Been away from PCs since 2005 -- How's my new build looking?

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bobsaget

Supreme [H]ardness
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I'll be using this computer as my animation work rig (Predominantly Adobe After Effects CS6, and some Premiere + Photoshop CS6). I don't need insanely fast renders, I just want working in the timelines to be really snappy.

Also, I have a 27" Thunderbolt Apple Cinema Display. Am I okay to use it with this video card? What if I wanted to someday use two ACDs in dual-screen? Get another cheap mini-display port video card? If so, which one?

How'd I do?

Q1ayG.jpg
 
You'll need a thunderbolt port to hook that monitor up to, it's not backwards compatible. The only way I know of how to do it with a PC is to use a Z77 board that has thunderbolt ports. AFAIK, they haven't released an X79 board with thunderbolt yet.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5829/a-first-look-at-thunderbolt-on-windows-with-msis-z77agd80/2

I'd also go with a 4x8GB memory config, it's only quad channel, 8 sticks won't get you any better bandwidth and if you do want to upgrade to 64GB total down the road you won't have to replace all your memory.
 
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ND40oz said:
You'll need a thunderbolt port to hook that monitor up to, it's not backwards compatible. The only way I know of how to do it with a PC is to use a Z77 board that has thunderbolt ports. AFAIK, they haven't released an X79 board with thunderbolt yet.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5829/a-first-look-at-thunderbolt-on-windows-with-msis-z77agd80/2

I'd also go with a 4x8GB memory config, it's only quad channel, 8 sticks won't get you any better bandwidth and if you do want to upgrade to 64GB total down the road you won't have to replace all your memory.
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Thanks for the help. I'm not seeing any LGA 2011 + Z77 motherboards... It's looking like I'd better ditch this screen and get a couple of the Dell 27" IPS screens? If I did that, could I run two Dell monitors off the GTX680?
 
Yeah, Z77 is only LGA1155, with 2011 your only option is X79 or the C600 series server chipset. Probably better off going with different monitors if you want a 6 core SB-E.

I'd also look at the Asus P9X79 WS, Asrock Extreme 11 or Gigabyte X79S-UP5.
 
I've built a machine with the B10 chassis before and as great as it looks, I feel obligated to warn you of some drawbacks.

1. The cooling seems to be quite poor and definitely not a good choice if you plan on overclocking. From my experience, a stock i7-950 with VCore at about 1.2V or a little less on a Corsair H80 with dual fans in push/pull IDLES around the 50C mark at a comfortable ambient temperature.
2. The front fan filters are a real pain to get to as the front fascia and door is held on by 7 screws.
3. For a mid-size chassis, it doesnt hold many HDD's at all...only 4 before you have to use the external bays. You will also need to relocate the SATA power plugs along the power cable to power your drives, otherwise the SATA power cable will be forced to bend and will make dents in the acoustic foam on the side panel.

That's just my 2c on practicality. It's a gorgeous case (I have the A71F), but really lacking in the performance and convenience departments for the price.
 
If you aren't gaming, no point at all to go with the 680 GTX. 850W is overkill, even for 680s. 750W is overkill as well, 650W is still a little overkill, but if you wanted a little breathing room 650W will suffice.

Go with a 4x8GB kit for 32GB of RAM. This gives you room to go 64GB later should you need too. It also costs the same as a 8x4GB kit.

$180 - CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Not a good case at all for the price; cases with more room and better features cost a lot less.

Can you please answer the sticky questions so we can help you better?
Asking for Build Help?: ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST

I really don't think x79 is what you need.
 
Skillz said:
If you aren't gaming, no point at all to go with the 680 GTX. 850W is overkill, even for 680s. 750W is overkill as well, 650W is still a little overkill, but if you wanted a little breathing room 650W will suffice.

Go with a 4x8GB kit for 32GB of RAM. This gives you room to go 64GB later should you need too. It also costs the same as a 8x4GB kit.

$180 - CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

Not a good case at all for the price; cases with more room and better features cost a lot less.

Can you please answer the sticky questions so we can help you better?
Asking for Build Help?: ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST

I really don't think x79 is what you need.
Click to expand...


1. I'll downgrade the PSU to 650w. Thanks.
2. GTX 680 might be a bit overkill, but from what I'm seeing, more CUDA cores helps dramatically in Ray-Tracing in After Effects CS6.
3. As far as the case goes, I've turned my attention toward the Antec Performance One Series P183 V3 (LINK)


To answer the questions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Primarily After Effects CS6.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$2500.00 (tax/shipping inc)

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Boise, Idaho

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Case, Mobo, Video Card, RAM, CPU, PSU, DVD drive, Cables, CPU cooler/heatsink

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Crucial m4 512GB SSD

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes, moderately

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
2560x1400 X2

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
WiFi would be nice...

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Hoping to order Win 8 64bit OEM with the parts
 
While that's a sleek looking case on the outside, the inside not to good looking. Cable management doesn't look all that great compared to some of the better cases on the market. Still a better buy than your previous build though.

In your OP you list a 27" ACD, yet in your answer to #5, it's not listed. Are you still using this monitor? If so, as someone pointed out only Z77 motherboards with Thunderbolt ports support that monitor. Thus you'll only be able to use one of those monitors with your setup. The motherboard itself is a little on the expensive end for a descent Z77 board at $235; group that with the i7 3770k at $330 and you're at a lot less than $900 you're spending on the x79 platform. Not to mention the performance increase with the two extra cores on the x79 doesn't justify the added cost.

With the money you can save from not going with an x79 setup, you could easily get a 30" display to run with that ACD you have.
 
I believe the GTX 580 is the highest consumer card supported for acceleration currently in CS6, Adobe likes to take their time updating things, but I haven't seen anything about support for the 600 series.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/tech-specs.html

After Affects looks like it supports the GTX 680 so if that's you primary application it may makes sense to go that route, but the GTX 580 is listed for more the CS6 apps.

http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Ad...dfs/adobe-hardware-performance-whitepaper.pdf

Personally, I'd get as many cores as you can throw at it, since it appears everything is multithreaded. 3930K and X79 make the most sense, I'd really check out the Gigabyte X79S-UP5 if you also want wifi since it comes with it standard. It's priced at the midrange of the X79 boards, but uses the Intel C606 chipset, so it brings more SATA/SAS ports to the table as well as Xeon support (the Asus and Asrock I listed before also have Xeon support) if you ever want to upgrade for more cores.

Are you planning on getting any other SSDs to use for cache disk, that wouldn't be a bad idea either or you could go with 64GB of ram and use a ram disk.
 
Going with the x79 platform will mean he'll have to buy a new monitor.
 
Not bad but I wouldn't buy all of my PC parts from the egg, try MicroCenter/ Frys, they often have better prices. Also, try craigslist, amazon or ebay or even the For Sale section on this board. I am surprised how often people have $2,500 + gaming PCs for sale on here. Do you really need to spend $2,300 on the PC? I'd hate to see a for sale thread made by you in the future because your rig is way overkill.
 
Skillz said:
Going with the x79 platform will mean he'll have to buy a new monitor.
Click to expand...

It looks like he already plans on buying another one to run a dual setup and it would be a lot better to get ones that work correctly the first time. Just because you can run an ACD with a thunderbolt board doesn't mean you should, getting the drivers for it is a pain, no brightness control and you're reliant on Lucid drivers to drive it correctly using your video card. Something I personally wouldn't want to mess with if I'm concerned with CS6 performance when they specifically recommend sticking with a single video card. You're just asking for trouble mixing in the HD4000, GTX 680 and Lucid.
 
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