Looking for advice on Gaming/Work Build

[BiggerBoat]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
95% Work (Photoshop, some minor video stuff) and 5% gaming, but I'd like for it to be awesome for that 5%. Games include flight sims, shooters, etc.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Targeting max $1500-$1800, shipped, but there is some flexibility.

3) Where do you live?
Washington State

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, CPU Cooler, Mobo, RAM, Case, Video Card, Power Supply, Hard Drive, Optical Drive

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I have some existing Western Digital Black 7200 1TB Drives

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes. Would like to get as close to a stable 5ghz as possible.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Two 24" HP ZR24w at 1920x1200. One Wacom Cintiq at 1280x800.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
I'd like to be building this in two weeks.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Firewire is a nice-to-have, but not a must have. Same with USB 3.0

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 Home 64-bit

Let me toss a few extra bullets in here:

• My current set-up is a Q6600 @ 3.0 with Nvidia 8800GTS 512. It's getting long int the tooth for modern games.
• Trying to run 3 monitors with my current mobo has been a nightmare (only 1 PCI-e slot). I ended up with a PCI card that runs as slow as molasses, even when scrolling web pages. For this build, I'm not that interested in SLI but I want to run the 2 monitors plus the Cintiq without any goofiness. Do I get a mobo with at least two PCI-e slots, with one powerful gaming card and then just get an inexpensive 2nd card for my Wacom Cintiq?
• For the build, I"m looking for good cooling and ease-of-installation. I'm mechanically inept, so need plenty of room to move around in
• Would like plenty of bays for extra drives (it's the one thing I tend to add through the life of the system)
• I will probably upgrade to SSD for the primary drive at some point
• For the mobo and CPU combo, looking for ease of overclocking; perhaps a popular combo so I can trawl the forums for specific overclock walkthroughs
• Would like 8GB of RAM for Photoshop
• I don't mind a case that's big and ugly; it sits under my desk
• I do a major upgrade only every 3-4 years
• Games I want to play: Some complex flight sims (FSX and the new Microsoft Flight when it appears, the new A-10 sim), the new Elder Scrolls game, FarCry 2, Crysis, Total War games (Shogun 2) ... generally, I've got a huge backlog of games (thank you Steam sales!) and just want solid, no compromise gaming for anything that's out now or that comes out in 2011.

So at this stage I'm just thinking:

• Either a i7-2500k or i7-2600k
• I would prefer an Nvidia GPU unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise (GeForce GTX 570?), and maybe a 2nd, less powerful card for the Cintiq?
• A 2x4gb DDR-3 (1600?) Memory Kit

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[tiraides]

I'll wait until next week to break down specific parts and prices, but for now, here's what you should be looking at:

Intel Core i7 2600k
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF
Mid-range P67 ATX motherboard with two x8 PCI-E slots
16GB of DDR3 1333 1.5V RAM (either two 2x4GB sets or four 4GB DIMMs, whichever is cheaper)
120GB-256GB SSD (primary/OS drive)
Two GTX 560 Ti cards in SLI mode (for your three monitors plus CUDA)
A good 80 Plus (Rated/Bronze/Silver) 850 watt power supply
(I'll let you pick out the case)

The reason why I'm waiting until next week is that NewEgg will have different combo deals for April, and the good deals will probably arrive around the second full week of April.

 

[BiggerBoat]

After doing a bit of additional research, here's my pass at a build. It's well below my budget, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as I think it's better to hit a solid price/performance ratio.

CPU
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
$224.99
Notes: By all appearances, there's limited value for me in the 2600k

Mainboard
ASUS P8P67-M PRO
$149.99 Plus Tax
Note: Buying at Amazon because of NewEgg stock issues

CPU Cooler
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
$34.99
Note: this one seems to get a lot of recommendations. Any issues with my case, GPU or memory in terms of clearance?

Memory
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)
Note: I've seen some contrasting opinions on memory, with some saying that the i5-2500k isn't really going to benefit from higher speed memory. However, I've also seen a lot of posts referring to aggressive memory timings. This set is 9-9-9-24. Sufficient?

GPU-1
EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1573-AR GeForce GTX 570 HD w/Display-Port (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Note: This card is for my two primary displays (1980x1200)
$349.99

GPU-2
ECS NGT430C-1GQR-F GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card
Note: This 2nd card is to power my 1280x800 Wacom Cintiq at 1280x800. I am not entirely certain if this is the way to go, but I don't want to spend money on an SLI setup since I tend to upgrade the primary video card every couple of years. Any issues with this approach? I am not looking for gaming-level performance out of my Cintiq.
$69.99

POWER SUPPLY
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
$141.99

HARD DRIVE
Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$169.99

OPTICAL DRIVE
LITE-ON Black 18X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model iHDP118-04 - OEM
$16.99

OPERATING SYSTEM
I have an unused Windows 7 Home Professional 64-bit out of a family 3-pack that I'll be using.

Total comes in at $1328, plus a bit of tax for the Amazon purchase.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

[E4g1e]

Two not-so-good buys in that build:

1) The read-only optical drive. At $24 shipped, it is more expensive than many of the SATA DVD burners at Newegg. Plus, that particular read-only drive is a PATA drive, not a SATA drive - but the Asus P8P67 series mobos (with the exception of the entry-level regular ATX P8P67 LE) do not have any PATA ports at all. In other words, the optical drive you selected won't work at all with most of the P67 mobos unless you spend extra money for a SATA-to-PATA bridge adapter that's compatible with optical drives.

2) The 2TB WD Black hard drive. That WD Black is much more expensive than several hard drives of equal capacity that are almost as fast in sequential transfer performance. The only significant advantage the 2TB Black offers is the relatively quick access speed compared to other 7200 rpm HDDs. Most of all, no single current-model HDD comes anywhere close to saturating even SATA 3.0 Gbps, let alone SATA 6.0 Gbps.

 

[m_isom]

Pretty good selection and nice use of color and notes BiggerBoat.

Are you going to use one of your old 1tb black for the boot drive and a 2tb for storage?

The optical drive being reader only and PATA has already been addressed, need SATA and for the price may as well have a burner, this LG is $19 and $7 shipping $26 is about as low as it gets.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136216

I didn't catch your chosen case, a bit expensive but the Corsair 600T looks like it has plenty of room to work in with excellent cable management. If you don't like this case search for posts by Dannybui as he has an impressive list of cases he recommends.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...003&cm_re=corsair_case-_-11-139-003-_-Product $160 before $25 rebate

 

[Dangman]

Amazon.com charges tax to Washington state residents?

You didn't list what case you were you using so can't really answer the question about clearance issues. But for RAM and GPU, plenty of clearance

The RAM you chose is sufficient BTW. AS for the video card, no issue with that approach. So you can actually go lower on the video card if you wanted to. Something like the GT 210 should still suffice.

HDD wise, I'd recommend this:
$120 - Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 HDS722020ALA330 2TB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

As for DVD burners, go for the cheapest one with free shipping

CPU wise, I actually recommend spending the extra cash for the 2600K since you only do a major upgrade every 3-4 years. In that time, Adobe could very well release a new version of Photoshop that's highly multi-threaded. Or you might do more video editing in the future. So the extra cash for the HT feature for the 2600K might be worth it in the long run.

 

[BiggerBoat]

1) The read-only optical drive. At $24 shipped, it is more expensive than many of the SATA DVD burners at Newegg. Plus, that particular read-only drive is a PATA drive, not a SATA driv

Thanks. I was paying too much attention. I'll definitely pick up a proper optical drive/burner. Those things are free with a bag of groceries these days.

2) The 2TB WD Black hard drive. That WD Black is much more expensive than several hard drives of equal capacity that are almost as fast in sequential transfer performance. The only significant advantage the 2TB Black offers is the relatively quick access speed compared to other 7200 rpm HDDs. Most of all, no single current-model HDD comes anywhere close to saturating even SATA 3.0 Gbps, let alone SATA 6.0 Gbps.

As for drives, I had considered using one of my current 1TB WD Black drives for the new OS, with this 2TB as a data drive. It sounds like the Black drives in general might be a bit of overkill. My current system is 3TB of storage, and I'd like to up it to about 4TB. What's the current thinking these days in terms of the value of separate drives for OS/data versus just separate partitions? Actually, I may want to go with a relatively small drive for OS (maybe 500MB), since I'll be considering an SSD swap in a year or two.

Are you going to use one of your old 1tb black for the boot drive and a 2tb for storage?

The optical drive being reader only and PATA has already been addressed, need SATA and for the price may as well have a burner, this LG is $19 and $7 shipping $26 is about as low as it gets.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136216

I didn't catch your chosen case, a bit expensive but the Corsair 600T looks like it has plenty of room to work in with excellent cable management. If you don't like this case search for posts by Dannybui as he has an impressive list of cases he recommends.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...003&cm_re=corsair_case-_-11-139-003-_-Product $160 before $25 rebate

Thanks for the recommendations. I had forgotten to put down my case. After a quick review I targeted this one: LIAN LI Lancool PC-K7B Black Aluminum/ SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, but I'll take a look a those recommendations.

Amazon.com charges tax to Washington state residents?

Yeah, Amazon dinks us Washington folks with sales tax. Kind of a bummer because I love Amazon. Doesn't stop me from being a prime member and spending thousands of dollars there every year.

CPU wise, I actually recommend spending the extra cash for the 2600K since you only do a major upgrade every 3-4 years. In that time, Adobe could very well release a new version of Photoshop that's highly multi-threaded. Or you might do more video editing in the future. So the extra cash for the HT feature for the 2600K might be worth it in the long run.

Interesting. I'll give it some thought. $100 difference is definitely not a deal-breaker for me. I have been doing a bit more video encoding as of late.

Really appreciate the suggestions from everyone. I'll give things a look and take another pass at the build. I'm hoping to get things shipped out to assemble next weekend.

 

[Dangman]

As for drives, I had considered using one of my current 1TB WD Black drives for the new OS, with this 2TB as a data drive. It sounds like the Black drives in general might be a bit of overkill. My current system is 3TB of storage, and I'd like to up it to about 4TB.

If it's only data storage, no need for the Hitachi drive I linked to earlier. You'll be fine with this drive:
$80 - Samsung Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

What's the current thinking these days in terms of the value of separate drives for OS/data versus just separate partitions? Actually, I may want to go with a relatively small drive for OS (maybe 500MB), since I'll be considering an SSD swap in a year or two.

Well these days when it comes to SSDs, it's pretty much standard practice in having the OS and small apps on the SSD and programs/data/game installs on a fast hard drive. Seperate partitions is still used occasionally with single hard drives due to "short stroking". That's where, but not always, you partition the first partition to be 20% to 25% of the hard drive's total size to get max performance possible for the OS paritition. The rest of the hard drive can be partitioned as seen fit.

 

[BiggerBoat]

Here's an updated build:

CPU
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
$224.99
Notes: In the end, I think there's limited value in the 2600k for the kind of work I'm doing. Photoshop performs fine on my current system, and any video conversions are generally done in the background and not under time pressure. Might as well save the $100.

Mainboard
ASUS P8P67-M PRO
$149.99 Plus Tax
Note: Buying at Amazon because of NewEgg stock issues

CPU Cooler
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
$34.99

Memory
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)
Now: $79.99

GPU-1
EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1573-AR GeForce GTX 570 HD w/Display-Port (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Note: This card is for my two primary displays (1980x1200)
$349.99

GPU-2
ASUS EN210 SILENT/DI/512MD2(LP) GeForce 210 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card
Note: This 2nd card is to power my 1280x800 Wacom Cintiq.
$38.99

POWER SUPPLY
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
$141.99

CASE
Cooler Master HAF ATX Mid Tower Case, RC-922M-KKN1-GP
Note: Buying this from Amazon because I think the savings in Prime shipping will make up for the WA sales tax
$99.98

OS HARD DRIVE
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD322GJ/U 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Note: This will be my primary apps/OS drive. I'll probably swap with an SSD in a year or two.
$42.99

STORAGE HARD DRIVE
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Note: Secondary apps and data storage.
$79.99

OPTICAL DRIVE
LG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD±RW SuperMulti Drive - OEM
$18.99

OPERATING SYSTEM
I have an unused Windows 7 Home Professional 64-bit out of a family 3-pack that I'll be using.

Looks like the total comes in around $1,400 taxed and shipped.

You guys have been really helpful. Thanks.

 

[Dangman]

You listed the wrong hard drive: The price and link belongs to the Hitachi drive, not the Samsung drive.

Ditch that GT 430 card: Waay too expensive at $77 shipped. It should not cost more than $65 shipped. As said earlier, just go for a GT 210 or GT 220 (whichever one is cheaper) and you'll be set.

 

[BiggerBoat]

You listed the wrong hard drive: The price and link belongs to the Hitachi drive, not the Samsung drive.

Ditch that GT 430 card: Waay too expensive at $77 shipped. It should not cost more than $65 shipped. As said earlier, just go for a GT 210 or GT 220 (whichever one is cheaper) and you'll be set.

Thanks. Made some edits per your suggestions.

 

[Dangman]

Still listed the wrong price for the GPU and Samsung drive but besides that, looks good to me.

 

[BiggerBoat]

Prices corrected. Thanks.

Of course, as soon as I am ready to pull the trigger the motherboard goes out of stock at Amazon. Any suggestions on an alternate? I've heard a few bad stories about the Asus, but it also seems to be a good one for relatively idiot-proof overclocking and there's lots of solid references on the web.

 

[Dangman]

I recommend this CPU + mobo combo deal:
$340 - Intel Core i5-2500K CPU + MSI P67A-G43 Intel P67 ATX Motherboard