• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Request input on new build

S

soupcxan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 10, 2010
Messages
286
Considering getting a desktop as my i5-450M laptop takes 7 hours to re-encode a blu-ray using handbrake. I want something small that can hold a couple 3.5" hard drives. Initially it would be my main computer, but eventually may convert it to an HTPC. I'm looking strongly at the following:

Shuttle SH63H7
i7-3770K
8GB RAM (brand/speed?)
12X blu-ray drive (brand?)
Wifi card (brand?)
Reuse existing 2.5" 500gb 7200rpm hard drive until I can get an SSD

1. What will you be doing with this PC?

Office/web activities. Photoshop/Lightroom with large RAW files. Video editing with Sony Vegas. HTPC functions: 1080p output to HDTV. Ripping of blu-rays and re-encoding with handbrake. I do not do any gaming.

2. What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included in this budget? Is your budget flexible? Is cost a driving factor in component selection?

Budget not a concern, but want to be economical.

3. Where do you live? Do you have any big B&M (brick and mortar) computer chains nearby (e.g. Microcenter, Fry's, etc)?

Dallas - I have a Fry's nearby and a Microcenter a little further away.

4. What exact parts do you need for that budget?

Case with integrated mobo and PS
CPU
RAM
Blu-ray drive (reader only, don't care about writing)
Wifi card or USB dongle

5. If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?

500GB 2.5" 7200rpm SATA hard drive (eventually will replace with SSD).

6. What specific features do you need in a motherboard? RAID?

Required: HDMI output, USB 3.0
Prefer: integrated video (I am not a gamer)

7. What resolution output do you need?

Need 1080p output over HDMI and 1900x1200 dual-monitor capability.

8. Does this system need to fit into a particular space?

Needs to fit into TV console.

9. How comfortable are you with custom case design/modification and electrical wiring?

I can assemble things but I do not have a dremel or plasma cutter.

10. How important is the noise/silence of this sytem?

The less noise the better.

11. How mobile does this system need to be?

Not concerned with portability.

12. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?

Yes, Win7 64-bit.

13. When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

In a couple weeks.
 
If you don't mind not being an the bleeding edge my 2600k rips through a bluray in ~1hr, I just re-encoded my Extended Lord of the Rings Trilogy I got off amazon to stream through my WHS 2011 box and it didn't even take a day (6 discs in total).

You'd save a bit of cash on the board/cpu and still have a beastly machine, especially if you're not gaming or anything you don't need the Ivy Bridge goodness.

I'm not sure about Handbrake as I use DVDFab for my bluray ripping (slightly expensive software but it's so easy to use), but I would check to make sure Handbrake would even use all of the cores of a K series processor.

On the flip side if you use something like DVDFab to rip your blurays and take advantage of the iGPU found in the newer chips you'd probably speed up processing time exponentially more than just running straight CPU.

Either way I'd get a 2500k or a 3570k rather as the threads probably wouldn't be utilized but I'm sure someone will chime in on it.

Good luck!
 
You sure you have the right model number there for that Shuttle?
How close is that Microcenter? as in how long of a drive?
What's the likelihood of you buying the parts after August 1st?
 
What happens after August 1?

There is only a $70 difference in the processors so I'd just as soon get the i7-3770k.

Upon second thought, I may go for a separate case instead of the Shuttle. Looking at Silverstone GB05B but not sure which motherboard and PS to get with it. Open to suggestions.
 
soupcxan said:
What happens after August 1?
Click to expand...
Newegg's July combo deals expire and MC's July CPU + mobo deals expire. Those combo deals do save you quite a bit of money. No point in recommending July combo deals if you're gonna be buying the parts in August.

Now please answer my second question from before.

soupcxan said:
There is only a $70 difference in the processors so I'd just as soon get the i7-3770k.
Click to expand...
If you were buying today actually (or before August 1st) and if you live within a 30 minute drive from MC, the i7 3770K wouldn't have been a good choice since the Core i7 2700K is $10 cheaper as is and qualifies for Microcenter's July select Intel CPUs + $50 off any Z77 motherboard deal. So you would be saving $60 if you were buying before August 1st over the 3770K route. But there's no guarantee that we'll see a similar deal in August or if MC will be cool and include the 3770K as part of that $50 off mobo deal. We won't know what Microcenter's August CPU + mobo deals or Newegg's August combo deals till, you guessed it, August hits.

soupcxan said:
Upon second thought, I may go for a separate case instead of the Shuttle. Looking at Silverstone GB05B but not sure which motherboard and PS to get with it. Open to suggestions.
Click to expand...
Can't recommend a motherboard since your planned purchase date and your distance from MC are unclear. With that said, if you were buying today actually (or before August 1st) and if you live within a 30 minute drive from MC, I would recommend the Asus P8Z77-M Pro Motherboard since it'll be $115 after that $50 discount when combined with the Core i7 2700K.

As for the PSU, you're definitely looking at a modular PSU. Since you're not gaming, you should be fine with a solid 400W to 500W PSU.
 
I'm 30 minutes from a Microcenter. I can pull the trigger before the end of July, but I'd like to get the best processor available (within reason). I would pay an extra $100 for 14% faster encoding (based roughly on the passmark scores for the i7-2700k and the i7-3770k).
 
Danny Bui said:
Passmark is a synthetic benchmark. Ignore it. You're looking at a 8% to 10% at best with video encoding applications:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=551

Not worth $60 extra let alone $100 extra IMO.
Click to expand...

OP says he's not real concerned with small $$ shavings, OP honestly other than what I posted my only thing is if you want upgradability in the future you might want to go for a more conventional setup in a SFF case with a regular mobo/PSU, otherwise you'll be slightly limited in the Shuttle case although in another shuttle thread I participated in apparently the new shuttles can support regular mITX boards but that still leaves you with Shuttles own PSU issue.
 
After looking into building a whole system myself starting with the Silverstone GD05B, I think I may just go back to my simpler plan for a barebones kit with the 2nd gen CPU instead of the 3rd gen:

$240 Shuttle SH67H3
$240 i7-2770K
$50 8GB memory
? Blu-ray drive
+reuse hard drive

Though frankly I am tempted to just buy the Dell XPS 8300-7007BK that is on clearance at the Microsoft store for roughly the same price after discounts.
 
Sorry, meant the i7-2600K on sale at Fry's for $240:

http://www.frys.com/product/6487392

I have Windows 7 Pro.

I wish there was a way to get an apples-to-apples comparison of the performance between this Shuttle with the I7-2600K and the Dell XPS 8300 with the same CPU. I have no idea how much the rest of the system will impact the speed.
 
Last edited:
soupcxan said:
Sorry, meant the i7-2600K on sale at Fry's for $240:

http://www.frys.com/product/6487392
Click to expand...
All righty then.
soupcxan said:
I have Windows 7 Pro.
Click to expand...
In that case, you should take advantage of this Shell Shocker deal right now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231606
soupcxan said:
I wish there was a way to get an apples-to-apples comparison of the performance between this Shuttle with the I7-2600K and the Dell XPS 8300 with the same CPU. I have no idea how much the rest of the system will impact the speed.
Click to expand...
Since you have a 2.5" drive, there's a fair chance that your system will respond slower than the Dell with its 3.5" drive. No websites AFAIK does testing of GPU acceleration of video editing apps. So can't compare the GPU. The mobo and RAM really don't differ that much where you''ll notice it except for more RAM generally means better performance. Same CPU means same CPU performance level.
 
This would be my suggestion (see pic). You don't have to get it all at the egg of course, if you can find it somewhere else cheaper. Depending on how fast you would be getting an SSD, you might wanna get an msata drive and use the rst to up the performance on the spinner. Honestly, you might as well do the SSD while you are at it? Good Luck!

sff-new.jpg
 
uunut said:
This would be my suggestion (see pic). You don't have to get it all at the egg of course, if you can find it somewhere else cheaper. Depending on how fast you would be getting an SSD, you might wanna get an msata drive and use the rst to up the performance on the spinner. Honestly, you might as well do the SSD while you are at it? Good Luck!

sff-new.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. Microcenter has a good deal on the i7-3770k right now. However that shuttle is pricey; I'd just as soon get the Silverstone gd05b.

However, after finding some more benchmark info on x264 HD encoding times, I am not sure the upgrade is worth it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top