Help with a ~$2,500 system build

T

tonypitt

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1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Office applications, web programming, other programming, business intelligence modeling, web browsing, some gaming.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$2,500 bottom line (including tax and shipping)
3) Where do you live?
Tennessee
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Everything except the monitors (keyboard, mouse, speakers, case, and everything in the case. Would like a nice case.
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?
no
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Dual monitor Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP 24 LCD Flat Monitor Rev A02; already have, so not included in this budget
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Had been planning to buy an HP e9180t system. Will build if can make a system that will be better enough to warrant doing my own
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
No particular need for these known at this point. Would like something that will serve me well for the next 4 years.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Can get Windows 7 legit very cheap.


My plan had been to buy an HP e9180t system. I've built my own PC before (and ones for friends), but that was 6 years ago. I had been planning to buy a system just to avoid the hassle/risk of doing it myself, but I've changed my mind on that. I really want to take advantage of my dual monitor setup.

Here's my benchmark system I was planning to buy:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-950 processor (3.00GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache with QPI Technology)
9GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [5 DIMMs]
2TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s - two 1TB hard drives
Blu-ray writer & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner
Blu-ray ROM (player)
Premium Wireless-N LAN card and Bluetooth(R )
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
Logitech X-540 5.1 stereo speakers

I can buy the above PC for $2,460. Seems like I should be able to do much better making my own.

I'm prepared to start shopping for parts right away. Will do all my buying online.
 
950 /evga $795
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.266061

(primary)Black WD1001FALS $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

(storage) Caviar Green WD10EADS $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136317

12gb corsair 7-7-7 ddr $259
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145250

Tp750 $105
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371022

Lancool PC-K58 $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112237

Internal Blu-ray Reader & 16x DVD Burner $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136174

8X Blu-ray Burner $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136175


I use linksys for my networking, but don't see any on NE. I don't think you really need the sound card.
 
Thanks gwarren007,

That looks great! I'll have to do some research in other sections here on video cards and optical drives, but this seems like the core a really great system.

I want to read up on all this, but I hope to start ordering components in the next couple of days.

If anyone else has recommendations I'd love them as well.

edit: Looks like you added the optical drives after I read your post.

Any recommendations on video cards? I didn't mention this, but since my monitors support it I'd probably look for something that supported using Display Port for connection.
 
gwarren007 said:
I would recommened dropping down to a 920 cpu and installing eithor a SSD disk or a ram disk.
Click to expand...

The drop to 920 cpu is to reduce cost to allow the SSD, or for some other reason?

I've read a bit about the SSD disks. Are you suggesting this be used as the primary system drive? How would this be used? (Just the OS installed on it?)

Any recommendations of particular ones?

Getting very excited about this. Could see ordering something in the next couple of days.

Thanks for the great advice. I've got a lot of reading to do now.
 
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Information on SSDs:

enginurd said:
RAID0 scales very well with SSDs, so two 60GB indilinx-based drives in RAID0 will outperform a single 120GB by a huge margin, including the all-important area of small write speeds, which increase nearly 400% with RAID0 (from 0.5MB-32MB), as seen here:
http://alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/ocz_vertex.html (also, check out the links at the top of the page)

The lowest I've seen a 60GB Indilinx based drive was the SuperTalent UltraDrive ME 64GB for $138 at the egg. All the indilinx drives perform nearly the same, so it doesn't have to be an OCZ Agility (which actually uses slower memory chips than the other choices): OCZ Vertex, SuperTalent UltraDrive ME, Patriot TorqX, and G.Skill Falcon. Even if you stick to a single Indilinx based SSD, it would still be faster than a VRaptor, just not enough to make most people say, "WOW." :p
Click to expand...

The Intel X25-M SSDs are often recommended for those looking for one SSD, but they're more expensive that other brands/models.

You could save some money by omitting the second BD-ROM optical drive; that money would be better spent on software that would allow you to play Blu-ray movies. But if Blu-ray is more of a novelty than a necessity for you, then drop it altogether and buy a DVD burner. Plenty of those are available for under $40 each.

Virtually all wireless cards and adapters are designed to work with any wireless hub or router. Linksys, D-Link, and Netgear are three of the better supported manufacturers; Linksys is a subdivision of Cisco. For your office environment, Linksys is "preferred" due to its connections to Cisco, but other brands would work just as well.

Out of curiosity, what gaming do you plan on doing with this system?
 
dropping to a 920 is most likely to accommodate for the SSD's costs.

on the SSD you will want to have your OS and optional most used applications-> browsers, office apps, your coding apps, even most played games if you see fit.
 
I realized I'm not going to need any networking support as my wired network jack lives right next to my system, and the motherboard is going to have that built in.

I'm on the fence about the SSD. Part of me wants to take the plunge, another part of me thinks waiting another 6 months and adding that component at that time might make sense. (Especially since so many places seem to be out of the drives.)

I agree on omitting the 2nd Blu-ray drive. Mainly I'd like the ability to create Blu-ray disks. I already have a PS3 that I'll be doing my movie watching on. Historically I've had 2 optical drives in my machines, but any more that seems to be unnecessary overkill. I do like to have LightScribe capability, but that's not a deal breaker.

The gaming that I do is lame compared to what most people here consider gaming. :) Currently I'm more likely to play something by Sid Meier or a Red Alert than I am anything that. Mainly that's because I haven't had much time for gaming lately.
 
Furthermore on SSDs...

with a budget of $2500, you'll need 2x Intel X25-M 80GB SSDs, at the very least. j/k :p Intels are king, with Indilinx and Samsung not far behind. The Intel X25-M SSDs have fast small random write speeds, but have slower sequential speeds. Conversely, the Indilinx based drives have faster sequential speeds, but slower small random write speeds. When you RAID0 the Indilinx drives, the small random write speeds increase enough to more than compensate for the single drive's deficiency. Likewise, when you RAID0 Intel drives, the sequential speeds increase more than enough. Small random write speeds are more important for the desktop user than sequential speeds. For single SSD usage, the Intel is a better choice because of this. However, Indilinx based drives' small random write speeds are still faster than mechanical drives, so even in a single drive config, it's still a faster than a HDD.

Your choice in SSD is dependent on budget and need. The Intel 80GB typically goes for $260 on amazon, and the SuperTalent UltraDrive ME 64GB can be found under $180, last seen for $138 before it went out of stock at the egg.

Here's more SSD reading material:
[Anandtech] The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ
[Anandtech] The SSD Update: Vertex Gets Faster, New Indilinx Drives and Intel/MacBook Problems Resolved
[Anandtech] The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
[Hard|OCP] SSD RAID scaling under Windows 7

Personally, I'd go for two cheaper Indilinx drives in RAID0 over a single larger SSD.
 
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I've been reading quite a bit on SSD, and have moved it back into the consideration set. Going Raid0 at this point seems like overkill, and if I'm reading correctly I lose the potential for things like TRIM in a Raid configuration (right?). I can always move to Raid0 at some point in the future.

So that leaves the issue of what to buy. According to the reading I've done, the OCZ Vertex is comparable to the Intel at a cheaper price point. The 120GB OCZSSD2-1VTX120G is currently $389. That seems pretty attractive. For $100 less I could get the 80GB Intel X25-M. So the trade off here is $100 vs. 40 GB.

With the SSD drive, it has to go in some type of drive converter, correct? (Lke the ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-1B 2.5" to 3.5" SSD & SATA Hard Drive Converter) The 80 GB Intel currently comes with one of those free at NewEgg, but I'm not going to quibble over $20 or so.

With the SSD, I can remove one of the 1 TB drives and am still under budget even if I stay with the 950. Should I go down to the 920 anyhow?

More advice greatly welcomed. Thanks for all the great advice I've gotten.

Edit: after I posted this I saw an acticle that said that OCZ Vertex does not support TRIM. True? Is this enough to warrant going with the smaller Intel drive?

One add on question--for someone who last put together a system from scratch about 4 years ago, are there any particular challenging elements in an install using the case and equipment specified here?
 
Well, I spent most of today reading and researching, and tonight I placed my order. Here's what I wound up buying:

LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58 Black CECC Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601950 - Retail

XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

Antec TruePower New TP-750 Blue 750W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE ... - Retail

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1333C7 G - Retail (2 for a total of 12 GB)

OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail

ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-1B 2.5" to 3.5" SSD & SATA Hard Drive Converter - Black - Retail

LG Black Blu-ray Reader & 16x DVD Burner - Bulk SATA Model UH08LS10K LightScribe Support - OEM

LG Black 8X Blu-ray Burner - Bulk Model WH08LS20K - OEM

Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM SATA II WD1001FALS

Bottom line: around $2,430

This is $30 less than the system I pre-specified. It does not include a keyboard, mouse, speakers, or custom sound. (I doubt I'd need the high end sound card, but if I do I can add it down the road.) It does include much better spec equipment than the other things I would have gotten in the stock HP system.

If all goes well with order delivery, I should be putting this together next weekend.

Thanks all for your help!
 
For all who contributed....thanks for you advice! I put the system together last Thursday night and have been running it for a few days now. I could not be happier with the system.

I haven't finished tweaking it yet. Windows 7 gives the system a 7.0 on its scale of 1 to 7.9 for system performance. I need to figure out what is causing it to not be a 7.9. :)

I did wind up buying the SSD and that has worked really well for me. The only issue I ran into during the assembly was the really crappy instructions that came with the video card. There was no instructions to speak of that said anything other "plug card into slot". It neglected to call attention to the additional power input on the card and that took me about an hour to notice and plug in. Once I did that there were no problems at all.

When the system is running I cannot hear it at all. The case is really teriffic.

One of the bluray drives is very loud. It sounds like a prop plane sounds like when you're in the cabin. I can live with that. It's pretty much the only thing that doesn't seem absolutely perfect.

So far, best computer I've ever owned by far.
 
Right now the computer is sitting on a folding table, BUT I have a new HON desk on order that should arrive in the next week or so. I'll take pictures then. :)
 
Running 1.40 on the Vertex since I want to use TRIM. Probably spent most of my time on the Vertex SSD and the video card during the setup.
 
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