Help taming a monster. $4000 Rig

[BurnZeZ]

I'm building my first PC, and it's gonna be quite a rig.
Just wondering if anyone can give me some tips, or point out any flaws in my purchase plan.
I haven't decided on all the parts, so perhaps I could get some assistance?

Approximate Purchase Date: January. I'm waiting for newer models to come out, that way prices lower.


Budget Range: Somewhere around $4000, but don't mind spending less.


System Usage from Most to Least Important: Intensive Special Effects/Video Editing/3D Animation/Gaming/Leisure


Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers, and the OS.


Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Doesn't matter, as long as I can get things the cheapest possible.


Country of Origin: United States


Parts Preferences: I like AMD, but I'm going with Intel this time. And ATI.


Overclocking: Yes


Crossfire: Yes


Monitor Resolution: (e.g.: 1920x1080)


Additional Comments: Would prefer that it doesn't sound like it's about to take flight.


My soon to be computer's hardware.

Case: Deciding on a new case.


Power Supply:Antec CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139014


Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Intel P67 LGA 1155 ATX Intel
http://www.excaliberpc.com/601006/asus-p8p67-deluxe-intel-p67.html


Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k


Memory: Unknown. 4x4GB


Graphics Card: 2 Crossfired Ati Radeon 5970
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102887&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Video+Cards-_-Sapphire+Tech-_-14102887


Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Card
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-X-Fi-XtremeMusic/dp/B000AY7A1I/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top


Monitor: Unknown. Gonna get a couple 24".


Dvd Drive: Lite-On LightScribe 24X SATA DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive IHAS424-98 - Retail (Black)
http://www.amazon.com/Lite--LightScribe-Layer-Drive-IHAS424-98/dp/B002SIMPXM/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1291154776&sr=1-3

CPU Cooling: Noctua 6 Dual Heatpipe with 140mm/120mm Dual SSO Bearing Fans CPU Cooler NH-D14
http://www.amazon.com/Noctua-Heatpipe-Bearing-Cooler-NH-D14/dp/B002VKVZ1A

GPU Cooling: Arctic Cooling Accelero x 2
http://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Cooling-Accelero-XTREME-5970/dp/B003D8DGT8/

Those are all the decided parts. I also require [strike]Liquid Cooling[/strike], [strike]Air Cooling/Associated[/strike]?, a couple hard drives, and a [strike]Power supply[/strike]. (Recommendations? Anything missing?)

Can I get some help?

 

[jedi940]

Power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371043&Tpk=Antec%20HCP-1200

Hard Drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=1tb%20f3

My first thought is that is going to be one beast of a rig. Also, that is going to be expensive and difficult to put together. A couple of thoughts. Why water cooling? This is tricky to install and deadly (to your computer) if done improperly. Good quality air cooling can still get the job done. 24GB of RAM just seems unneccessary. What speaker system are you going to be using?

If you are going with a no expense spared rig, why not do a multi-monitor setup and game across all three.

Builds this expensive are rarely practical, especially if this is your first time building. If you are sure that you want to purchase something this expensive and dive into building it, we will be happy to help. As for your watercooling, I don't know much about those setups as I have never done one. What do you plan on watercooling? CPU? GPU? Memory? NB? HDD? All of the above?

 

[MadAdmiral]

Case: Drop that to the HAF 922. The 922 is just as big, but will save you some money.

Mobo: Drop that to the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R. It's got most of the same features, yet it's cheaper. It's consider one of the best value LGA1366 boards out there.

RAM: I'd get some sticks with tighter timings. CAS Latency 7/1600 mhz would be best. Also, there is absolutely no reason you'd need 24 GB. Any more than 12 GB is absolute overkill. Hell, 12 GB is too much unless you're doing a lot of hardcore rendering.

Sound/Ethernet: Useless. Leave them out and spare yourself some costs. The onboard sound is already excellent and the added ethernet card isn't going to do anything for you.

Optical: I'd probably leave out the BR drive for now. Or just grab a single BR burner...

Cooling: Liquid cooling is largely a waste. It's very expensive (well over $500 to do it right), requires a lot of added work and maintainence, and has the potential to cause severe issues if a problem arises. Ditch it for the best air cooling money can buy: Notcua's NH-D14.

HDD: For storage, get the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB (however many you need/want). They're nearly the fastest standard drives out there, yet still some of the cheapest. For the OS/application drive, grab either an OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB or OCZ Agility 2 120 GB SSD.

PSU: I'd grab an 850W from Corsair, SeaSonic, Silverstone, Antec or XFX. That's all the power you'd really need, but you could get a larger one if it allows you to get an 80+ Gold certified unit.

I'd also avoid buying stuff off Amazon. They're overly expensive and don't have the great combos that Newegg usually offers.

I should also point out that this build will be obsolete in a couple weeks when Intel's new CPUs (and sockets) are released. Definitely wait for them.

 

[BurnZeZ]

Power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371043&Tpk=Antec%20HCP-1200

Hard Drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=1tb%20f3

My first thought is that is going to be one beast of a rig. Also, that is going to be expensive and difficult to put together. A couple of thoughts. Why water cooling? This is tricky to install and deadly (to your computer) if done improperly. Good quality air cooling can still get the job done. 24GB of RAM just seems unneccessary. What speaker system are you going to be using?

If you are going with a no expense spared rig, why not do a multi-monitor setup and game across all three.

Builds this expensive are rarely practical, especially if this is your first time building. If you are sure that you want to purchase something this expensive and dive into building it, we will be happy to help. As for your watercooling, I don't know much about those setups as I have never done one. What do you plan on watercooling? CPU? GPU? Memory? NB? HDD? All of the above?

It's not that I want to use water cooling, it's that it may be a necessity. Unfortunately, where the PC will be located can end up with 90F temperatures, and I'm afraid that air cooling may not be enough. If I was to use water cooling, it would probably just be the CPU/GPUs. If there is a way around using it, I would gladly go that route. The PSU and Hard drive looks pretty good. I might just use that PSU.

Case: Drop that to the HAF 922. The 922 is just as big, but will save you some money.

Mobo: Drop that to the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R. It's got most of the same features, yet it's cheaper. It's consider one of the best value LGA1366 boards out there.

RAM: I'd get some sticks with tighter timings. CAS Latency 7/1600 mhz would be best. Also, there is absolutely no reason you'd need 24 GB. Any more than 12 GB is absolute overkill. Hell, 12 GB is too much unless you're doing a lot of hardcore rendering.

Sound/Ethernet: Useless. Leave them out and spare yourself some costs. The onboard sound is already excellent and the added ethernet card isn't going to do anything for you.

Optical: I'd probably leave out the BR drive for now. Or just grab a single BR burner...

Cooling: Liquid cooling is largely a waste. It's very expensive (well over $500 to do it right), requires a lot of added work and maintainence, and has the potential to cause severe issues if a problem arises. Ditch it for the best air cooling money can buy: Notcua's NH-D14.

HDD: For storage, get the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB (however many you need/want). They're nearly the fastest standard drives out there, yet still some of the cheapest. For the OS/application drive, grab either an OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB or OCZ Agility 2 120 GB SSD.

PSU: I'd grab an 850W from Corsair, SeaSonic, Silverstone, Antec or XFX. That's all the power you'd really need, but you could get a larger one if it allows you to get an 80+ Gold certified unit.

I'd also avoid buying stuff off Amazon. They're overly expensive and don't have the great combos that Newegg usually offers.

I should also point out that this build will be obsolete in a couple weeks when Intel's new CPUs (and sockets) are released. Definitely wait for them.

I require a Full tower, as I will probably add more to it in the future. I will have at least 6 hard drives when finished. Sound card isn't really a must, but I'm a serious musician, so I figured I'd just go all out. Yeah, I'll probably just drop the BR Drive for now. It's not really needed. Added ethernet card isn't really necessary either, but it's possible that I may require it as a "workaround" for the wired setup I have. (I'll probably have 2 networks going, and I need to access them both.) Amazon rips off on some things, but has good deals on others. Just need to check the price on an item everywhere you can to find the cheapest deal. Newegg's combo deals are excellent. Thanks for reminding me.

Notes: The reason for the excessive amount of ram is indeed, hardcore rendering. I work with a lot of special effects, and can end up using massive amounts of ram. (Massive clips/layers. Just the initial footage can be as large as 50GB.)
In addition to that, I need enough ram to run other memory intensive applications at the same time.

Multi-Monitor setup will definitely happen. But I already have 2 monitors. Being as that I'll have 2 crossfired 5970s, I'll have 4 dvi, 2 of which will be required on the Dell Ultrasharp, other 2 for the other 2 monitors. Like I said, I'd like to stay away from liquid cooling if it is possible. But the temperature of the area the rig will be in, combined with Overclock may not be a good combination. If it is at all possible, could I get suggestions on ram with better timings? (24GB without breaking 500$?)

Thanks for your help so far. The PSU and Hard drive recommendations look pretty good. I could just be stubborn, but something makes me want to go with the ASUS motherboard. I'm not exactly sure why. (I can get it for about the same price as the Gigabyte board anyways.)

I might've forgotten something. Sorry if I'm making this hard.

EDIT: Actually, I'm waiting for the new stuff to come out in January, as It'll lower the prices of this hardware. I don't need the NEWEST, but I do need extreme performance, with only a semi-broken wallet.

 

[MadAdmiral]

The HAF 922 IS a full tower. It's just called a mid tower. If you compare it's dimensions to those of many of the mainstream full towers (Antec 1200 immediately comes to mind), you'll find it's actually bigger than many of them. The size difference between the 932 and 922 is basically nothing, yet you'll usually save $40-60.

Air cooling is just as effective as liquid cooling, at least until you start talking about the extreme cooling "solutions" like liquid nitrogen. The best air coolers cool just as well, are more reliable, easier to setup and maintain and cost a great deal less. To be honest, with the temperatures you're talking about storing the machine in, I wouldn't even try overclocking. You're just asking for instability when you're starting with those kind of ambient temps.

Since you've got the money, I'd start with some 2 TB storage drives instead of the 1 TB. That will help you keep the number of drives you need down as well. The Samsung Spinpoint F3 2 TB is a good choice, as are the Western Digital 2 TB drives. Just stick in a single SSD (probably a 120 GB one) to handle the OS and programs.

Also, it seems that with your storage needs, you should probably start looking at some NAS setups. You don't really need to store everything inside your machine. It certainly would be more effective than adding all the extra devices (and heat) to the main system.

 

[BurnZeZ]

Yeah, I'll just go with Air cooling. The room it'll be in averages 73-75F right now, and I'll just install an A/C before it starts getting hot again. Any suggestions on cooling? I haven't decided on any of that yet. I doubt I'll overclock the GPUs, at it'll hardly be necessary. The CPU, most definitely.

EDIT: I also found that the 932 was only 10-20$ more. So I might as well just go with that. If the prices change by the time I buy, I'll get the 922.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Notcua NH-D14. It's the best air cooler out there.

I see the 922 as $50 less than the 932. Newegg's got the 932 listed at $140 with free shipping, and the 922 at $90 with free shipping.

 

[Somebody_007]

Forget 1366 go with a 1155 7i 2600k when it comes out.

And get a decent case at this budget. The haf 922 and all it's big brothers cool wel and are sturdy for the money, but seriously? In a 4k build take a look at lian li, corsair, silverstone or some of the high end cooler masters like the atcs 840. A case does a lot more than just house a bunch of stuff. A great case reduces noise, increases airflow due to this to some extend performance aswell. All work paired with a computer is often tied with the case. Like cable management which is better on the very high end cases. You also get dust filters on all intakes(this a must really even for lower budgets) and it also defines the looks of your computer. You can house 980x beast in an NZXT vulcan, but seriously do you want a half-plastic poorly designed piece of steel to represent the beast your building?

As for the sound card. If the rest of your audio system is good enough a sound card will improve performance.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Just noticed the subject changed. I was building a more price/performance build with the 922 recommendation.

With $4,000, definitely start looking at the higher end options. I'd suggest the Silverstone Fortress FT02B (or with a window), Lian Li PC-P80, Corsair Obsidian 800D or HAF-X 942 (the 922's big, big brother).

 

[BurnZeZ]

Notcua NH-D14 looks pretty good.

I looked at guesstimated prices on the i7 2600k, and as long as it's under 600$, I'll go with that. (Does anyone know if this will require a different motherboard?)

Case changed to the 942. Wasn't even aware it existed.

I'm extremely lacking in knowledge on cooling. Would the Notcua be all I need?

 

[Guest]

why dont you go for the guftdown instead of bloomfield

 

[MadAdmiral]

@BurnZeZ: The i7-2600k will require a different board. The new CPUs Intel is releasing are coming out on new sockets. LGA1156 (mostly for current i5s) are being replaced by the LGA1155 and the LGA1366 (for current i7s) are being replaced by the LGA1365. The issue is that no one knows when these CPUs and boards are going to be released or how much they're going to cost. Expect the choices on the boards to be very limited when they're released.

The Notcua would be all you need. You don't really need additional cooling for any other part, so any aftermarket coolers aren't necessary.

@sr26: The i7-980X is just too damn expensive to even consider, even in a $4,000 build. Spending $1,000 on the CPU is just too much when you need a new monitor high end as well.

Look at it this way. The OP is going to be spending a good $1,000 on GPUs (dual 5970s), likely $300-500 on RAM (24 GB) and $1,400 on a monitor. That leaves $1,100 for the rest of the build. Since cooling is a major concern, the OP needs a high end case ($200ish) and a great HSF ($100). That means there is only $800 for the HDDs, board, CPU, and PSU. A great board is going to be a quarter of that, and the PSU is likely to be another $150. That leaves $450 for the HDD and CPU, meaing the only good option left is the i7-950.

In addition, if you actually need that much power, you should be looking at a server build with multiple CPUs.

 

[Somebody_007]

the i7 2600k is said to sell at 300usd when released and currently it tops the world rankings on air cooling by achieving a sub 7minute pi benchmark. It leaps ahead of the 980x by about 30seconds if I remember correctly. It uses 1155 sockets though so you'll need to change mobo and it uses dual channel ram so you need 4/8/16gb of ram.

And yesh truthfully you a d14 is all you need, heck you can cool your cpu with a fanless noctua d14 if you got good airflow and no OC. Watercooling is better but it's difficult to set up, risky to run and expensive(like madadmiral said you should be looking at around 600usd).

Anyways good cooling has many advantages so get the best possible is a good choice. I'd stick with air cooling because it's the simplest and cheapest, but i'd go with the best possible air cooling setup in this budget. Here's what I would get:

case: the haf x cools pretty well, but it's not the most silent and it gets beaten by many other cases in the price range. The absolute king of air cooling(it's also the king of silence and many other things really ) is the silverstone ft02 mentioned by madadmiral. It has one directional airflow which compliments the natural air flow(form the bottom up). Add to this a d14 with say 3 silverstone penetrators going also in that direction. And then some EE graphics cards and you've good insane silent one directional airflow. Trust me there's not a realistic air cooling setup in the world that's better than this(considering noise obviously a couple of deltas will cool any case well).

With all that insane cooling you will have some serious OC potential aswell leading to more performance.

 

[BurnZeZ]

@sr26 lol. That stuff is not worth the price.

@MadAdmiral +1. I may consider a dual cpu mobo, but considering the 1155s haven't even come out yet, who knows when they'll have dual cpu support.

@Somebody_007 Thanks for the information. The ram I've chosen cannot be used in a dual ram setup? Or were you just giving me a reminder to use dual?

Other Notes: I've changed my PSU to Corsair AX1200, and my tower to the Silverstone FT02B-W.

 

[MadAdmiral]

On the dual CPU boards, unless I'm mistaken, Intel is moving back to separating the server (business focused) and desktop (consumer focused) sides of their business again. Right now, the LGA1366 is an abnormality in hardware, where you can buy a dual CPU board (server specific) and use a consumer CPU (like the i7-930) because they both use the same sockets. I don't think the LGA 1365 will work that way, and I know the 1155 won't.

 

[mxerpac]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT BUY 24GB OF RAM. It is a gross waste. Just buy some nice 7/1600 RAM but only 6GB. Instead of the crossfire 5970 why not SLI the GTX 580s. Will usually beat the 5970 and has better multi-gpu scaling. As far as CPU goes I'm fairly sure intel stated that the i7-9xx would still be the flagship series. Go for the i7-950 (can overclock to compete with the 980X @ stock). I would reccomend the silverstone case with that budget. Invest the leftover money into some nice Solid State Storage and F3's for mass storage. AND DO NOT EVER BUY 24GB OF RAM YOU WILL REGRET IT. IT WILL NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 6GB. NO DIFFERENCE.

 

[Taylor422]

Just noticed the subject changed. I was building a more price/performance build with the 922 recommendation.

With $4,000, definitely start looking at the higher end options. I'd suggest the Silverstone Fortress FT02B (or with a window), Lian Li PC-P80, Corsair Obsidian 800D or HAF-X 942 (the 922's big, big brother).

What do you think of the Antec 1200?

 

[BurnZeZ]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT BUY 24GB OF RAM. It is a gross waste. Just buy some nice 7/1600 RAM but only 6GB. Instead of the crossfire 5970 why not SLI the GTX 580s. Will usually beat the 5970 and has better multi-gpu scaling. As far as CPU goes I'm fairly sure intel stated that the i7-9xx would still be the flagship series. Go for the i7-950 (can overclock to compete with the 980X @ stock). I would reccomend the silverstone case with that budget. Invest the leftover money into some nice Solid State Storage and F3's for mass storage. AND DO NOT EVER BUY 24GB OF RAM YOU WILL REGRET IT. IT WILL NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 6GB. NO DIFFERENCE.

That's a rather lame reply. Did you read the stuff I wrote about ram? "NO DIFFERENCE."????? .................

I'm lead to believe you are a troll, or are just uneducated.

Also, I'll resurrect this thread in a week or two, when I start to order my parts.

Taylor422: Hmm. I've not done any research into this case. How is it for air cooling vs the FT02B?

 

[mdd1963]

this review seems like a pretty sensible build for that kind of money, without wasting any on that last unneeded last 200-300 MHz of cpu speed.....

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4074/digitalstorm-blackops-almost-too-fast

 

[joelmartinez]

I think a 1000hx will power your system just fine the 1200ax is a great psu but you don't really need that much power even for 6 hard drives and 2 graphics cards

corsair 1000hx: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139007&Tpk=corsair%201000hx

 

[milkshake]

It may be worthwhile to take a look at some other monitors in that category. After all, for your purposes and the kind of rig your building, the monitor is really going to be where the tires touch the asphalt.

The HP's look very competitive for the type of monitor you're considering...and less expensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007617+600012686&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=20&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Personally I'd be absolutely terrified to build a rig that expensive as a first time build, especially if it included water cooling. All variables considered, I agree that air cooling is the most practical, reliable, and safe solution. Before handling your new components, I would strongly recommend reading as much documentation about computer assembly as you can.

 

[BurnZeZ]

I think a 1000hx will power your system just fine the 1200ax is a great psu but you don't really need that much power even for 6 hard drives and 2 graphics cards

corsair 1000hx: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139007&Tpk=corsair%201000hx

Yeah, it is a bit overkill, but I'm planning for the future.

It may be worthwhile to take a look at some other monitors in that category. After all, for your purposes and the kind of rig your building, the monitor is really going to be where the tires touch the asphalt.

The HP's look very competitive for the type of monitor you're considering...and less expensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007617+600012686&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=20&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Personally I'd be absolutely terrified to build a rig that expensive as a first time build, especially if it included water cooling. All variables considered, I agree that air cooling is the most practical, reliable, and safe solution. Before handling your new components, I would strongly recommend reading as much documentation about computer assembly as you can.

I've decided against getting a 30" monitor for the time being, for the reason that I've decided against venturing into graphic design areas that would facilitate that amount of detail, (And expense) for the time being. For now, I'm going to get 2 24" monitors.

I'm hoping for a 1-2ms response time. Decent contrast ratio. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[andrern2000]

Some advices from the above,

Replacing i7-980X with Sandy Bridge i7-2600K is going to save $700, with sinmilar performance with the 980X. how's that?

 

[undadawg]

I'm going to be building a similar system (quite a bit cheaper though)

here are my specs

CPU
- i7 2600k

MOBO
- Asus P8P67 Deluxe

RAM
- Corsair Dominator 1600 C9 8GB kit CMP8GX3M2A-1600C9 (4GBx2)

SSD
- Crucial C300 128GB

HDD
- WD black sata3 1TB (another popular option is the Samsung spinpoint drives which are great aswell and cheaper i think)

Graphics Card
- Asus Nvidia GTX 580 - (I think you wanted to SLI so you can just add one more card)

Power Supply
- Corsair HX850 (May want to go for 1000W to be sure if you're gonna SLI or add a lot of HDDs

DVD
- HP 24x litescribe dvd drive (You can add a bluray drive if your want)

Cooler
- Noctua D-14 or Coolermaster hyper 212+

Case
- Cooler Master 690 II Advanced (personal choice, you can go for the HAF series)

The total cost (my local singaporean price converted to US dollars) is around US$2600 but if you buy the parts from the USA it will be alot cheaper. (prices in Singapore are crazy )

You can put the rest of your budget into either adding one more graphics card for SLI, adding more/larger SSDs, more HDDs, bluray drive, monitors etc.

* I realized you are also looking for monitors, i recently bought a samsung BX2450 LED 24inch 1920x1080 monitor and it is amazing for gaming, watching movies and general use. I highly recommend them unless you are a professional designer or artist and you need more color accuracy or whatever, in that case i have no clue hehe. The reviews of the monitor are great with the most popular complaint being the touch panel controls. In reality, its not too bad although physical buttons would have been more practical.

goodluck

 

[BurnZeZ]

I changed the specs more.

Can someone verify that the build I have in the original post doesn't have any problems?