Gaming / School rig: noob needs help

[Spazum888]

hey guys. kinda(very) new to building computers. ill cut to the chase. im building a computer mainly for school. getting my degree in architecture specializing in 3d rendering. i also love playing games and going to lan events.

i have a $1500.00 budget. im building a brand new computer, not taking anything from the one im using now.

i wanna build a computer that can support my gaming needs, as well as my school needs.
im going to be rendering alot with future classes so i do need some power.
i also wanna build a rig that doesnt need much upgrading for a few years.
i plan on running duel monitors.
i dont care about benchmark numbers.
i dont plan on overclocking
i do not have any queens, go fish.
i dont play crysis with full video effects



Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
XIGMATEK MC NRP-MC751 750W ATX12V Ver.2.2
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 140W Quad-Core Processor
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB SATA
Acer H213H bmid Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI Full HD 1080P Widescreen 16:9 LCD Monitor
EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express
Logitech G15 USB Wired Standard Gaming Keyboard
RAZER Lachesis Banshee Blue 9 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Laser Gaming Mouse
NZXT Sentry-2 5.25" Touch Screen fan controller


mobo:
GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 DDR3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

with budgeting for ram................................ Subtotal: $1,518.81



questions i have:

would this setup be good? is it enough power? should i go higher video card?

which mobo would you get? have you had any issues with either one of them?

should i go full tower? or is there no need to? will mid tower be enough room?

how hard is it to flash a bios? will i have to flash it?

does it matter what kinda ram i get? what ram would you suggest?

am i forgetting something? should i take something out? replace something?

thanks for the help =)

 

[jake21]

If your going to be doing alot of rendering i would suggest going with at the very least, 4gigs of ram. Those types of programs eat up ram space quick!

 

[tiraides]

Which resolutions are those two monitors? Where do you plan on buying everything from?

Unless you need Nvidia's CUDA technology for your classes, consider the AMD equivalents. The HD4870 can be found at many areas for less, and while the HD4890 is a bit more, it also performs better. You don't really need a powerful video card to handle 3D graphics (rendering), but any of the aforementioned cards would offer decent gaming performance on a 1920x1200 resolution.

For a bit more, you can obtain a more powerful setup based on the Intel Core i5 processor and the P55 chipset. For example:

$355 - Intel Core i5 750 & Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P combo deal
$79 - G.Skill Ripjaws Series 2x2GB DDR3 1333

I recommend the following combo deal as well:

$140 - Antec Three Hundred Illusion case & Antec TruePower New TP-650 650W PSU combo deal

The Antec Three Hundred Illusion comes with two fan for the front of the case, and the TP-650 is more than you need for one video card.

I also recommend a faster HDD. The new Samsung SpinPoint F3 and Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB and 1TB drives use 500GB drive platters that allow them to run faster than many HDDs that use 320GB/333GB drive platters. (For reference, the Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB HDD was only 10% slower in most benchmarks to the WD VelociRaptor 300GB HDD. I know that you don't care about benchmarks, but with the HDD being the slowest component in today's computer system, every little bit helps.)

I agree with jake21 that you may want to consider doubling up the RAM to 8GB for rendering.

 

[Dangman]

While I concur 100% with Tiraides, I might as well answer your questions:
1) The parts are good. The setup is bad. No need for additional power. To answer that question, we need the answers to Tiraides' questions.

2) I'd go Gigabyte simply because I have a bias towards them. Both are good quality mobos. No major issues with either board AFAIK

3) No need for a full tower. A mid tower will be enough

4) Not that hard to flash it. May need to flash it if theres any issues that a BIOs update fixes

5) Not really. You honestly won't notice a performance difference in apps and games between a low latency or high latency RAM or high speed or low speed RAM. So just get the cheapest 4GB DDR3 RAM set and you'll be set.

6) Read Tiraides' post again. I concur with every one of Tiraides' recommendations.

 

[Spazum888]

hey guys thanks for the response. right now im running at a 1680x1050 rez.
from what i have read, i dont see anything about CUDA tech.

the info above has been very helpful.

500GB and 1TB drives use 500GB drive platters

what does drive platters mean? the HDD would be good to put the OS on?

as for Intel Core i5 750, how does that compare with the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 ? dont know much about the i5 and the i7 processors.

the case and powersupply combo looks really good.
again thank you for the help

 

[Dangman]

what does drive platters mean? the HDD would be good to put the OS on?

as for Intel Core i5 750, how does that compare with the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 ? dont know much about the i5 and the i7 processors.

Basically, the larger the platter size, the faster the hard drive is compared to other hard drives with multiple platters. So yes, the single platter or large dual-platter drives are good to put the OS on.

The i5 750 is faster than the X4 965.

 

[engiNURD]

Which 3D apps will you be running for your classes? If they perform better with pro cards, you can simply softmod a GeForce. (unless you're running maya, but thats for animators, not architects. )

 

[MirageMobile]

Here is a Hott deal on that g15