Need recommendations for bang-for-buck computing!

E

evt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 6, 2006
Messages
253
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Moderate gaming (World of Tanks), Adobe CS5 suite (Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver), Engineering software (Matlab, Xilinx, LabView, etc.)


2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Hopefully less then $600 for the CPU, CPU cooling and motherboard. All the other part upgrades are of very low priority. Tax and S/H not included.


3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Los Angeles, CA


4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Intel CPU (leaning towards i7-2600k or a i5-2500k)
A solid motherboard for overclocking (mATX or ATX is fine)
CPU Cooler to achieve satisfactory OCing results without being horribly loud. (Most likely a self-contained water loop like those Corsair H100's)


5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb G92
Corsair HX620
(2x) Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 8GB kit (PC3 10666)
Some ATX Case that has a single 120mm rear fan.
Rebranded Intel X-25M 160gb SSD


6) Will you be overclocking?
Most likely, I want to try to achieve a 4.5ghz+ with less fuss as possible (from what I have heard from many people).


7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
(2x 22") 1680x1050, would like to expand to more monitors in the future.


8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Hopefully within a month.


9) What features do you need in a motherboard?
USB 3.0, eSATA would be good bonuses but can shove in an add-in card if this limits motherboard choices. CFX/SLI is necessary for driving multiple monitors.
Onboard video or RAID is not necessary.


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


I am not up to snuff about which best bang-for-buck parts to build a new PC from, but I am aiming towards features that can somewhat future-proof the computer as long as possible, such as IB compatibility for certain NB chipsets.

Also barely leaning towards an mATX build so I can lug it around easier.
 
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For uATX, then the only OC'ing board I would recommend would be the Asus Gene-Z - $180

SInce you seem to do a lot of photo editing, rendering, and engineering/CAD type stuff, go for the 2600K - $330

For a cooler, you could go with:
Water: Corsair H80 - $90
Air: CM 212+ EVO - $35


version $0.02 installed...
 
evt said:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Moderate gaming (World of Tanks), Adobe CS5 suite (Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver), Engineering software (Matlab, Xilinx, LabView, etc.)


2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Hopefully less then $600 for the CPU, CPU cooling and motherboard. All the other part upgrades are of very low priority. Tax and S/H not included.


3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Los Angeles, CA


4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Intel CPU (leaning towards i7-2600k or a i5-2500k)
A solid motherboard for overclocking (mATX or ATX is fine)
CPU Cooler to achieve satisfactory OCing results without being horribly loud. (Most likely a self-contained water loop like those Corsair H100's)


5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb G92
Corsair HX620
(2x) Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 8GB kit (PC3 10666)
Some ATX Case that has a single 120mm rear fan.
Rebranded Intel X-25M 160gb SSD


6) Will you be overclocking?
Most likely, I want to try to achieve a 4.5ghz+ with less fuss as possible (from what I have heard from many people).


7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
(2x 22") 1680x1050, would like to expand to more monitors in the future.


8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Hopefully within a month.


9) What features do you need in a motherboard?
USB 3.0, eSATA would be good bonuses but can shove in an add-in card if this limits motherboard choices. CFX/SLI is necessary for driving multiple monitors.
Onboard video or RAID is not necessary.


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


I am not up to snuff about which best bang-for-buck parts to build a new PC from, but I am aiming towards features that can somewhat future-proof the computer as long as possible, such as IB compatibility for certain NB chipsets.

Also barely leaning towards an mATX build so I can lug it around easier.
Click to expand...

If you're going to be using the MPE GPU acceleration feature in Premiere Pro CS5.x, I'd strongly recommend replacing the GPU. You see, that old 8800 GTS 512MB does not have enough VRAM to even enable the feature at all. MPE GPU acceleration requires a minimum of 765MB of free, unused VRAM just to even work at all. Without enough VRAM, Premiere Pro will fall completely back to the software-only MPE mode, which means that it will run about as sluggishly as the same system that uses a really cheapo graphics card (or a system with only an IGP rather than a discrete GPU, for that matter). And even if the 8800 GTS had 1GB of RAM, MPE GPU acceleration performance would still be hobbled by the GTS's paltry 128 CUDA cores. In that case, go with at least a GTX 550 Ti at an absolute minimum (but a GTX 560 or higher is better).
 
E4g1e said:
If you're going to be using the MPE GPU acceleration feature in Premiere Pro CS5.x, I'd strongly recommend replacing the GPU. You see, that old 8800 GTS 512MB does not have enough VRAM to even enable the feature at all. MPE GPU acceleration requires a minimum of 765MB of free, unused VRAM just to even work at all. Without enough VRAM, Premiere Pro will fall completely back to the software-only MPE mode, which means that it will run about as sluggishly as the same system that uses a really cheapo graphics card (or a system with only an IGP rather than a discrete GPU, for that matter). And even if the 8800 GTS had 1GB of RAM, MPE GPU acceleration performance would still be hobbled by the GTS's paltry 128 CUDA cores. In that case, go with at least a GTX 550 Ti at an absolute minimum (but a GTX 560 or higher is better).
Click to expand...

I will keep that in mind since I am planning to get a 560 Ti down the line, but for the time being, any upgrades other then the CPU+motherboard is of darn low priority.
 
evt said:
I will keep that in mind since I am planning to get a 560 Ti down the line, but for the time being, any upgrades other then the CPU+motherboard is of darn low priority.
Click to expand...

Down the line, nVidia will be coming up with new Kepler replacements for everything over $100. This means that there will be a successor to the GTX 560 Ti by the time it's actually time to upgrade the GPU. We do not know for sure whether the Kepler successor to the 560 Ti will perform any better, nor will we know for sure that it will even be compatible at all with CS5's MPE GPU acceleration feature (you might have to upgrade to CS6 when it comes out just to even enable such a feature with the Kepler GPUs).
 
If you have a Facebook account and a Microcenter nearby I honestly don't think you can go wrong with the i7 2600 for $199. Granted, it's not the "K" version but it provides pretty awesome bang-for-buck for the price.
 
Any chance that you can wait until late April to do the upgrade? That's when Intel is releasing their new IB CPUs.
 
Danny Bui said:
Any chance that you can wait until late April to do the upgrade? That's when Intel is releasing their new IB CPUs.
Click to expand...

I suppose I can. In that case, I will probably scour the deals/FS sub-forums to see if I can pick up any deals on the lesser priority parts.
 
Bit on a refurb 560ti 2win (dual-gpu on single care) for $260, which I think is a fairly good deal performance-wise but I hope this doesn't bite me in the ass for the impulse buy. While I wait for IB, I guess I will toss this card into my current Q6600 system and hope the PSU doesn't buckle and explode, killing me in the process.
 
evt said:
Bit on a refurb 560ti 2win (dual-gpu on single care) for $260, which I think is a fairly good deal performance-wise but I hope this doesn't bite me in the ass for the impulse buy. While I wait for IB, I guess I will toss this card into my current Q6600 system and hope the PSU doesn't buckle and explode, killing me in the process.
Click to expand...

Your link is wrong: It's linking to the 2GB GTX 560 TI, not the 2Win. Which card did you actually buy?

And that choice may bite you in the ass later on .
 
Danny Bui said:
Your link is wrong: It's linking to the 2GB GTX 560 TI, not the 2Win. Which card did you actually buy?

And that choice may bite you in the ass later on .
Click to expand...

Are you sure? The part number is 02G-P3-1569-RX, which matches to the 'EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win' card unless Newegg completely screwed up on every part of the description and the title.
 
Danny Bui said:
I am sure. This is the link you gave us:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130762

This is the actual 2Win link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130737

They share similar part numbers though:
02G-P3-1569-RX <= GTX 560 Ti 2GB
02G-P3-1569-KR <= GTX 560 Ti 2Win

Nowhere in that PDF file does it say the "KR" or "RX" portion
Click to expand...

I just checked the eVGA site, and "RX" means a refurbished product. Newegg screwed up the description by omitting the "2Win". Unfortunately, buying a refurbished card might save the OP a few dollars - but then, the OP will get screwed with the warranty: All refurbished eVGA products are warrantied for only three months (versus three years for brand-new-in-box KR cards).

And come to think of it, the 2Win is not an actual 2GB card. Instead, that card is actually two GTX 560 Ti chips on a single card - each having its own 1GB of RAM. Neither of the two GPUs on that card is linked via SLI, however, making that card best suited for multiple-monitor (specifically, triple- or quadruple-monitor) setups.
 
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Danny Bui said:
I am sure. This is the link you gave us:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130762

This is the actual 2Win link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130737

They share similar part numbers though:
02G-P3-1569-RX <= GTX 560 Ti 2GB
02G-P3-1569-KR <= GTX 560 Ti 2Win

Nowhere in that PDF file does it say the "KR" or "RX" portion
Click to expand...

Ah, you are using the Newegg title to show that the card is specifically named a 2Win, where I used the part number listed on the EVGA. It took me a while to figure out how you are getting that 'GTX 560 Ti 2GB' matched up with that part number.
560ti2win.png


Damn it.
 
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