Work Station/Gaming Build

[ainshent]

Approximate Purchase Date: (On going ... month or two)

Budget Range: (Not entirely sure at this point .... under $5000 would be nice)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: (3DS Max (Modeling, Animation,Rendering .. etc.),
ZBrush, Photoshop and I do like some gaming)

Parts Not Required: (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: (Newegg and Tiger Direct usually)

Country: (US)

Parts Preferences: by brand or type (I am partial to Asus MBs and EVGA GPUs)

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Yes perhaps tri or quad down the road

Monitor Resolution: (Currently dual 1920 x 1200 perhaps an upgrade in the not to distant future)


I have been slowly piecing together a work station for 3d applications and gaming use. I was originally going to go with dual xenon processors. I wanted to get speedy processors for applications/gaming but also wanted as many cores I could reasonably afford for rendering. The combination of (2) fast and 4+ core Xenon processors and a server board makes cost sky rocket quickly. I didn't want to spend $2000+ just on processors. So I am currently at a single 6 core 3930K that will hopefully be overclocked to 4.2+ish ghz with liquid cooling (Corsair H100).

Video card wise I chose to steer away from the quadro type cards as they don't do gaming well. I do like the GPU accelerated I-ray rendering for quick results as well. It's my understanding that the more GPU power the quicker the results (Mainly number of cuda cores and GPU memory). I also use renderers that are mainly processor dependant ( 6 cores gives me 12 threads with hyper-threading.) It seemed the GTX 680s were workable and game compatible as well. Down the road I would like options to add additional 680s, a Quadro or even a Tesla card.

This leads me to the choice of motherboards. The Asus P9X79 WS seemed to have all the latest bling in a 2011 socketed board. 8 dimm slots for 64 gigs of quad channel memory and, 4-way sli if needed and good overclock potential.

This is the planned build ....

~Xigmatek Elysium Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Super Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815011

~ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 SSI CEB Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131798

~Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116492

~G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231508

~OCZ ZX Series 1000W Fully-Modular 80PLUS Gold High Performance Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341045

~CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181017

~(2x) EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130768

~SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147164

~(2x)Western Digital VelociRaptor WD5000HHTZ 500GB 10000 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236244

~ASUS 24X DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

~Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116997


"THIS IS THE COMPLETE LIST ON NEWEGG WISHLIST"
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=19196545

I already have the case (Was gonna go water cooled dual processors, so it's big), the power supply, and the Corsair H100 Cooler but am open to changes here. SSD for OS and main programs, (2) HDD in RAID for data.

Nothing is set in stone. I'm looking for critiques, potential problems and/or WTF are you thinking kind of responses. Saving some money is always welcome too. It has been a while since I've built a new computer and my level of ignorance is pretty high. I've read reviews, threads an pretty much anything I can to ease the process.

Any thoughts are very welcome

Thank you
~Ainshent

 

[ainshent]

Bump

 

[Free Range]

I realize this is a somewhat older thread, but you said it might take a couple months...

Over all, it sounds good to me.

Couple questions though: Do you really need that much RAM? RAM drive? There is faster RAM, if you don't need that much. Why Ultimate instead of Pro?

At that OC level, you'd probably be fine with an above average air cooled heat sink. One click of the auto OC in the BIOS should do it.

Anyway, I'm planning to get the WS ASUS with the 3930K too. Looks like a solid combo to me. I'm thinking about getting the 680 FTW or the 680 FTW+ 4GB. I'll likely go with the 4GB and get another one later for SLI.

 

[Draven35]

My question is whether or not you're planning on using CUDA/OpenCL-based stuff now-ish (you mentioned getting a Tesla). If so, then you might not want the 680 cards as their compute performance is crippled.