2500 Workstation / Gaming System - Opinions Welcome

Gurth

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May 16, 2013
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10,510
I've been looking to build a workstation for a while now for use with 3D modeling/sculpting software (Maya, Mudbox, etc.). Recently, however, my main laptop which I use to game (SC2, LoL) has bitten the dust. I've been considering the idea of creating a sort of hybrid workstation/gaming system with a roughly 50/50 distribution between gaming and modeling.

My budget is around 2500 (including monitors) as you've already inferred from the title, however I could go up to 3000 if I had to. As always, lower is obviously better if possible.

I'm looking to buy within the next 2 weeks and plan on ordering from Newegg.

No plans to overclock at this point unless I find a need to.

I've posted my build below and welcome feedback and suggestions pertaining to individual parts or the idea as a whole. It's been a few years since I've built my own system so there's a good chance I'm overlooking something.

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor
Any recommendations for a heatsink?

Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

PSU: CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Is this overkill?

HDD: Western Digital WD Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM

SSD: SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
For OS and maybe a couple work-related programs.

Video Card: EVGA 02G-P4-2680-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Am I making a mistake not going with a comparable Quadro card? I will say that the time I spend rendering scenes is less that 1% of the time I spend working with them.

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Titanium Grey Silent ATX Mid Tower Case


Monitors: 2x Acer S231HLbid Black 23" 5ms HDMI LED-Backlight LCD monitor

I would appreciate any feedback anyone can give.

Thanks for reading.



 

Transmaniacon

Distinguished
You could trim a lot off this build, specifically the motherboard and PSU. If you aren't overclocking, you will do fine with a cheaper motherboard.

I would go with a 670 instead of the 680. Their performance is very close, and it's not worth the price premium for the 680.

If you do not plan on SLI, then you would do fine with a 550 watt PSU. This would be a good choice: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/pc-power--cooling-power-supply-ppcmk3s500

Also I would suggest going with the Samsung 840 Pro-Series SSD, it is faster than the one you selected.

Other than that this should work well for your needs.

 

axehead15

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Apr 9, 2013
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Don't forget he isn't just gaming on it. It may be best to SLI.

Stick with an SLI-capable mobo, you may need it in the future in case you decide to get more graphics cards.

I do agree with the 670 IF you are looking to save money. You have a very large budget, so really you can do whatever you want. If you need to in the future, just SLI two 670's.
 

PapaCrazy

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Dec 28, 2011
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18,890
Build looks good. Just a few suggestions:

CPU cooler - The puny little Intel cooler, especially on their hexacore chips, is absolutely useless. Something like a Cooler Master Evo is fine is you don't OC. If you do OC, you need a larger heatsink like a Noctua NH-D-14 or closed liquid kit. Personally, I wouldn't allow any kind of liquid cooling into a workstation PC, due to the extra noise of the water pump and the danger it poses to you sensitive and career-making data. You don't need the extra cooling for an OC, so there's little reason to go with water.

GTX680 - We all know the GTX600s were gimped a bit on computation. It may be a good idea to slap whatever GPU you have now in your new build, and wait till the GTX700s come out (right around the corner) to see if Nvidia stepped up computation ability for them. Titan was supposed to be a good workstation card (although not as good as Quadro) so we may see that trickle down to the 770/780. Don't forget that AMD cards are great for workstation/gaming double duty and have unbeatable OpenCL performance for the money. They are definitley an option.

Monitor - The monitor you listed is weak on color and grayscale accuracy. It's not a wide gamut either, but that might not be as important to you. You need to decide if you need a wide gamut (Adobe RGB) or whether SRGB is fine, but either way you should get a monitor with better color accuracy. It will make life with the color picker easier, and there is nothing as reassuring as knowing your monitor is accurate and calibrated. If your files appear differently on another screen, you can rest assured that the colors you saw while working on the file on your system were the correct ones. Dell U2413 is a nice option at 24" - its an IPS panel thats very accurate. It's a lot more than the Acer, and you may need to buy just 1 initially to stay within budget, but you can add another one later and this is as situation where quality is way more important than quantity. It has a 6ms response time too, so still good for gaming.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator


Intel actually doesn't include a cooler with the 3930K. This chip is aimed at the system builder / enthusiast / high performance market. They figure that people paying that much for a CPU already have a cooler in their possession.

The original build looks good but I'd go with a Samsung 840 Pro or an OCZ Vector for your SSD and you're set.

If you do not plan on SLI, then you would do fine with a 550 watt PSU. This would be a good choice: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/pc-power--cooling-power-su...

CPU for a power supply? :heink:
 

Gurth

Honorable
May 16, 2013
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10,510
Thanks for all the quick replies and constructive feedback. I've made some adjustments to the build based off your suggestions and placed my order late last night. Thanks again for your advice.
 

Transmaniacon

Distinguished


It is a good build, good luck with it.