series blue, green and black. The enterprise and RE series are their "enterprise" level drives. They also have some enterprise level green drives, but they are not labeled caviar. WD RE3 if you look in the center column about half way down the page they mention TLER and how it is not in "desktop" drives. It was in their desktop drives 1-2 years ago and still in most manufacturers desktop drives.

I am using Seagate 7200.7 drives still running fine with no bad sectors in workstations that were "recycled" from Motorola after 6 years of use. I have had more WD's fail than any other brand, and I do PC repair, so I see a lot of drives. I do some work at Motorola and all they use is Seagate and Samsung.

Even if you were to use WD you (or the OP) would still be better off with a 500GB version as you would get denser data and faster reads.

I don't think "not trusting" a manufacturer is any way to make a decision. Do you have any valid reason to not recommend these brands?

I stated that the 460 would probably work with the hack mentioned by Nuclear, but without that he would not be able to use any CUDA cores in CS5 with the 460. When working with HD video which I do nearly every day the better card would offer noticeable improvement. The 240 would use more power and offer less performance than a newer card with the same specs and, for my personal requirements, would likely not offer acceptable performance editing HD video. If the OP was only editing a little video and not doing much compositing or didn't mind waiting for rendering any Nvidia card (listed in the link provided by Nuclear) would be fine.

I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see how your last post could have helped the OP. I hope this forum is not "one of those" forums as I really like the PCMech site and newsletter and just joined the forum. I don't use many forums as they are usually full of people trying to prove their point as opposed to helping the OP's.

BIGDOG

[glc]

I don't want to sound rude either, but I've been building and repairing PC's for over 15 years, and over that time I have had the best consistent reliability with WD drives over ALL others, except for 2 short periods of time when their 1.6gb drives were dropping like flies, and when the 80gb JB drives were dying. You are entitled to YOUR opinion, but please don't smack down MY opinion just because it doesn't correspond with yours.

I have no point to prove whatsoever - my goal is simply to help others to the best of my ability, and I also base my reliability and service opinions on experiences of other pros who I trust. No offense, but your credibility here is not established yet, so please tread lightly while you are establishing it - as I did when I joined about 10 years ago.

[BIGDOG76]

Originally Posted by glc I don't want to sound rude either, but I've been building and repairing PC's for over 15 years, and over that time I have had the best consistent reliability with WD drives over ALL others, except for 2 short periods of time when their 1.6gb drives were dropping like flies, and when the 80gb JB drives were dying. You are entitled to YOUR opinion, but please don't smack down MY opinion just because it doesn't correspond with yours. I have no point to prove whatsoever - my goal is simply to help others to the best of my ability, and I also base my reliability and service opinions on experiences of other pros who I trust. No offense, but your credibility here is not established yet, so please tread lightly while you are establishing it - as I did when I joined about 10 years ago.

I am not here to build credibility, I have that through A+, Server+, Network+, and Security+ certification. I was trying to help the OP by offering him some advice, not necessarily my opinion. You nor anyone else can deny that WD has been removing features and reducing there warranty period on their consumer drives in the last 2 years, it is a fact. 2 years ago I would have recommended them with the other 2 brands I mentioned. 10+ years ago I would have recommended Hitachi/IBM. In between that time WD was fine and Hitachi has always been a decent performer.

I have actually never seen a Samsung or Seagate drive fail, probably due to a smaller market share, and coincidence, but nevertheless it proves to me the reliability as does there use in commercial workstations for 6+ years on a regular basis.

No need to reply I'll leave the forums to you. If the OP wants to post back or anyone else with constructive information I'll respond, otherwise good luck with your credibility.

BIGDOG

[glc]

You nor anyone else can deny that WD has been removing features and reducing there warranty period on their consumer drives in the last 2 years

Sorry, that's not correct. About 5 years or so ago, the longest warranty offered on hard drives by anybody was 3 years. Seagate took the first step and increased their warranty almost across the board to 5 years. They have now scaled that way back - the only 5 year warranty left is on select enterprise and retail boxed drives. Conversely, WD introduced the Caviar Black consumer drive with a 5 year warranty - and the RE enterprise drives and the Raptor series are also 5 year. The only 5 year Samsung drive is the R series. I could care less about Hitachi right now, because WD is in the process of buying them out and things will change - I don't know if that will be for better or worse.