I Bought Now I Need Your Advice

[GarySarg]

Hello Everyone,

I just plunked down a few dollars on a bunch of hardware and I was hoping someone with experience can tell me:

1. What settings to use on the motherboard for CPU & RAM so that I can make the most of the system. I know absolutely nothing about overclocking, CAS settings, timings, speeds, multipliers, blah, blah, etcetera.
2. Best way to go about RAID10'ing the 4 drives?
3. Comment on whether I should have purchased SATAIII Storage Drives instead?
4. Which and how many GPU's should I purchase to replace the GTS 450 if at all?
5. How many and what resolution monitors can I purchase for this system? (I'm hoping for 3).

The system will be used for video production and editing, Photoshop, coding, and various Office related tasks such as Word and Excel; some gaming. In order of importance the goal is to have a quiet, fast, stable system with a very low chance of lost data.

Thanks a ton to whomever can direct me! I appreciate you. I'm open to any and all comments, opinions about the items purchased.

Items I Purchased:

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K
CPU FAN: XIGMATEK Gaia SD1283 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler bracket included I7 i5 775 1155 AMD and dual fan push pull compatible
RAM: 2x sets of G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Memory Model F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM
MOBO: ASRock Z68 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
HDD OS: Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
HDD Storage: 4x (Hoping to RAID 10) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
PSU: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
GPU: nVidia GeForce GTS 450
OPTICAL: SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-222AL LightScribe Support - OEM
CASE: COOLER MASTER HAF X Blue Edition RC-942-KKN3 Black Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case with Black Interior

Cheers and much thanks!
Gary

 

[AdrianPerry]

The items you have already purchased look a fairly solid build.

What is your budget for graphics cards?

On a 750w PSU you looking anything up to SLI 560's or 6950's i think. Maybe even SLI 570s/6970s - although not sure on that.

You might also want to consider RAID 5 for those 4 1TB HDD's giving you 3TB of storage space + parity, rather than 2TB of mirrored storage.

 

[GarySarg]

Adrian,

So kind of you to respond. Thank you.

For all intensive purposes I have an unlimited budget on any purchase. I would limit this only by the criteria that is would be of benefit. I purchased the 750w PSU only because it was the highest output with the best ratings. I was guessing that more would be better. I'm open to suggestions on cards if you think I need them (or SLI) and the power 750w unit would support them.

Regarding the RAID 5. I appreciate the suggestion. I don't know much about RAID at all but was simply looking to ensure the maximum amount of data security from failure and secondarily improving speed if possible. I will look into RAID 5 more since I know nothing about it. I'm hopeful that either are not difficult to set up since I have no experience in using BIOS.

Again, very kind of you. If you have any further feedback, instruction or suggestion I appreciate it.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Well i think SLI 580s are going to draw way too much power from a 750w unit, albeit a very GOOD 750w unit.

There's always arguments and debates over which is better between Crossfire 6970's or SLI 570's since the cards perform very much the same. I think generally anything over 1920x1200 resolution, 6970's perform better (when using multiple monitors). If one card is on a nice sale price compared to the other though, the best option then would probably be the cheapest one.

In terms of reliability RAID 5 and 10 are fairly similar, both providing data security/backup but with RAID 5 giving more useable space. However i know there are some differences in read and write speeds depending upon RAID set ups, so thats also something you might want to look into. Sadly i dont know enough about it to advise.

 

[3xch4ng3]

Well i think SLI 580s are going to draw way too much power from a 750w unit, albeit a very GOOD 750w unit.

There's always arguments and debates over which is better between Crossfire 6970's or SLI 570's since the cards perform very much the same. I think generally anything over 1920x1200 resolution, 6970's perform better (when using multiple monitors). If one card is on a nice sale price compared to the other though, the best option then would probably be the cheapest one.

In terms of reliability RAID 5 and 10 are fairly similar, both providing data security/backup but with RAID 5 giving more useable space. However i know there are some differences in read and write speeds depending upon RAID set ups, so thats also something you might want to look into. Sadly i dont know enough about it to advise.

I would check the motherboard manual on setting up 4 HDDs in RAID. It looks like there are multiple speed ports that use different controllers (One Intel, one Marvell) and you want to make sure you're using all the HDDs on the same controller and speed port. One of the drawbacks with RAID is everything needs to be identical to have a stabe array.

I had 2 x 74GB WD Raptor drives that were the same part number but different revisions and would fail consistantly because the seek time on one of the drives was slightly faster and the cache size large.

Just something to keep in mind.

 

[DelroyMonjo]

That's a lot of very nice stuff. The GPU, GTS 450 is 2 generations behind all the gear you have listed, though.
Here is a link that might give you some help on the GPU-monitor situation.

http://www.techspot.com/review/390-triple-monitor-gaming-performance/

 

[geekapproved]

GTS450 is a rebadged, die shrink of the 8800GTS. By FAR the weakest link in that build.

 

[phenom90]

a very good build... but why gts 450?? get at least hd 6950 2gb.... step up again you can get gtx 570 or 580... for that psu the most you can get is gtx 570 sli... if you want gtx 580 sli get at least 850watts and above...

 

[GarySarg]

The items you have already purchased look a fairly solid build.

What is your budget for graphics cards?

On a 750w PSU you looking anything up to SLI 560's or 6950's i think. Maybe even SLI 570s/6970s - although not sure on that.

You might also want to consider RAID 5 for those 4 1TB HDD's giving you 3TB of storage space + parity, rather than 2TB of mirrored storage.

Thanks for your response. I researched and decided to stick with RAID 10 for maximum ease of recover-ability as the size beyond 2TB was not a big deal. Regarding the power supply I see that I'm going to have to upgrade when I go SLI.

Again, really appreciate your response.

 

[GarySarg]

I would check the motherboard manual on setting up 4 HDDs in RAID. It looks like there are multiple speed ports that use different controllers (One Intel, one Marvell) and you want to make sure you're using all the HDDs on the same controller and speed port. One of the drawbacks with RAID is everything needs to be identical to have a stabe array.

I had 2 x 74GB WD Raptor drives that were the same part number but different revisions and would fail consistantly because the seek time on one of the drives was slightly faster and the cache size large.

Just something to keep in mind.

Your advise on the board was solid. I ended up putting the RAID 10 on one controller and the OS SSD and Optical on the other. Also I took your advise and ordered 2 identical drives as backup. Thanks again!

 

[GarySarg]

GTS450 is a rebadged, die shrink of the 8800GTS. By FAR the weakest link in that build.

Far and away I agree with you. Decided I'm going with a GTX 580 (3GB VRAM) then will SLI it when needed (with an added power supply).