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Jay Wallace

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I am starting a new computer build to run Adobe CS5 / 6, Office, Website maintenance, light cad work for technical manuals with exploded parts diagrams. My thinking listed below; is it reasonable or do I have some glaring faults?
I7 3820 Processor on an Asus P9X79 Board with 32 (4x8) Memory.
120mm Radiator cooling for processor with push pull fans
Azza Genesis 9000 Full Tower Gaming Case w/ 2 x 230mm fans
POWERSUPPLY: 850 Watts - Corsair
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card
240GB Corsair Neutron SSD for Windows 7 64 Pro SATA 6Gb/s port
240GB Corsair Neutron SSD for Programs SATA 6Gb/s port
OCZ Technology 480GB Agility 3 SATA III SSD for Scratch disk and project files only when working with them. Marvell SATA 6Gb/s port or SATA 3Gb/s port?
Seagate 4TB w 64MB cache Internal SATA 7200RPM for Data files on SATA 3Gb/s port
Seagate 4TB External USB2 Drive set for continuous backup on rear USB3

Where do I install Outlook and its program files?
Do I move Temp files or anything else to the HDD?
Any files I should leave with programs?
Thanks in advance for the help.
 
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About two weeks ago I dealt with the why on the 3820 processor, it made complete sense to me at the time and now 100 customers and all my own product tech info crowding my head it no longer is in my immediate memory.

I also liked the separate disk for each function concept that also made sense when utilized with the 3820 processor, I think it didn't make so much sense with the 4770. I almost decided on the 4770 just because of the sata 6G availability but as I said the importance of speed with the HDD and scratch disk didn't seem too important overall. My bottle necks have been processing large mixed vector and bitmap files with several hundred linked hires photos. The 3820 processor supposedly addressed that specific need if memory...
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Sangeet Khatri

Sangeet Khatri

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May 26, 2013
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There is no point in getting the i7 3820 as it is quite old now and the Haswell i7 4770k which costs less easily beats this thing in almost everything. So instead of getting this get a i7 4770K + Z87 motherboard, rest keep everything the same. It would be better and far cheaper.

Believe me, it would really be better. Go check the benchmarks yourself
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-4770K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3820
 
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That was my initial thinking. Beyond price I also liked the lower power consumptions and lower heat. I agree with your advice for games and most other applications but: I researched further and in multiple locations I was informed that the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop aps will perform faster on the 3820 chip, those are my time consumers so I choose that optimization path.

Thanks for the confirmation that I haven't messed up on the overall concept.
 
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sam_p_lay

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For the price of a Corsair Neutron, you may as well go for the gold and pick up a Samsung 840 Pro:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pd128bw

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pd256bw

Or alternatively, for the same speed as the Neutron but a lot less cost:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sandisk-internal-hard-drive-sdssdhp128gg25

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sandisk-internal-hard-drive-sdssdhp256gg25

The Corsair drives are really overpriced (as are OCZ and Crucial). Also, you probably don't need 250GB for Windows - it only takes up 20GB :) Looks like a good setup overall.
 
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JPNpower

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1st, Tom's forum is a wonderful place, but for this matter, there are experts over at Adobe's official forum. I suggest listening to their opinions as well.

As for the disks, select your favorite brand, as the real world performance of top drives are essentially the same. Corsair (Neutron), Plextor (M5S), Sandisk (Extreme 2), Seagate (600), OCZ (Vertex 4), Samsung (840). You can't go wrong with any of those, so select the cheapest, or your favorite.

Put Outlook and other programs with the Windows drive. Real hard core Adobe people have a separate system for the Adobe programs, and another for other office stuff.

My recommendation is another setup, in the post following
 
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sam_p_lay

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Actually top (consumer) drives would be Neutron GTX, M5 Pro (or upcoming M5 Pro Extreme), Vector and 840 Pro. It is true that real-world performance is closer than the benchmarks suggest. Though that actually supports the argument for getting more reasonably-priced drives where performance is near identical. Even when performance is close, there's never really any reason to pay more for less, even if the differences are small.
 
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JPNpower

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Modern SSDs are insanely quick. Also, the larger capacity drives tend to be faster than the smaller capacity versions. This is because, faster parts are used in the larger drives, and because things tend to be faster when there is a lot of space to use. For this reason, fewer bigger SSDs should be better for you, as you can get better parts, and even buy better drives.

Thus, I recommend the 4TB Seagate for bulk data. A 500GB SSD for programs/windows/Adobe. And another SSD for scratch. I think that 250GB should be enough for scratch, but if you want, go for 500. Instead of your 3 cheaper SSDs, buy 2 top tier SSDs. Take you pick, for price or preference. Plextor (M5 pro Xtreme), OCZ (Vector), Samsung (840 pro). My preference is the Plextor.

Another plus is that larger SSDs have better price per GB, thus, you can buy the top tier drives for the price of your 3 slower drives.
 
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I am just a generalist businessman who wears too many hats to do anything to the perfection level that each individual issue deserves. I am determined to make one system work in an overall acceptable manner for everything. Besides I don't have room at my desk for two systems. I did spend time on the Adobe site and I believe it was there that several people directed me back to the 3820 processor.

The two 240 MB disks were selected for speed / price and longevity in that general order. I could not find a single best option so I went with my best guess. The OCZ is a disk that will be used for a temp location when working on projects and as a scratch disk. Since I never found a Mother Board with more than 2) Intel Sata III, plus I am forced to use the Marvell SATA 6GB port and therefore the speed of the OCZ is not to concerning, the lifespan seems questionable but at the price I paid, I can junk in in a year or two or move it at any time to a bookkeeping, shipping or sales computer.

I have had conflicting advice on where Outlook likes to live, your answer is the most frequent.

Thanks for the confirmation that I am not shooting myself in the foot to badly. Any other suggestions on set up will always be appreciated. Even if I don't end up using them now all this accumulated learning helps with the next project.
 
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JPNpower

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I need a lot of info and stuff, so keep on telling me stuff. I'll keep on helping you until you are satisfied.

No idea why the Adobe forum people suggested the 3820, but if they do recommend it over the 4770, I'll trust it. Try asking them why, and even if you don't understand it, just copy and paste here, to let the Toms people see. It really is strange as the 4770's Z87 platform allows for at least 6 SATA 6GBs ports.

Not sure if that is the best motherboard, I'll let the others on Toms give you recommendations as I'm not an expert in this area.

I still think that 2 big SSDs are the best layout for you. scratch/temp + windows/programs/adobe/etc. 500GB each. The scratch/temp needs the faster speed. Thus I recommend the 3 faster drives I listed above. The other one actually doesn't really need extreme fast speed. Thus I recommend these two drives.

The Plextor M5pro Xtreme (scratch/source file)
Plextor M5S (Windows/Programs/ETC)

Finally, my 2 drive layout allows you to be fine with only the intel SATA controllers, without bothering with ASMEDIA's port.
 
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About two weeks ago I dealt with the why on the 3820 processor, it made complete sense to me at the time and now 100 customers and all my own product tech info crowding my head it no longer is in my immediate memory.

I also liked the separate disk for each function concept that also made sense when utilized with the 3820 processor, I think it didn't make so much sense with the 4770. I almost decided on the 4770 just because of the sata 6G availability but as I said the importance of speed with the HDD and scratch disk didn't seem too important overall. My bottle necks have been processing large mixed vector and bitmap files with several hundred linked hires photos. The 3820 processor supposedly addressed that specific need if memory is serving me well 2 weeks later.

Overall I agree with your thinking on the large SSD drives but if you note below the comparisons I compiled I may have due to immediate market conditions and July 4 sales have done better my way. Copy and paste to a spread sheet and everything should line up.

Thanks again for your opinions they are helpful.

Company Corsair OCZ (Legacy on sale) LITEON / PLEXOR Samsumg
Model Neutron GTX Agility 3 2.5” SSD LAT-512M3S 840 Series
Capacity 240 GB 512GB, IDEMA CAPACITY 480GB Capacity 512 Capacity 500
Random Read Speed Up to 95K IOPs 34,500 (135 MB/s) 56,000 Up to 100K IOPS
Random Write Speed Up to 85K IOPs 19,000 (75 MB/s) 27,000 Up to 90K IOPS
Seq. Read  Up to 550MB/s up to 525 MB/s 500 MB/s 540 MBps
Seq. Write  Up to 470MB/s up to 410 MB/s 430 MB/s 520 MBps
Warranty 5 Year 3 ? 3
Sale $135.00 $290.00 $435.00 $485.00
$/GB $0.56 $0.57 $0.85 $0.97
MTBF 2000000 2000000 1500000 • 0.16% (Consumer)• 0.58% (Enterprise)
Company / Product Origin USA / ? USA / ? Taiwan S Korea

 
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sam_p_lay

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Only thing I can think is the quad-channel memory architecture of the X79 platform allowing for greater memory bandwidth. Re the SSD specs, disregard those manufactuer-quoted numbers. Every manufacturer will use unrealistic best-case-scenario numbers for their drives. Infact even when benchmarking that best-case-scenario, real world performance usually falls short. You need to get on anandtech.com and analyse the benchmarks yourself to really understand the differences in performance.

Or save your time and let us guide you :) The Corsair Neutron is a decent drive, but it's priced as a high-end end drive when it's actually not faster overall than far cheaper drives. The price is very close to that of genuinely high-end drives.
 
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JPNpower

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That spreadsheet chart is hard to use. What do you mean copy/paste? I think I got it though. You have an incredible sale on the drives. I suggest you jump for 2 OCZ Agility 3 drives. The quad channel memory should be very good actually, as programs will be loaded onto the memory, and run from there. Thus Adobe, office, and other programs should run very fast. But remember to think through your drives, as you only have a limited amount of slots. If desperate you can buy a PCIe SATA card though.

Finally, where do you plan on buying the graphics card? You can get a massive deal at microcenter right now. GTX 660 @ $199.

Also, why the liquid cooling? you a gamer? Stability is ideal in Adobe systems, meaning little/no overclock.
 
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Jay Wallace

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Sorry about the spread sheet advice, seems the post striped something? Finally ordered everything yesterday night.

The OCZ Agility are now discontinued so for the moment deals should be available.

The Nvidia GTX 660 graphics card I got bundled in the build for about $180 after discounts. The best option for Adobe and CAD products seems to be the Quadro line but I decided to start with the Gforce and upgrade all the way later rather than start low in the Quadro lineup IF I need it. Many state the that after a gig of memory the Video doesn't speed things too much with adobe and my 21 year old son would love the card pass off.

I realize that using Marvel 6GB connection is not as fast as Intel 6 GB connections but to power a scratch disk & HDD for files? Not so bad? Reportedly using a dedicated scratch disk may be one of the important speed improvements I can make for my type of usage.

I am trying to decide which disk to use as a scratch disk and which for the Programs disk. Corsair Neutron 240GB disk or the 512 GB OCZ Agility 3.

The liquid cooling with 120mm radiator and push pull fans was only a $20.00 upgrade on special. I always pass my computers on after a few years to less critical applications such as shipping or billing and through the years I have retired most due to suspicion of processor running very slow and or errors that switching memory modules didn't solve. Also the 3820 runs HOT it draws twice the power of the 4770 so additional cooling seems prudent for $20.00.

I never have installed a single game on any of my computers, even if I was interested I don't know where the time would come from. No I don't over clock. As an engineer I consider it a perfect way to shorten the life span of the entire computer. I look at that as a foolish trade off for insignificant speed improvement.

I went back on my notes on why to choose 3820 over 4770. my notes stated only use 3880 IF buying 32 to 64 GB of memory plus using separate SSD for OS, Programs, Scratch disk and files to HDD. Also I noted the 3820 supports 64GB memory vs 32 GB with the 4770 (I often have Word, Outlook, Excel, Corel Draw, Photoshop, Illustrator and 3 or 4 PDF 100 page manuals running simultaneously, the more memory the better. I will be adding 32GB more in a month or two), 4 channels of memory bandwidth vs 2 in the 4770 and 10 in Cache vs 8 in cache. I see the bench marks that are based upon games and other tests; I may be making a mistake but I decided to try anyway. Worst case I buy a new Motherboard and processor and use the 3820 and board to upgrade an older computer.

 
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JPNpower

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OK, I'll help you as I can. Which drives have you ordered? If not, I still strongly recommend the 2 drive layout, as modern SSDs, usage, and SATA ports mean that you will experience better organization and speed that way.

As for the layout of drives. Your source, output, and scratch drives require the most speed, so the faster SSD. Your OS, programs will benefit from SSD power, but don't need the fastest drive. If you go with two drive.

(drive 1 FAST) source, output, scratch
(drive 2 SLOW) OS, programs

If you go with the silly 3 drive layout
(drive 1 FAST) Source, output
(drive 2 FAST) Scratch
(drive 3 SLOW) OS, programs.
 
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JPNpower

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BTW if you bought the liquid system, cool! But for best non-overclocking reliability, I would recommend a good air cooler, such as the Cooler master Hyper 212 Evo. Water coolers have the danger of failing with their extreme complexity, without the user knowing, causing high temps, and damage to hardware and data. It can also leak. The chances of these happening are small, but not quite negligible.
 
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