Fast & quiet workstation advice.

[futurepower]

Hey Everyone,

I'm building a new bad ass workstation and was wondering if anyone had any comments. Design goals are power for SolidWorks and then very quiet operation. What do ya think:

Mobo: P6X58 Premium $300
CPU: i7 930 (I'll be overclocking) $288
Memory: 2x 6 GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 2000 $412
SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 256 GB (so sweet!!!) $644
HDD: 2x 500 GB in Raid 0 (prob a Barracuda) ~$110
PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700W (can't find decibel data on this one. please advise) $80
Optical: ASUS QuieTrack $40
Graphics: Nvidia Quadro FX 1800 $330
CPU Cooler: Corsair H50 $65
Case: undecided

Comes to about $2,270 before tax and shipping

I'm excited to see how it all comes together! What do you guys think? Can I make it more powerful or quieter without spending extra dough?
Also, is it shady to buy the Quadro FX 1800 from ebay?

 

[davcon]

CM Silent Pro info and link to site obsessed with quiet

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Coolermaster_Silent_Pro_M700W

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs

 

[futurepower]

Big thanks Davcon. Thanks to you I'm going to switch my PSU to the Enermax MODU82+ II 625WATT . I hope that 625W is enough.

 

[tritonofg]

I am also building a home worksttion for Solidworks / ProEngineer and am looking at the Corsair 700D and the Cooler Master ATCS 840.

 

[davcon]

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article75-page5.html

tested quiet cases

 

[futurepower]

Another big thanks to Davcon.

It looks like the Corsair TX650W PSU is the one to go with. Its accoustic signature measured by spcr was almost the best and it's performance is primo.

More interestingly, it seems that the Corsair H50 is actually louder than air cooling. According to silent pc review, the pump is louder than the fan. This means I'll be switching to the Megahelems. I'm really glad this got caught!


Tritonofg,
Just in case you have been out of the PC parts loop for a while like I have, I'll divulge my logic behind the BOM I listed in my first post:
I debated dual xeons vs. an overclocked i7. The xeons are not worth the extra cost unless you will be doing a significant amount of FEA and CFD. Furthermore, when using single threaded aspects of SolidWorks, the faster i7 will outperform the xeons. Supposedly, most i7s can be overclocked to a little over 4.3 GHz which means that the i7 930 will overclock just as well as, say an i7 960 but costs about half as much.
For the memory, its important to have at least DDR3 1600 for overclocking. I got DDR3 2000 just to be safe.
The C300 SSD is really expensive but is the only SSD I found to work on SATA III. Its far superior to other SSDs, let alone HDDs.
The P6X Premium supports SATA III and USB 3.0. Its totally future proof.
I went with Nvidia over ATI for the graphics because I have heard from others that Nvidia is better for CAD while ATI is better for video editing and adobe etc. I wish I had a source to give you.

 

[davcon]

Another big thanks to Davcon.

It looks like the Corsair TX650W PSU is the one to go with. Its accoustic signature measured by spcr was almost the best and it's performance is primo.

More interestingly, it seems that the Corsair H50 is actually louder than air cooling. According to silent pc review, the pump is louder than the fan. This means I'll be switching to the Megahelems. I'm really glad this got caught!


Tritonofg,
Just in case you have been out of the PC parts loop for a while like I have, I'll divulge my logic behind the BOM I listed in my first post:
I debated dual xeons vs. an overclocked i7. The xeons are not worth the extra cost unless you will be doing a significant amount of FEA and CFD. Furthermore, when using single threaded aspects of SolidWorks, the faster i7 will outperform the xeons. Supposedly, most i7s can be overclocked to a little over 4.3 GHz which means that the i7 930 will overclock just as well as, say an i7 960 but costs about half as much.
For the memory, its important to have at least DDR3 1600 for overclocking. I got DDR3 2000 just to be safe.
The C300 SSD is really expensive but is the only SSD I found to work on SATA III. Its far superior to other SSDs, let alone HDDs.
The P6X Premium supports SATA III and USB 3.0. Its totally future proof.
I went with Nvidia over ATI for the graphics because I have heard from others that Nvidia is better for CAD while ATI is better for video editing and adobe etc. I wish I had a source to give you.

No problem guys! Mike Chin who founded SPCR is serious about quiet computing he helped design the legendary Antec 183.

Yes there are many air coolers superior to the Corsair H50 ,the Megahalems is the best when paired with top quality fans which you can also look up on spcr. Many people mistakenly assume that since the Corsair is liquid cooling it must be superior.
futurepower you make a very good point about the capabilities of the i7 930 which have been echoed here at tom's numerous times.
I'll be honest though i have no clue what you guys are into as far as your computing purposes are concerned lol!
I'm just glad i could help with my post links.
Cheers!

 

[futurepower]

Best answer selected by futurepower.