AE/3d/HD vid editing, dual-boot machine $900-$1100

[crowellster]

I'm trying to make a machine that will also support Mac OSX Lion (hackintosh). AE render speeds are not most important to me: preview and performance/responsiveness are. This machine is based on a similar build (high-end one at http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/11/building-sandy-bridge-customac-buyers.html)

Approximate Purchase Date: May/June 2012

Budget Range: $900-1100 After Rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: After Effects, Cinema 4d/Maya, video editing (AVID Media Composer, FCP7/x on the mac side), Photoshop/illustrator, light gaming (Anno2070, Sim City 4)

Parts Not Required: Monitor, Mouse

Country: U S of A

Overclocking: Hopefully

SLI or Crossfire: No
--------------------------------
Parts:

CPU: i7 2600k, $315
Is this necessary for what I do? It seems AE takes good effect of the hyperthreading, so the bump from the i5 justifies the extra $100?

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD4 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard, $200
Newegg
Needs here: FW for an audio interface, eSATA for an external RAID 0 drive. Is it wiser to get a different mobo and buy cards for those things?

GRAPHICS: MSI N560GTX-Ti 448 Twin Frozr III PE/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 448 Cores (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card, $300
Newegg
Will I see a bump here worth the extra $100 over a 560?

RAM: 16GB Corsair 1600Mhz DDR3, ~ $100

CASE: Corsair Carbide Series 400R, $100

SSD: I would like this machine to dual boot OSX Lion and Windows 7. I'm not sure what to do about hard drive(s). Does it makes sense to shoot for 2 120gb SSDs? Is that overkill in terms of size and speed?

PSU: High Current Pro HCP-750 750W TX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply, $175
Do I need that much wattage?

WIFI + keyboard: ~$100?

This puts me at around $1300, so I'm wondering where I can pare back a bit--where might I see only marginal returns for my money?

thanks everybody!
-Justin

 

[gary1]

I would suggest this MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157295

For Graphics, go for a GTX 570, they're basically the same price now.

I would get a 128gb Crucial M4 SSD for boot and some programs, then put everything else on a storage drive.

For PSU, you don't need 750W. Here's a good, reliable power supply. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088

Keyboard, I recommend the Microsoft Sidewinder X4, and wifi card, this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704133

 

[crowellster]

Thanks for the response! Mobo looks good, but is there any upgrade there from the GIGABYTE one?

For graphics: Do you think for what I'd do I'd see much of a bump from a straight GTX 560?

Probably will get an SSD for the mac side, and a regular drive for the PC side (pc performance is FAR less important to me).

Power supply--good though, I'll definitely drop down to something like that.