Build Thoughts

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forkedt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
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As mentioned early I'm building a desktop for my father - he wants some heavy duty graphics capabilities. Any thoughts on the following build:

MOBO - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130221 or if he goes AMD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138141

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202 or if he goes AMD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

Memory - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609408 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227388 (dont prefer this option b/c of MIR)

HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284


GPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150349

Ethernet - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833164125
(not sure if I need this or not, havent built in years)

Disk Drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137


The Q&A:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Graphic Editing and Creation

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Prefer to keep it around $1,000.

3) Where do you live?
North Florida

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Everything but the monitor

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None

6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably not, but that depends on the performance of it stock.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Unsure (he didnt specify, and I forgot to ask)

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
As soon as I pick the parts and get them delivered.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Not sure, probably Firewire for any equipment he uses that may need it. Possibly RAID and Crossfire.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yes.


Thanks for the input!
 
Last edited:
Please answer the questions in the sticky titled "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!"
 
Danny Bui said:
Please answer the questions in the sticky titled "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!"
Click to expand...

QFT!

Beyond that I'll say that if you are looking for Intel chipset MSI boards, you might want to look at other manufacturers. It isn't that MSI is bad or anything, but you can do better for the money.
 
You selected an i7 but the motherboards you link to are LGA775 chipsets. You need to look at X58 motherboards.

Here are something I would change:

CPU - i7 920 is good

Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro - $200

RAM: 6GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $90

Hard Drive: The WD20EADS you selected is good for storage, but it's a Green drive so it's not good to use as an operating system/main hard drive. For that, I suggest the Western Digital 640GB Black.

Video Card: The card you selected is fine

DVD Drive: Fine

Ethernet: You don't need that. The NIC is built into the motherboard.

Case: OK
 
I'd go with the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R over the MSI board. Just my personal opinion. The only thing I don't like about the Gigabyte board is the 4 DIMM slot configuration. Other than that I'd take it over the MSI any day of the week. With that said I make this statement factoring overclocking and what I perceive to be "better quality." In my experience Gigabyte builds a better board than MSI typically does and the BIOS support on the Gigabyte will be vastly superior to that of the MSI. The thing I mainly like about the MSI shown above is the layout. Really very nice given the board's price point. Though the chipset cooling seems a little anemic.
 
Find out what size monitor your dad has. For graphics editing (i'm assuming Photoshop?) doesn't require such a high-end graphics card. For gaming, again it depends on what size monitor your Dad has since that card might be overkill.

HDD wise, I recommend going with either the WD6401AALS or WD7501AALS drives. I would not recommend the 2TB drive anytime soon.

RAM wise, the Super Talent is a good choice. I personally perfer the G.Skill set PC_User recommended due to the better looking heatsinks and color :)

NIC wise, most motherboards these days have an onboard NIC. The onboard NIC will be more than enough for the vast majority of people. So no need to get an additional NIC.

However if you have a switch with jumbo frames support and want really high LAN transfers speeds between your PCs, get an Intel NIC like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106033

Just make sure that all your PCs have an Intel NIC as well for optimal transfer speeds.
 
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