First time building in awhile - $1400

[sotu]

Hi everyone!

I am a programmer, graphic designer, and music producer. As such I use Visual Studio 2010 extensively, Adobe CS5 suite, and Ableton for music production. This is about the extent of my abilities on a PC and I dont game at all.

That being said, I could really use some help with a my new PC build. I need a solid intel based PC in the 1400 range (I could go up a bit if necessary)

I was thinking i5-2500k with matching p67 mobo and whatever graphics card is hot right now?

Does anyone have a build that sounds like a good match for me and can just send over all the parts here I will be purchasing this week but I could wait if there was a reason to.

Thanks!

 

[striker410]

I have a questions. Do you need it right now? If not, it might be worth waiting a month and seeing what AMD bulldozer processors look like. If you must have it, try this.
ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.0) LGA 1155

ntel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)

SAMSUNG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM

OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTX60G 2.5" 60GB

COOLER MASTER HAF 922

MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC (get 2)

Samsung Desktop Class Spinpoint F3 1 TB (get 2)

This will give you powerful and affordable performance, with room to upgrade in the future

 

[mosox]

^+1

but he's not gaming. Get a single GTX 570 (for CS5 - mercury playback engine).

 

[sotu]

striker thank you a ton! that stuff looks great. So this is a SLI set up with two of the MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr thats pretty tight.

I was wondering if I should maybe not do a SLI and just get a single awesome gfx card, is that a good idea maybe? looks like mosox said I should SLI with 2 gtx 570? Is that better than one good gfx card still for adobe stuff?

 

[striker410]

If you want more power, I would suggest getting a single GTX 570 and in a year or two get another one. A single 570 will be PLENTY for now, but in the future they may come out with a program that needs a little more horsepower. I would suggest against getting 2 570's in SLI right off the bat however.

 

[mosox]

You don't need SLI, you're not a gamer. The GTX 570 is because of this
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/tech-specs.html

CPU + mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.642509
PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020
Alternative for the case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112239
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4XCT9yibwQ&feature=related

video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130593&cm_re=gtx_570-_-14-130-593-_-Product

buy this only if you use CUDA/hardware acceleration. If not any cheap video card will do.

You also need Windows 7-64 bit if you don't have it already.

 

[sotu]

thanks again guys, this is looking great. I'll be picking up the 64bit win 7 too but thats no biggie. Question.. seems a lot of people on here are overclocking the i5-2500k.. I suppose I'd be up for doing the same.. would I need some sort of extra good heat sync for the cpu to set this up? I may have overlooked it but I didnt see any heat sync in the parts mentioned above

Thanks again!

 

[striker410]

A 2500k can overclock to about 4ghz on stock cooling, but after that you will most likely need an aftermarket cooler. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus is an excellent and cheap cooler, as long as it fits in your case

 

[sotu]

rock on, I noticed you switched Mobo recommendations is that because one supported sli and the other didnt? I couldn't find anywhere on the second mobo specs via newegg (the one that comes with the 2500k) if it does or doesnt support sli. Is that to save a few bucks on the build? Since the GFX card is strong enough and I probably wont need to use sli in the future?

Thanks!

 

[mosox]

Yep. SLI is only for gamers. The hardware acceleration can't use SLI.

 

[sotu]

thanks guys, both of you've been ultra helpful. I dont suppose you have any good monitor recommendations.. I want to pick up 2 decent ones for this rig.

 

[striker410]

I personally would pick up a MOBO that supports SLI, in case they add support or you want to get into gaming. As for monitors, I would suggest something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009255
they seem to have pretty good reviews.

 

[mosox]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-117&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Sotu, the Intel® Core™ I5-2500K is a great processor and for gaming it really is outstanding, but almost everything that you are going to be doing with this system will take advantage of additional threads. So while it is more expensive you might want to look at the Intel Core I7-2600K. The Intel Core I7-2600K is a 100MHz faster and has hyper-threading giving you a total of 8 threads of work that can be done.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[sotu]

Christian, thanks for that suggestion. Your recommendation brings up a good point which I had not taken into consideration. I suppose I havent researched the advantage in performance using the hyper threading technology within the i7-2600k core vs using an i5-2500k.. this computer is going to support my home business environment for freelance projects that I work on, so I am willing to make the financial investment required to purchase an optimal set up.. Do you have any recommendations on mobos with the i7-2600k cpu?

Also, since you are working on the intel enthusiast team, might I ask if you have any sort of marketing material on the i7-2600k hyper threading or is there any online resource you could point me to with comparisons of threaded applications running on each proc. respectively? (I know thats a lot to ask but I figured it was worth a shot).

Thanks mate!

 

[striker410]

Any P67 mobo will work with the 2600k, it's the same processor as the 2500k essentially, except it has Hyper Threading.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=287
As you can see, the applications that can utilize Hyper Threading get a sizeable boost, but the one's that can't stay about even. I would check and see how many cores your programs can utilize, and make your decision based off that.

 

[gametstr]

^+1
Yup go with a single GTX570 but do get a SLI capable board just in case.

 

[sotu]

Ok, here is what I'm looking at.. anyone who has a moment to review this and let me know if there is any issue that would be fantastic! Thanks again

CPU – $315
Intel I7-2600k (3.4ghz, dual-quad core, hyper threading)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070&cm_re=i7-2600k-_-19-115-070-_-Product

Mobo – $180
Asus P8P67 Pro (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131703&Tpk=p8p67pro

RAM - $95
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428&cm_re=g.skill_8gb-_-20-231-428-_-Product

Main HD - $121
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227704&cm_re=vertex_2-_-20-227-704-_-Product

Secondary HD - $60
Samsung Desktop Class Spinpoint F3 1 TB SATA 3.0 Gb-s 32 MB Cache 3.5-Inch
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Spinpoint-3-5-Inch-Internal-HD103SJ/dp/B002MQC0P8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1304993558&sr=8-2

GFX Card – $355
EVGA GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130593&cm_re=gtx_570-_-14-130-593-_-Product

PSU - $90
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

CASE – $100
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197&cm_re=cm_922-_-11-119-197-_-Product

ROM - $70
SAMSUNG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive Model SH-B123L LightScribe Support – OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151222&cm_re=blu_ray-_-27-151-222-_-Product

Monitors – $180 x 2 = $360
ASUS VH238H Black 23" Full HD HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 ASCR 50,000,000:1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-117&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo


System Total: $1386
Add the monitors @ 360 for both
$1750 before taxes.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Sotu, here is a nice site that explains what Intel® Hyper-threading (Intel HT technology) does http://www.intel.com/technology/platform-technology/hyper-threading/index.htm. To make it easier to understand when you are using a processor rarely does it ever use 100% of the resources of the processor. What Intel HT does is allows a second pathway for data to enter the processor and take advantage of those left over resources. By allowing this to happen the processor appears and works as if it has doubled the number of cores. While you won’t get the full benefit of having an additional cores when you are using Intel HT technology you will get a benefit. So for programs like Adobe CS5 you can get somewhere around 15% to 85% of the core speed for each additional thread that can be run. A lot of program won’t take advantage of more than one thread and almost no games will take advantage of more than 3 threads, but for the software that you are using there are advantages.
Also to see the difference between the Intel Core™ I5-2500K and Intel Core I7-2600K you can check them out at this page http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=52214,52210,. The main differences between these processors is that the Intel Core I7-2600K is running 100MHz faster and it has Intel HT technology enabled on it.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[striker410]

Ok, here is what I'm looking at.. anyone who has a moment to review this and let me know if there is any issue that would be fantastic! Thanks again

It all looks good! It should be a system that will hold up well, and serve all of your needs.
I will suggest you hold off on the SSD for a little bit, as OCZ is releasing a new generation, which has much higher speeds. http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/ocz-unveils-agility-3-and-solid-3-ssds-for-thrifty-speedsters/ You can pick up one of the new ones which are much faster, or grab the 2nd gen ones when the price drops.

I also would pay attention to the fact that you are paying around $20 on the monitors for speakers. I would suggest getting monitors without speakers and using that money to get some standalone speakers.

 

[sotu]

set up looks awesome striker thanks for the tip about the SSD that is very true, but 60 bucks is no biggie so I'll just go for it for now. Thank you all for your time on figuring this out, you guys rock!

 

[gto930]

as a graphic designer, ur gonna want an IPS monitor since they display colors more accurately

 

[sotu]

as a graphic designer, ur gonna want an IPS monitor since they display colors more accurately

Oh yea? thanks for that recommendation also.. I havent really looked into monitors enough to even know the difference..
Do you mean something like this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236122&cm_re=IPS-_-24-236-122-_-Product

Anyone else have any experience using IPS monitors for Design work vs non IPS monitors?

 

[sotu]

Best answer selected by sotu.

 

[gto930]

sotu, skim through this website about IPS monitors:
http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php