New 3D Artist Computer Build: 2012.

This system is for a friend of mine in 3D art and it is my first time assembling a high budget machine. Any advice would help, truly,



Approximate Purchase Date: Before Friday, August 3

Budget Range: 1300 After Rebates; Before Shipping

System Usage from Most to Least Important: 3D Studio Max, Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator, Z Brush, In Design, Flash, Adobe/Autodesk ... the rest is gravy.

Are you buying a monitor: No

Do you need to buy OS: Yes. Any advice on the best place to obtain a well priced [NOT OEM] windows 7 would be very nice

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com, ncix.com, tigerdirect.com, CANADIAN shipping plz.

Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Parts Preferences: Fast and reliable.

Overclocking: Would like as little as possible if not 0.

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: n/a

Additional Comments: thanks for any input / advice

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Friend desperately needs a new machine that can handle the load of 3D work.


processor (310):
Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)

thermal paste (10):
Arctic Silver 5 HIGH-DENSITY Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound

heat sync (20):
COOLER MASTER Hyper CPU Cooler

motherboard (177 with the 73 rebate): Need to find a cheaper LGA2011 socket motherboard.
MSI X79A-GD45 LGA 2011 Motherboard


case (63 with the 25 mail in rebate):
Silverstone PS06B-W Precision Black ATX Tower Case

Video card (395): Did not want overclocked parts, but seemed like good deal.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC 980MHZ 2GB 6.0GHZ GDDR5

RAM (116 [getting16GB)): Looks fancy and might be overpriced for nothing.
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Memory

power supply (118 after 10 rebate):
Coolmax ZP-1000B Power Supply - 1000-Watt

HARD-DRIVE: (110):
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB Hard Drive

DVD burner (17):
LG DVD Burner 24x



Many thanks,

-Mike