Build Suggestions/Critics Please! My 2010 rig, $1500 - 2k budget...

jonesad

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 23, 2004
Messages
185
Hello All -
Its about time I'm due for an upgrade, and a side-job I took on is about to pay so I'll have the money (yay!). Since I just purchased an ATI 4870X2 last year I'm thinking I don't need a video card upgrade, but maybe its time to move to the 5000 series? I also have a 1000W cosair power supply, so I don't need a PSU either. Can you take a look at my answers (and my current part selections) and tell me what you think?

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?
I am a web developer, so I will be programming (Adobe Flex, Coldfusion, IIS, etc). I will run the full Adobe Master collection (Photoshop, premiere, etc) but mostly to play around with. Oh, and of course gaming (but I've been using my consoles a lot lately for that).

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I'd prefer to stick around $1500, but could go up to $2000
3) Where do you live?
Denver, CO
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Case, motherboard, cpu, memory, hard drive, optical drive, LCD monitor (also to be used with my Xbox 360, so a 1080p native is preferred).
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Video Card: ATI Sapphire Radeon 4870x2
Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
6) Will you be overclocking?
In all my years of building rigs I've never tried to O/C, I've always just preferred stability. That being said, I'm looking at the i7 920 which I hear is super easy to overclock, so if people would be willing to help I would try.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
I would like a 23 - 26 inch monitor, and I want to use it to hook up my xbox 360 as well (either via HDMI or VGA cable, I have both).
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
End of January/Begining of Febuary.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
I would like USB 3.0 and Sata 3 just so I have them, but not required.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
I will be buying Windows 7 Ultimate System builder edition (I currently use the release candidate).


Here are links to 2 temp rigs I have come up with:
Rig #1 with USB 3.0 - http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13461206

Rig #2 - http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13198326
 
What features of Windows 7 Ultimate do you need that justifies the extra costs over Home Premium?

As for the builds, both have the same problems. For both setups, swap out the Corsair RAM for this cheaper Corsair set instead:
$160 - Corsair CMX6GX3M3A1600C9 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM

You're not gonna notice an iota of performance difference between the Dominator RAM and the RAM I linked to above. Ditto for the Cas 8 RAM you had in build #2.

As for the hard drive, do you really need 2TB in one package? I'm asking because you can get more storage per dollar if you went with multiple 1TB drives rather than a single 2TB drive. In other words, most cost effective that way.

The Antec 900-2 case is pretty cramped despite being a new revision of the old Antec 900 case. For the price there are much much more roomier cases:
$70 - Cooler Master RC-690-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case

In terms of motherboard, either mobos would be a good choice. It just comes down to this: Who do you trust more? Gigabyte or Asus?
 
I agree with Danny. Additionally... just nitpicking...

A HDD won't saturate the bandwidth of SATA300, so the SATA600 HDD isn't really worth it over regular 2TB drives, if you don't want several 1TB/1.5TB drives instead.

A single X25-M is a great os/apps drive. If you plan on writing large sequential files, you'll want two in RAID0 instead (2x80GB is faster than 1x 160GB if needing the sequential speed). However, most people don't need to write large sequential blocks of data to their OS/Apps drive unless they're installing stuff, so no big issue there.

Depending on how much work you do with Adobe CS, you may want to consider 12GB of RAM instead of 6GB. You can use a RAMDisk to speed many things up, most notably Photoshop (scratch disk), and you can use it for other things too, like firefox cache, etc. It's a good place to keep your commonly overwritten OS files, too.
 
Thanks for the tips Danny! I like that $100 case you link to! Honestly, I was going to get Windows 7 ultimate to make sure I had every feature, I'm just weird like that. Maybe its overkill, but I definitely need IIS (and the ability to run multiple local websites).

Also, I'm not married to a 2TB drive, I just have read that those 2 drives are big and speedy, but your right I might be better off going 2x1TB drives to save $100.

Thanks again for your insight
 
Well, my budget got a tad bigger, so I took your advice on the memory and the 2x1TB hard drives and that brought the cost down enough to grab a 2nd SSD (that way I can have 1 for OS, 1 for apps/games, then the 2TB's for storage of media/files/etc). How does this look:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=8758709

Going to order next Monday! Also, should I put the SSD's into RAID 0 array? I'm not sure the on board raid would really provide enough speed, so I'm thinking I just hook them up to the Sata 3 ports as 2 seperate drives?

Thanks!
 
I'd go with XFX instead due to their lifetime warranty and excellent customer support:
$400 - XFX HD-587A-ZNF9 Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCI-E Video Card

The onboard RAID is more than enough for RAID 0 of SSD drives. Yes put those SSD into RAID 0
 
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