New build by 1st time builder please help

S

samshaptak

n00b
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Messages
3
Hi All,
I am trying to build a computer to do the following tasks efficiently:
1. Scientific computing: demanding software with huge data sets.
2. Photoshop
3. games like Call of duty: MW (occasionally)
I have never built a computer, but think I can handle it. My budget is 1700. That is the upper limit. Please let me know any changes you suggest. I do not know whether I want over clocking and water cooling. Sounds scary to me.

Here is the configuration I came up with:

Case: Antec Twelve Hundred ATX Gaming Case 160
http://microcenter.com/single_prod [...] id=0288150

Processor: Processor: Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 Quad-Core Desktop Processor - Retail 294
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail SATA 3.0, USB 3.0, 3x USB power 210
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 63938&SID=

Memory: G.SKILL PI Series 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7T2-12GBPI – Retail 365
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 63938&SID=

Graphics card: SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail 180.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102858

Hard drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive 90.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152185

Power supply: Antec CP-850 850W Continuous Power CPX SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC "compatible with Core i7" Power Supply – 109
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 63938&SID=

CPU cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long life sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail 39
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 63938&SID=

CD/DVD burner: PLEXTOR Black 24X DVD+R 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD/CD Writer LightScribe Support - OEM 45
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 9054"
Monitor: Dell ST2410 24-inch Full HD Widescreen Monitor with Logitech Wireless Desktop MK 300 Keyboard and Mouse 231
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna [...] u=320-1070

Thermal Paste: OCZ OCZTFRZTC Freeze Extreme Thermal Conductivity Compound - Retail 5.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 63938&SID=

Sound card: None
Speakers : None
OS: Windows 7- Professional 64-Bit Edition (Microsoft) (free from school).
 
Looks good to me. We could probably save you a few bucks here-or-there with combos, but your build overall looks fine.

The 5770 is fine for occasional gaming up to 1920x1200, so unless you're using a 30" monitor, you're set.

What you might want to add, to make Photoshop zip and zing: an 80GB Intel SSD for $225.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3&cm_re=intel_80gb_ssd-_-20-167-023-_-Product

With the price break, this thing is a great deal. Install Windows and your applications on it, and they will fly. Be sure to put the Photoshop scratch drive on there too. Use the F3 for large datasets, and for archives.
 
Get a smaller, cheaper case, and a different PSU -- the CPX standard is neat and all, but it's proprietary (Antec literally made it up) and will limit your options.

You don't have that much hardware, so there's no reason for something as massive as the Twelve Hundred; look at the Three Hundred or possibly P183 if you want to stick with Antec, or even something like a Lian Li PC-A05B.
 
Danny also has a huge list of cases, and my personal favorites would be the CM RC-690 or 590, taking into consideration price, cooling, and space/wire mgmt. The P183 is nice, but I think its way overpriced. If you change to a different case, you'll also need to switch the PSU as sc mentioned; I'd suggest any Corsair or Antec TP-New.

I also agree with luser's SSD suggestion. Your computer is as fast as your slowest component, and the HDD is definitely the bottleneck in modern systems. SSDs greatly improve the user experience, so I'd highly suggest one since you have the budget and need for it.

Also, since you're getting 12GB, be sure to setup a RAMDisk for your PS Scratch disk. I know Adobe claims the CS does it for you, but it doesn't. :p
 
Danny's huge list of cases coming up:
$50 - Cooler Master Elite 335 RC-335-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$50 - Thermaltake WingRS 201 VJ60001N2Z ATX Case
$55 - Antec 300 ATX Case
$70 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$80 - Cooler Master RC-690-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$110 - Lian Li PC-E8B ATX Case
$120 - Lian Li PC-7FN ATX Case
$120 - Thermaltake ElementS VK60001N2Z ATX Case
$130 - Cooler Master Storm Sniper ATX Case
$150 - Antec P183 ATX Case
$160 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$170 - Cooler Master Cosmos S 1000 RC-1100-KSN1-GP Full Tower ATX Case
$180 - Cooler Master ATCS 840 RC-840-KKN1-GP Full Tower ATX Case

I would go with a XFX branded card for the lifetime warranty, far better customer support and $20 in savings:
$160 - XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB PCI-E Video Card

RAM wise, I'd go for these two of these sets instead to save an additional $37:
$165 - G.Skill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM

You can save an additional $25 if you get the CPU and mobo from this combo link:
$480 - Intel Core i7-930 CPU + Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R X58 ATX Motherboard Combo

PSU wise, I would go with this PSU if you really want modular and better compatibility for other ATX cases:
$120 - Corsair 650HX 650W Modular PSU

DVD burner wise, don't pay the extra for the Plextor. The components in Plextor drives are the same as other DVD drives theses days. I'd go for this DVD burner instead:
$25 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner

So the above changes would be about $92 in savings. If you go for a cheaper case, i,e the Coolermaster RC-590 and RC-690 cases, that would be an additional $172 in savings. That should cover most of the costs of the Intel 80GB SSD.
 
For never building a computer you sure are going to build a hell of one for your first shot. I think the system out of the box will be enough without overclocking. With that case though it might be a bit loud with all the fans so if this will be irritating you might want to research water cooling.
 
Wow! I did not expect I would get so many valuable inputs.Thank you defaultuser, silent-circuit,enginurd, danny and piker 28 for all your valuable suggestions and comments.
I decided to make the changes you recommended:
1. getting an 80 gb ssd from newegg.
2. XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB PCI-E Video Card
3. Corsair 650HX 650W Modular PSU
4. I just found out i7 930 is $199 from microcenter and there is one close to my place. I would be there today.
5. Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
6. LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner

Now danny, how do I buy the case from you ?
Also, I was wondering if you recommend to upgrade the video card to 5830 does that have any noticeable advantage over 5770.
I really appreciate your help.
 
^ Another vote on the SSD. You'll be very pleased making this choice. :)
 
LOL! I don't sell cases man. I just keep a bunch of newegg links to cases that I personally would use to help others select a case :)

If you're still going for a 24" monitor, get the HD 5850 if you can fit it inside your budget and if you plan on doing some heavy gaming.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Sorry danny, I wrongly assumed that. I think I would go for 5850
Can anyone recommend a good card please.
 
visiotek and xfx both have lifetime warranties... so whatever is cheaper and instock at the time.
 
SSDs are a waste of money better to put it in to a better video card or CPU cooler

but i would look different HSF then the cooler master and maybe go with a Corsair PSU
 
^Is this coming from somebody that doesn't use an ssd? With his budget it would be silly not get one. And anyone on this board that owns an I7 and not an SSD to go with is also just plain silly. You own a Corsair 800D and if you don't have at the bare minimum a $100 ssd on your box to run your windows and apps that would just be the craziest thing I ever saw.
 
rive22 said:
^Is this coming from somebody that doesn't have an ssd? With his budget it would be silly not get one. And anyone on this board that owns an I7 and not an SSD to go with is also just plain silly. You own a Coarsair 800D if you don't have at least a $100 ssd on your box to run your windows and apps that's just the craziest thing I ever saw.
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hes already picked parted that could be shuffled around else were and imo any SSD under 80GB isnt big enough and the 80+ ones you could get a WD 2TB Black for as much as some cost

SSDs just dont have price to make them worth it id get a better PSU, heatsink, video card or even case first
if you skip the SSD he could get a 5870 just saying

untill SSDs are $1 a GB i cant see the point on a desktop on netbook sure but not for some thing thats got power all the time from the wall

i dont buy cases often last case i had be for this i got in 03' and the one befor that in 97' soo 300 for case that ill keep for 5 to 6 years if not longer ( out grew the others)
i need ~80GB for my system drive to live on unltill i can get that for <100 bucks not worth it ill get 2TB Black be for that
i dont NEED a SSD stuff runs plenty fast and i can wait the extra 20 sec for my PC to boot once a month
 
I just picked up new parts yesterday from Micro Center (first time there, Paterson NJ and it's in a UEZ so it was only 3.5% tax!)

Get the CPU there definitely, I also picked up the same motherboard as well. I haven't been able to test it yet since I'm still waiting on my PSU, GPU and heatsink to arrive but it definitely looks very nice.e

As for cases, I picked up the Antec 300, it's a nice case and it doesn't have any of those LEDs so I'm happy.
 
onetwenty8k said:
I just picked up new parts yesterday from Micro Center (first time there, Paterson NJ and it's in a UEZ so it was only 3.5% tax!)

Get the CPU there definitely, I also picked up the same motherboard as well. I haven't been able to test it yet since I'm still waiting on my PSU, GPU and heatsink to arrive but it definitely looks very nice.e

As for cases, I picked up the Antec 300, it's a nice case and it doesn't have any of those LEDs so I'm happy.
Click to expand...

I have my server in an Antec 300 & I must say its a very nice case without breaking the bank..
And as far as the SSD Goes your PC is only as fast as the slowest part & Thats your hard drive. It is true there cost per GB is horrible compared to mechanical drives, but this is the enthusiast market, not the value market. Just like paying for your video card when you could use on-board we pay for performance..

Nice Build BTW
 
bastage said:
I have my server in an Antec 300 & I must say its a very nice case without breaking the bank..
And as far as the SSD Goes your PC is only as fast as the slowest part & Thats your hard drive. It is true there cost per GB is horrible compared to mechanical drives, but this is the enthusiast market, not the value market. Just like paying for your video card when you could use on-board we pay for performance..

Nice Build BTW
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that is only partly true any more i could say the same about opitcal drives
and if you want why not get RAID 0 with SSDs then? to rich for your blood?

HDD speed effects 3 things any more boot time, ap start up, and load times
thats it
with windows 7 boot times are very fast and a SSD is only going to shave a few sec off
so you go from a 40 sec boot to a 30 sec boot
superfech and the 4+GB of ram makes ap start times very very low
i have used a system with an SSD i cant tell it from my PC
i leave the most common aps i use open so whats the point

the only thing is left is game load times and this gets in to the issue of size SSDs just arnt that big yet and most games load very fast any way

if you really want full on speed fuck SSDs RAM based drives are the way to go
i can not justify 250 bucks for a drive that will only make my pc maybe 3 to 5 sec faster for things that i can wait for loading firefox takes 2 sec i dont think and SSD can help that much
maybe on XP where you dont have superfech to preload stuff in to ram which is by FAR faster then any SSD could hope to be sure but superfech and just loading the aps i use all the time at boot

id rater get 2TB Black for 250 that comes damn close in speed to a SSD
 
Elios said:
that is only partly true any more i could say the same about opitcal drives
and if you want why not get RAID 0 with SSDs then? to rich for your blood?

HDD speed effects 3 things any more boot time, ap start up, and load times
thats it
with windows 7 boot times are very fast and a SSD is only going to shave a few sec off
so you go from a 40 sec boot to a 30 sec boot
superfech and the 4+GB of ram makes ap start times very very low
i have used a system with an SSD i cant tell it from my PC
i leave the most common aps i use open so whats the point

the only thing is left is game load times and this gets in to the issue of size SSDs just arnt that big yet and most games load very fast any way

if you really want full on speed fuck SSDs RAM based drives are the way to go
i can not justify 250 bucks for a drive that will only make my pc maybe 3 to 5 sec faster for things that i can wait for loading firefox takes 2 sec i dont think and SSD can help that much
maybe on XP where you dont have superfech to preload stuff in to ram which is by FAR faster then any SSD could hope to be sure but superfech and just loading the aps i use all the time at boot

id rater get 2TB Black for 250 that comes damn close in speed to a SSD
Click to expand...


Thats not jsut making things 3 to 5 seconds faster.. Thats making almost everything 3 to 5 seconds faster.. I Guess if your only on your computer for an hour a day then your not going to do enough to make that 3 to 5 seconds add up, but if your on it all day that adds up.. & I Plan on doing raid 0 with 1 intel x18-m SSD's if i can find another g1 for a good price. & Sure that 2tb Black may come close in speed to an SSD, but we were talking about a good PC SSD, not the 4gb SSD's that dell put in the Mini 9 netbooks..
 
bastage said:
Thats not jsut making things 3 to 5 seconds faster.. Thats making almost everything 3 to 5 seconds faster.. I Guess if your only on your computer for an hour a day then your not going to do enough to make that 3 to 5 seconds add up, but if your on it all day that adds up.. & I Plan on doing raid 0 with 1 intel x18-m SSD's if i can find another g1 for a good price. & Sure that 2tb Black may come close in speed to an SSD, but we were talking about a good PC SSD, not the 4gb SSD's that dell put in the Mini 9 netbooks..
Click to expand...

Exactly. It's part of the whole experience.

When you're at a computer for many hours a day a key element is navigation speed. Why dump over a grand into a system and give it a set of training wheels. Especially multitasking. What happens when you're doing some encoding & some other hard tasks, and your virus scan pops up? And then your daily backup, spyware scan and hey for fun lets install some stuff at the same time too. All of which can be done in under a few minutes flat on a good SSD. An HDD would choke and then puke. :) Not to mention extremely faster os reinstalls, etc.

All you mentioned was faster boot times which makes me scratch my head a bit because I don't know anybody that's gone ssd and went back. To each their own though and nothing wrong with that if you prefer to spend the money on terabyte drives, when you buy an ssd though you're paying for .1 access times not storage space.
 
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rive22 said:
Exactly. It's part of the whole experience.

When you're at a computer for many hours a day a key element is navigation speed. Why dump over a grand into a system and give it a set of training wheels. Especially multitasking. What happens when you're doing some encoding and your virus scan pops up? And then your daily backup, spyware scan and hey for fun lets install some stuff at the same time too. All of which can be done in under a few minutes flat on a good SSD. An HDD would choke and then puke. :) Not to mention extremely faster os reinstalls, etc.
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AV + encoding no issue there thats CPU limited and when i encode i do it to its own disk
my system is on its own disk from every thing else
daily back up? again no issue it only runs the back up if the system is idle and thats limited by network speed not my system and even then its limited by my WHS's disks speed its running 5400rpm drives so even then an SSD would do much

superfech is damn good most aps start in <2 sec
games load damn fast as it is and again have your priced a 1TB SSD or 2 in RAID for that matter
the 2TB Black which i want is nearly as fast as a SSD any way
 
I do not own an SSD, and I think at the $1700 budget, I would definitely put one in. We are not talking about how fast FF opens, but an app like photoshop would really benefit from an SSD, and that is one of the main things OP listed. Sure, $400-500 on a larger SSD might be bad at this time, but an 80GB app drive would be perfect. When prices drop, as they are sure to, adding more 80GB drives to his system would be an easy, and economical upgrade. These things seem to thrive in RAID. One of the big reasons I am so excited about them. Look at the OP. He said he wants it for Scientific computing, and photoshop, and occasional gaming. SSD seems a no-brainer.

When you decide on a mobo brand, check out their support forums, before you build, and maybe even buy. You will find a wealth of information on initial builds, and maybe things you might not have considered, such as component compatibility. I didn't check the parts list, but make sure to remember stuff like thermal grease, CPU cooler, CABLES!!! extra fans etc.

Be patient. A slow and deliberate build is a good one. Don't try to get it up and running in 15 minutes. Take your time, and do it right. You will save time in the long run.
 
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