Building a pc for lightroom / ps5 / multitasking

[terrapinab]

Hi,
Im ordering a pc from avadirect. I wish i had the time to build myself (have done so on a few computers), but i also end up messing something up, so i just want to keep it clean this time. I also lack any free time.

So, it seems like avadirect gives me the most configurable options.
Im tweaking this system:
http://www.avadirect.com/product_details_configurator.asp?PRID=19541#configure


I dont do much gaming. Id love to play a game or two, but dont have much free time for it.
I am an amateur photographer, so I run lightroom 3.0 all the time, and some photoshop. Ill have 20-50 or more tabs opened up in browser all the time and some word or excel docs going. Also encode movies using nero showtime and would like that sped up.
Can you guys give me feedback on these components and offer any alternatives?
Thanks.



+ CUSTOM PC, Core™ i5 / i7 2-way CrossFireX™ Performance Series Desktop Computer System1$1978.16$1978.16

LIAN LI, PC-60FNWX Black Mid-Tower Case w/ Window, ATX, No PSU, Aluminum
I dont think this case has enough room for hdd's. I dont care about a window or anything. i also dont want a swinging door, the dvd-drive should be exposed. a quiet, efficient case is best. may need to go full tower.

CORSAIR, CMPSU-650TX TX Series Power Supply, 650W, 80 PLUS®, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, SLI Ready
(Is that enough power for 7-9 drives?)


ASUS, P8P67 PRO, LGA1155, Intel® P67, DDR3-2200 (O.C.) 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /6, 6 Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /4, HDA, GbLAN, BT, FW /2, ATX, Retail
Is this the best p67 board out there in this range?

INTEL, Core™ i7-2600K Quad-Core 3.4GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 8MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST HT TB VT-x XD, Retail

COOLER MASTER, Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler, Socket 1366/1156/775/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum, Retail

ARCTIC SILVER, Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver

CRUCIAL, 8GB (2 x 4GB) PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz CL9 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
Is this the best 8gb ram? Any advantage to the faster ram?

XFX, Radeon™ HD 5770 850MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4800MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, DVI /2, DP, HDMI, Retail
Thoughts on the card?

OCZ, 120GB Vertex 2 SSD, MLC SandForce SF-1200, 285/275 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail
Is this a good ssd? I thought about raidding 2 drives, but ssd seems fast enough

WESTERN DIGITAL, 2TB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD2001FASS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB Cache

WESTERN DIGITAL, 2TB WD Caviar® Green™ (WD20EARS), SATA 3 Gb/s, IntelliPower™, 64MB Cache
Ive heard complaints about the green series, any real life experience here?

SONY, AD-7261S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, OEM

LG ELECTRONICS, WH10LS30 Black 10x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Blu-ray Disc™ Burner, SATA, Retail
Its time to get a blue-ray burner - thoughts on this vs plextor?


Thanks for your time.

 

[Proximon]

Traditionally Nvidia is better at 2D work than Radeon... although I can't comment on current drivers as I haven't looked recently.

Maybe the Gigabyte GTX 460 if you are going to do a little gaming. They don't tell you, but the P8P67 PRO is quite capable of SLI also... not that you are likely to get a second, but don't think you are limited to AMD cards there.

The PSU is OK but for the same price you can get a Seasonic S12. Better. Will PROBABLY handle all those drives spinning up at once easier. I can't say for sure as the Corsair 650TX is not reviewed in it's present form. The OLD 650TX was definitely not quite as good as the Seasonic. The new 650TX according to Corsair is a bit better than the old, but there's no reason to take their word when we don't have to.

The Lian li PC-A70F is what you are looking for. It's just 4 bucks more than the one you chose.


I would like to see a WD Enterprise-class main drive there is they have them and you can afford it. You'll get a bit more speed and better reliability...
Yes, the RE4, 1TB WD1003FBYX.

I think a Blu-ray burner is fine if you need it. I use a combo drive and find it to be quite fast with DVDs and great at Blu-ray playback... it's a Samsung.

 

[terrapinab]

Thanks for the feedback. Thats a good case.

So, you reccomend a hdd over ssd as a boot/cache drive? Why not just go with a 10,000 rpm then?
Would 2 of the RE4 in a raid be even faster?

Any thoughts on the ram?

Thx

 

[Proximon]

SSD for OS and programs and HDDs for all that important data. SSD is far faster than RAID 0 platter drives. Two enterprise class drives in raid 1 would be ideal for data.

I don't think your storage drives need to be that fast. I think your photography is important to you though, or you wouldn't be doing this... so let's protect the work with redundant drives (RAID 1).

I have not seen any RAM benchmarks on the new chipset, but I doubt you'll see big gains from higher clocks. Lower latencies yes, possibly.
There is a Corsair Vengence 2X4GB kit at 1600Mhz CL8 1.5V.... That's the best choice they have. heatsinks are a bit high and may conflict with some larger CPU coolers.