New high-end rig build

[God Of Gaming]

Hello. I'm a new member here, and I want to seek some advice about a new system that I'll be building later this year. The budget can be considered unlimited, since I'll be saving as much as it's needed for it, and getting the less important parts one by one.

After a lot of researching I decided on components that I like, and I asked on other places and got the green light for it, but I wanna ask here too, to get more opinions. I'm a hardcore gamer, so you can consider it a gaming rig, but I also do some video and image editing and music production (not professionally, just as a hobby), so I'm looking for something a little bit more powerful than what's needed just for gaming. I also intend to get a stable 24/7 overclock. Here is what I have decided on so far:

 

case: Cooler Master HAF 922 Black (already bought it)

mobo: ASUS Sabretooth Z77 (I hope it's released soon, details for it on the asus page)

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K

CPU cooler: Thermalright Silver Arrow

RAM: G.Skill Ares 2x8GB DDR3 1600MHz C10Q (we'll share a 4x8GB kit with a friend)

PSU: Seasonic X-660

video card: Asus DirectCUII Top HD7970 3GB (or a HD8000 card if they're out when I start buying, but I doubt that)

audio card: Creative SB Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion

network card: BigFoot Killer 2100

HDDs: I'll use two that I have right now - a Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB and Seagate 7200.12 1TB , and might consider getting a OCZ Synapse 128GB for caching, Also a few external HDDs for backups.

Optical: LG BH10LS38 Blu-Ray RW

 

add to these red-lighted fans and cold-cathode lights and stuff everywhere inside the case

 

As for the stuff outside the case, I have a 32" 1080p LED TV from Philips that I use as a monitor and I'm very happy with it. I thought of getting 2 more for eyefinity but I gave up on that at some point. I might get a Logitech G19 keyboard, Razer Naga mouse with Razer Vespula pad, Logitech F510 gamepad, Logitech G27 wheel, Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar joystick, and a good 5.1 audio system that I haven't decided on yet. As for the desk and the seat, I will probably try to custom build something nice.

 

So, any advices or recommendations? Thanks in advance.

[Black64]

Unlimited budget you say? Top of the line everything!

[VaporX]

Based on the fact you also do editing and thus could make use of extra cores AND you have an unlimited budget, Here We go...Core i7 3930KASUS Sabertooth X79 ( 8 slots means you have potential for a lot of RAM)Corsair H100 for cooler, ensures you can use all the memory slots.Get the full 4x8 for yourself and you still have room to do it again.Forget the Bigfoot card, not worth the money.Forget the Caching drive, buy a 120 Gig or even better a 240 Gig SSD for your apps and let the data ride the spindle drives.The move to the socket 2011 will benefit in the diting work you mentioned because you can really make use of a lot of RAM effectively.

[God Of Gaming]

Unlimited budget you say? Top of the line everything!

 

If you're talking about an asus rampage iv extreme mobo with i7-3960X cpu and crossfirex, I'm pretty sure It's not gonna give me any noticeable advantage whatsoever over the configuration above. At least for what I''ll be using it. Unless you got a proof, that is. Besides, I'm gonna be saving for a car after I get that PC, so although I said unlimited, the less it is the sooner I get a car

 

Based on the fact you also do editing and thus could make use of extra cores AND you have an unlimited budget, Here We go...Core i7 3930KASUS Sabertooth X79 ( 8 slots means you have potential for a lot of RAM)Corsair H100 for cooler, ensures you can use all the memory slots.Get the full 4x8 for yourself and you still have room to do it again.Forget the Bigfoot card, not worth the money.Forget the Caching drive, buy a 120 Gig or even better a 240 Gig SSD for your apps and let the data ride the spindle drives.The move to the socket 2011 will benefit in the diting work you mentioned because you can really make use of a lot of RAM effectively.

 

Yeah but as I said I do it as a hobby, so I don't wanna spend too much on that, I was hoping the HT of 3770K and 16gigs of ram would be more than enough. I currently have a E5300 and 4GB Ram and they do fine for that, though video encoding is quite slow. As for the network card, I'm not definitely sure about this one, but I do want to use an external card instead of the onboard one, for safety reasons during lightning storms which are frequent here. Also read that this one helps online gaming a little.

Edited March 17, 2012 by God Of Gaming

[Tjj226_Angel]

There is no such thing as an unlimited budget. At some point you are going to have to stop spending money on your PC and start spending it on a car or house or a fleet of planes

 

I don't mean to ask a odd question, but this sounds a lot like the same exact situation as a person of whom I met about a week ago at a place called Encore tech. I told that individual to go to this website, so it is possible you are the same person, but if not I am deeply sorry for asking what could be considered a bizarre question.

 

Any ways, on to the tech stuff.

 

I would say that you should set a max budget of about 3K. I know you can go higher than that, but it keeps people from getting carried away in their recommendations.

 

I am with Computer Ed on this one. X79 is going to be the best way to go. With video editing, the best this to speed up your process will be more ram and more CPU cores. X79 will allow you to install 64 GB of ram and have obviously 6 cores with 12 threads. If you are using sony vegas for editing, then you will want to buy nvidia GPUs for the cuda cores. Sony vegas will benefit from having more cuda cores which means you are looking at getting maybe a couple of the upcoming Kepler cards in SLI.

 

For the case I would suggest a NZXT 810 case. Or if you want to just go broke you can look at cases by mountain mod or case lab. Either way you are most likely going to need to dump your current case. It is way too small for the kind of money you seem to have

 

With the SSD thing, I would just get 2 120 GB drives (no raid). That way in case 1 drive fails you have a back up. However, with the asus board for X79, they have a caching feature built in. So even if you wanted to cache your drive (can't cache multiple drives), you could just get a normal SSD and not have to pay the premium on the OCZ synapse.

 

Dump the network card. There is VERY LITTLE reason to get one. Instead get some Senheiser headphones. For video editing this would make more sense consider you would want to hear (in the best quality possible) what is going on in that video.

 

For the Hard drives I would sell them off or something, and get 2 Seagate 2TB drives and put them in raid 1. Now here is what I see with your storage configuration to give you a clearer idea. You will have 2 120 gb SSDs. You will put your os and applications on 1 and clone it to your other SSD with only your windows OS and drivers installed. The rest of the space can be used for storage. This will be nice because if one of your SSDs fails you, all you have to do is pop it out and set your BIOS to boot to the other one and you will have a working computer while your other SSD is being RMA'ed or something.-------Next you have the raid 1 configuration set up so that if one of those drives fails, you can recover all your data. Simply put, it is a easier way to do back ups. This should make your PC a lot more resilient in case you have some bad luck.

 

Good mouse. You can bind some video editing functionality to it. I literally just bought the molten version of the naga 4 hours ago.......nice upgrade from my 30 dollar laptop mouse that I was using to play all my video games ---------------sorry for getting off topic

 

I would tell you to go full 7.1 surround sound or like I mentioned the head phones. As a personal recommendation I would tell you to go with the headphones. You will block out the noises of the world and listen to your video a bit better. There is a guy on this site names stonerboy and he is a huge sound nut. He will definitely guide you in the right direction.

 

Other then that, it is really a matter getting into pretty much every nook and cranny of what you do with video editing. The more we know about how you would use your PC, is the more we can narrow down your selection into finite pc components. Right now I am most interested in what software you are using to edit, so start with that and try to add as many personal PC quirks you can think of. Anything (even if you think it is stupid) you can add will help us to give you a better pc.

[vandreadstriker]

If you google you'd find a leaked preview of the i7 3770K tested..

Based on that, the i7 3930K still has an edge over them but It seems that for gaming, the HD4000 from the 3770K helps boost up the FPS by a few.

The thing is with the IB/Z77 chipset, you can't upgrade it anymore unlike SB. Haswell would most likely use a different socket altogether so that's it.

If you go with SB-E/X79 chipset, you'd still be able to get IB-E at Q4 2012 and if IB's any sign, I'm sure IB-E would be amazing.

 

Graphics card, I'd tell you to hold on to your horses since rumor says that it'd be launched as early as 22nd of March. When the time comes, you'd be able to get a GTX680 instead of a 7970 or get a 7970 for less then current price.

Also, unless you're an audiophile, I don't think you'd need a sound card and a network card. An Intel LAN chipset would be enough and instead of a sound card, get a good 7.1 Headphones for gaming.

If you really want them, I'd suggest looking at the Gigabyte G1 Sniper3 instead. That way you're not wasting and precious PCI-E lanes.

 

Here's what I'd get:

ASUS Sabertooth X79

i7 3930K

G.Skill RipJawsZ F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH

Corsair H100

Seasonic XP-860

Intel 520 120GBx2 (RAID them or use 1 for OS and 1 for games)

 

And an MSI GTX680 Lightning (if they ever make one)

[God Of Gaming]

...

 

First things first, no, I'm pretty sure I'm not this guy that you mentioned.

Yes, I do use Sony Vegas, but I don't like Nvidia and want to use Radeon for sure. As I said, the main direction for that PC would be hardcore gaming, as for the other stuff they are just a hobby, and usually have something to do with gaming, like making some 3D models and music for a game modification or making a video montage of a game or something like that, so I really don't want to get too deep into them as to spend a few 1000s more just for that. I also want to keep to a single GPU to lower power consumption and noise since I run my PCs 24/7 and in the same room that I sleep.

If I were to get a really big case for stuff like that, I might consider a HAF X, a Chaser MK-1 or an Armorsuit PC-P80, but I really love my HAF 922 and want to keep to it.

I like your SSD/HDD idea. Though about these 2TB HDDs, I've heard that anything above 1TB has too much density and is unstable, is that true? I was looking at the OCZ Synapse because they say it has double the lifespan of normal SSDs.

 

I HATE headphones, I really do. I hate the feeling of having anything on my head, especially when sitting on the PC for a very long time.

I don't know why would I need a 7.1 system. In theory, 3 speakers are enough to pinpoint a directional audio. Sure, one of them will have to be in the middle of a wall, so 4 are more usefull in the way that they can stay in the 4 corners of the room. But there are no 4.1 systems or at least I don't know any, so I'm looking at the next size of 5.1. So I don't comprehend the advantage of 7.1, besides using a 5.1 will leave one connection on the audiocard free for my mic. I'll probably look for something of the sort of Aperion Intimus 5B Harmony (the cherry version), but I've gotta make sure I'm not wasting money on an external decoder when I have a good audiocard. Right now I only have stereo speakers with a 27W sub, and I'm not pleased by them at all.

 

So yeah, about software. I'm dualbooting Win XP and Win 7 in order to avoid any compatibility issues with old software and games. I play pretty much anything that provides me with enough fun, going back to games like Doom 1 and Duke Nukem 3D, and up to the newest. I don't like games (especially FPS games) that are designed for consoles, like Call of Duty, but there are still some good PC games coming out in these sad console times. For example, Serious Sam 3: BFE came out recently, and I can only manage a 30-ish fps on high settings with my current PC. This year some very demanding games are also coming out, like rFactor 2 and Project C.A.R.S. for example. So let's say I want to be able to run Crysis 1 and the upcoming ArmA 3 maxed out in 1080p and at least 40-50 fps, and still have some room for extra stuff like video recording with fraps for example. A PC like that should be enough to make me happy, and I think the configuration that I have chosen should be able to do that, since I researched a lot and looked over benchmarks for the various components.

As for editing programs, the ones that I can think of right now would be Sony Vegas, VirtualDub, 3DS Max, Lightwave 3D, Milkshape 3D, Reason 4, Vocaloid 2, Photoshop, Visual Studio, as well as the various modding tools and map editors for the various games that can be modified.

 

...

No, I'm not an audiophile, that's why i'm not getting a 192KHz ASUS audiocard, but a gaming 96KHz audiocard Up to that extend, I'm sure gonna be able to notice the difference.

[El_Capitan]

case: Cooler Master HAF 922 Black (already bought it)

mobo: ASUS Sabretooth Z77 (I hope it's released soon, details for it on the asus page)

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K

CPU cooler: Thermalright Silver Arrow

RAM: G.Skill Ares 2x8GB DDR3 1600MHz C10Q (we'll share a 4x8GB kit with a friend)

PSU: Seasonic X-660

video card: Asus DirectCUII Top HD7970 3GB (or a HD8000 card if they're out when I start buying, but I doubt that)

audio card: Creative SB Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion

network card: BigFoot Killer 2100

HDDs: I'll use two that I have right now - a Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB and Seagate 7200.12 1TB , and might consider getting a OCZ Synapse 128GB for caching, Also a few external HDDs for backups.

Optical: LG BH10LS38 Blu-Ray RW

 

I was looking at the OCZ Synapse because they say it has double the lifespan of normal SSDs.

First off, welcome!

 

Second, I usually always recommend saving money when you can.

 

If you're going to go with high components, I really recommend starting your own custom watercooling solution to overclock that baby.

 

I'd also recommend at least an 850W PSU in case you get the itch to get a second graphics card for Crossfire or SLI (all indications point to GTX 680 being a monster card over the monster that the HD 7970 already is).

 

Don't get the BigFoot Killer 2100 - a waste of money. You don't need to get an SSD that's over 64GB for SRT, but it does have it's uses. Get a single 128GB for your OS and software, then if you get something like an Intel SSD that has 160GB's, 64GB's max can be used for SRT for caching. That leaves you with another 85GB in a separate partition. Use your cached HDD for games, then use the 85GB SSD partition for your temporary video files. You can then store the finished files on your HDD's.

 

Otherwise, your build looks good. Also, please read my blog about SSD's and how to pick one. You don't have to worry about the lifespan of SSD's.

[God Of Gaming]

First off, welcome!

 

Second, I usually always recommend saving money when you can.

 

If you're going to go with high components, I really recommend starting your own custom watercooling solution to overclock that baby.

 

I'd also recommend at least an 850W PSU in case you get the itch to get a second graphics card for Crossfire or SLI (all indications point to GTX 680 being a monster card over the monster that the HD 7970 already is).

 

Don't get the BigFoot Killer 2100 - a waste of money. You don't need to get an SSD that's over 64GB for SRT, but it does have it's uses. Get a single 128GB for your OS and software, then if you get something like an Intel SSD that has 160GB's, 64GB's max can be used for SRT for caching. That leaves you with another 85GB in a separate partition. Use your cached HDD for games, then use the 85GB SSD partition for your temporary video files. You can then store the finished files on your HDD's.

 

Otherwise, your build looks good. Also, please read my blog about SSD's and how to pick one. You don't have to worry about the lifespan of SSD's.

 

Thanks for the advices. I'm against the water cooling because it requires too much maintenance, and there's always the danger of leaks. With air cooling I only need to open the case once or twice per year to remove the dust that made its way around the filters. I don't think I'll need to get a crossfire. A single 7970 should be plenty for my TV, and if I decide to get 2 more for eyefinity, that will be probably when there are stronger cards like 8970 or 9970 or something like that that I can swap the 7970 with. I have a 4850 right now, and I considered crossfiring it with another 4850, but then again 6850 does the same job with less power consumption and less noise, though for a little bit more price.

 

About the Killer 2100, ok, I won't get one, but I did hear about a lot of people around here with fried mobos during lightning storms, where the shock came through the network cable, as well as that if you use an external network card instead of the onboard one, it can save your mobo. So I wanna get some network card to be on the safe side, and thought why not get a good one then.

Edited March 17, 2012 by God Of Gaming

[Stonerboy779]

About the Killer 2100, ok, I won't get one, but I did hear about a lot of people around here with fried mobos during lightning storms, where the shock came through the network cable, as well as that if you use an external network card instead of the onboard one, it can save your mobo. So I wanna get some network card to be on the safe side, and thought why not get a good one then.

Years ago yes, now mobos have more than competent gigabit ethernet connections that don't slow down performance in the slightest. Some mobos these days even have dual gigabit ethernet ports.

[Tjj226_Angel]

Well first off, wow. When I heard this other guy say unlimited budget I thought that was going to be the only time I would ever hear that in my life, and you two so very similar things it is almost uncanny. Sorry for bothering you with that then.

 

If you are not an audiophile, take the sound card out. On board sound is fantastic these days and will do you just fine. Even with the best sound card on the market, you will only see about a 8 percent real world performance gain (that is my number created from my experience as being somewhere in between a audiophile and an audiophobe so don't beat me up if you found evidence proving otherwise ).

 

As for the speaker thing, here is how I look at it. It all depends on your current level of gaming ability and skill and mostly will only benefit FPS games in online mode. My personal guide for speaker setup is if your kill/death rate is below 1 to 1 then get 3.1, if your KDR is 1 to 1- to - 2 to 1 then get 5.1, and if the KDR is above 2 to 1 then get 7.1. My theory is that in the beginning of a game you are usually running around killing people but mostly being killed. You don't know the maps very well and you just want basic sound to enjoy the audio common place of the game (e.g. gun shots) because you are not relying on sound pretty much at all. At a KDR of 1 you start to adapt your brain and ability to seek out the sound of gun shots. At this point having a 5.1 system is better because you just need a very general location of the person to figure out where the enemy is. Then finally you have your KDR at 2. By this point, all of your skills should be coming together. You are a precise killing machine and you rely on every human sense other than smell to kill your enemies. Whether you know it or not, sound is a HUGE part of that. If you hear someone behind you and you are good enough to recognize where the sound is specifically (like with a 1 or 2 degree margin of error) to be able to whip around and pop them in the head then 7.1 is what you need because is going to give you an even better directional output of where the enemy is coming from. Sometimes it is just that little edge that means the difference between having your gun sight on a guys head vs their ear hair (happened to me just 10 minutes ago) and screw up the gun fight. You can make up your mind from there and I won't question it.

 

The last thing is I really have to implore you to stop being a fan boy of radeon and spend your money in the best way possible. The upcoming Kepler series will be outperforming AMD stuff, and with your sony vegas, you will be getting better performance. I don't want to challenge you, or sort of wag my finger in your face or anything like that, but I really must implore you to at the very least reconsider a purchase with nvidia only because it would make more logical sense for this build.

[Mikesnow]

case: Cooler Master HAF 922 Black (already bought it)

mobo: ASUS Sabretooth Z77 (I hope it's released soon, details for it on the asus page)

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K

CPU cooler: Thermalright Silver Arrow

RAM: G.Skill Ares 2x8GB DDR3 1600MHz C10Q (we'll share a 4x8GB kit with a friend)

PSU: Seasonic X-660

video card: Asus DirectCUII Top HD7970 3GB (or a HD8000 card if they're out when I start buying, but I doubt that)

audio card: Creative SB Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion

network card: BigFoot Killer 2100

HDDs: I'll use two that I have right now - a Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB and Seagate 7200.12 1TB , and might consider getting a OCZ Synapse 128GB for caching, Also a few external HDDs for backups.

Optical: LG BH10LS38 Blu-Ray RW

 

All seems fine, I would recommend axeing the 8GB ram sticks for 4x4gb sticks tho it should save some cash and give you the same amount of ram, and as long as your not trying to OC super high shouldn't hurt you too much, course you could always pop the extra sticks out for ocing sessions.

 

I would also axe that sound card, alot of people are having issues with it in games ,and are going back to thier X-Fi fatality cards, I was actually going to grab one the new ones untill i heard that myself. TBH the on board audio you get these days is pretty good as well, so you could go with that and save a few bucks as well.

 

I'd also axe the Nic card. It's nice but those things were really made more for back in the day when no boards came with Gigabit Nic cards on them, it's mostly a waste of cash on newer boards tbh, you would be better off grabbing an intel pro100 with dual gigabit and team them.

 

With axeing those things id spend that extra money on a 256GB SSD for boot and app drive, it will make the biggest noticable differnce for your cash.

 

Just my 2 cents, I also run alot of the same stuff you doo it seems, and I went with the system in my sig and it runs everything great, i was surprised at the imporvements it was over my i7-975ee x58 board and gtx480, but it is quite faster.

 

EDIT: I faild to add that with this much ram, you could also run a ramcache or ramdisk as well and it is even faster then ssd's. so you could axe the ssd for the cache disk as well.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Mikesnow