Building a new Core i7, and...

[JYeager11]

After consulting with you guys in another thread, I decided I want a Core i7 for a new machine.

I also decided I wanted a pre-built, because I tried one for the first time at work last year with an Acer Aspire Q9300 and it was the easiest and most conflict-free experience I've ever had with a computer. When I build them myself, I'm always returning SOMETHING that won't play well with something else, before everything runs smoothly.

But a friend of mine is insisting I let him build it for me, and here's what he's recommending as parts :

He says the subtotal would be $1,285.28. There would be free shipping by ground, a couple of bucks for insurance and out of province tax...

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA2 3.5IN 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Hard Drive Oem *3YR Mfr Warranty*
•Limit 2 per customer.
•Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business days.
Yes $84.79 $169.58

Antec NSK6580B Super Mid Tower Case Black 4X5.25 5X3.5INT W/ 430W Power Supply
•Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business days.
Yes $123.20 $123.20

XFX GeForce GTX 260 Core Edition 576MHZ 896MB 2.0GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card
•Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business days.
Yes $194.83 $194.83

LG GH22LS40 22X/22X Black Lightscribe DVD+-RW DVD SATA Writer Retail Box
•Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business days.
Yes $35.64 $35.64

OCZ XTC Platinum OCZ3P1333LV6GK DDR3-1333 6GB 3X2GB CL7-7-7-20 Triple Channel Memory Kit
•$20.00 CAD Mail in Rebate for this item - click here
No $175.10 $175.10

ASUS P6T X58 ATX LGA1366 DDR3 3PCI-E16 PCI-E1 2PCI CrossFire SLI SATA2 GBLAN Motherboard
•Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business days.
Yes $254.88 $254.88

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping Quad Core Processor LGA1366 2.66GHZ Bloomfield 8MB LGA1366 -SLBEJ-
•Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business days.
Yes $332.05 $332.05

------

Now if I could find the same thing in a pre-built, I'd be happy. Or do you guys feel I'd be an idiot NOT to let this guy built this thing with these parts?

All opinions welcome. Usage is massively large Photoshop files (up to 3 - 4GB files) and Audio Editing (Sonar) juggling so many wavs and plugins at once that it always ends up eating up every last ounce of resource available no matter how much I give it.

 

[phobic]

Well for starters, I'm not all that fond of the case/PSU combo going on there. Granted I haven't built a system in a while (still running my Q6600 with no probs) but the list needs some tweaking IMO.

 

[JYeager11]

Well for starters, I'm not all that fond of the case/PSU combo going on there. Granted I haven't built a system in a while (still running my Q6600 with no probs) but the list needs some tweaking IMO.

Could you be more specific?

 

[Koko56]

Yeah - that PSU...

Just.. "No" comes to mind. For a PSU you could either get the 450VX or the 550VX.- about $20 difference between the two. It would be a good idea to get more info about which one. It's a pretty safe bet that either would be very good, but I have a "gut feeling" here for the 550VX...

So it could be the Antec 300 and either the 450VX or the 550VX.

 

[tiraides]

If the PSU used is the Antec Earthwatts model, it will be fine, but the power load coming from the GTX 260 (and the rest of the components) may push it to its limit. Ask the vendor which PSU they're using; ideally, you'd want a PSU that has at least 35A running through its 12V rails (most good 500+ watt PSU have at least that much power, but shoot for one that has at least 40A on its 12V rails).

Most OCZ DDR3 RAM kits run at 1.65V, which is the limit that Intel recommends for its Core i7 processors. If you plan on overclocking, you should find (or buy) RAM that runs at 1.5V... G.Skill and Mushkin make 1.5V RAM. For your needs, however, you should consider getting 12GB of RAM off the bat... you can use one 3x2GB kit along with RamDisk software to create a very fast scratch disk.

 

[Dangman]

You're getting ripped off on the video card: The significantly faster ATI HD 4890 is only $15 more than the GTX 260. And that's with Candian pricing too.

 

[Tordek]

I have some suggestions but really need you to answer the sticky questions before putting them here.
(not being an asshole here, but everything depends on what you want to use the pc on, whats your budget, what you currently have, etc.)

 

[JYeager11]

I have some suggestions but really need you to answer the sticky questions before putting them here.
(not being an asshole here, but everything depends on what you want to use the pc on, whats your budget, what you currently have, etc.)

No worries. They were answered in the sister thread, but I don't mind repeating.

Computer will be declared a company expense, so budget isn't an immediate concern. Let's say $1500 before taxes, CND.

I prefer pre-builts to building my own. A friend is insisting I let him build my machine by suggesting the parts listed above, but if they're not blowing everyone away, then I really feel like falling back on Plan A (pre-built).

Usage will be proposterously-high resolution Photoshop work (we're talking 3-4GB PSD files) as well as DAW editing (ie, Cakewalk Sonar, which is juggling so many simultaneous 24-bit wavs + real-time plugins that it'll find a way to make use of -- and eventually max out -- ANY hardware I throw at it). No gaming, though.

I believe my friend suggested the 260 because I'm a nVidia loyalist. I don't mind going ATI if Googling reveals it's a significantly better card (ie, reviews).

From what everyone's telling me, the i7 920 is what I should be looking at.

So ideally, really, what I think I'd like is :

- Pre-built i7 920
- At least 8GB ram
- 1TB HD (preferably two physical 500GB drives)
- I haven't kept up on the video cards, but I'm a longtime nVidia fan
- I wouldn't mind a blu-ray player, though it's not a must by any means
- Need solid & dependable DVD burning
- TV tuner would be nice, but not a must
- Needs to have at least 1 free PCI slot for my specialty audio card (for the DAW work)
- The more USB slots the better
- Windows 7 Pro or better, 64-bit.

I'm not 100% set on *anything*, but this is what I'm leaning towards.

(Don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor.)

 

[engiNURD]

NVIDIA has CUDA, and ATI has STREAM, and from what I've seen, you don't need a high end GPU to take advantage of either in Photoshop (but higher models would be better for Premier, IIRC).

Anyhow, i7 920 is triple channel, so get at least 12GB of RAM. Then, use RAMDisk for your photoshop scratch disk.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=442160&postcount=5

Typical quote we like to post for high end photoshop builds...

... I built a RAID 0 box for a small image studio 2 weeks ago, a new startup here in Vegas that is making waves. They wanted a "demo" workstation to see what's possible for processing as they don't want to create a massive server-type situation in the office, but 3-4 workstations that are equal in performance and then just using simple file sharing as required. Very simple setup in terms of the network, but the workstation I built used 2 300GB Velociraptors (tried to sell 'em on SSD but the amount of data they're dealing with wouldn't be practical - again, a price-to-performance and ROI issue).

The hard part was getting them to spring for 16GB of RAM because of the cost, but a few weeks ago I saw that sale for 4 4GB sticks of RAM for about $450 and made a few phone calls and snagged a similar deal.

I set up Photoshop CS3 for 'em (their legit retail copy) on Vista Business x64. They started messing around with it, loading some rather large TIFF files in excess of 150MB a pop, several at a time, performing some basic scripted actions on 'em, blurs, filters, etc. Using the Velociraptors in RAID 0 meant very snappy and consistent performance, as well as having 16GB of RAM too. Also, it's a Q6600 based machine running rock solid at 3 GHz.

They were very pleased with the performance at that point, but I had a surprise for 'em.

I asked if I could have 20 mins 'alone' with the workstation to "rewire it" as Tim Allen might say. That consisted of grabbing a trial version of SuperSpeed Software's RamDisk Plus 9 and installing it, doing the simple configuration, and then creating a 10GB RAMdisk and told Photoshop "Ok, you want a scratch disk? Here, try this on for size."

After I did some tests of my own using the same scripts they'd done earlier, boy... I tell ya. You haven't lived till you see 225MB TIFF files literally snap onscreen in the blink of an eye, multiple huge TIFFs with resolutions like 5000x5000 and even higher. That's what's possible with RAMdisks, because even Velociraptors in RAID 0 pumping out something like 280MB/s sustained pales to the close to 5GB a second in bandwidth of that RAMdisk.

I told 'em to come back in and rerun their test scripts.

Jaws hit the floor, folks. Well, not quite but figuratively speaking, at least.

They asked what I'd done, I told them I put the scratch disk in RAM where it should be if you have the RAM to make it happen, and they bought 4 licenses of RamDisk Plus 10 mins later, and I got a signed contract to construct 3 more workstations identical to that one top to bottom and also be their "geek" if any issues come up.

It was a very good week...