Looking for upgrade advice

[sithlord3k]

Hi folks,

I'm looking to upgrade (actually build a new pc from scratch), and I just wanted some input on whether I've chosen the best bits for the job or not.

The pc I'm looking to build, will be used for three main things: media pc, gaming rig and as a media work horse (i.e. adobe premier, photoshop and maybe some 3D animation). Because of all the things I wanted to do with this pc, I've set aside a budget of around £2500, and my potential setup comes in at roughly £2300. I'm looking at:

Asus Sabertooth X58
Intel Core i7 950 3.06
OCZ 12GB 1600MHz Gold XTC Triple Channel Kit
OCZ 120GB Vertex 2E SSD
Either 4x Seagate 2TB Barracuda 5900rpm
or 4x Samsung Spinpoint F3 2TB 5400rpm
Corsair H70 Hydro Series CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GTX 480
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX 1200W
LG BH10LS30 10x BD-RE
NZXT Phantom White Full Tower Case
Samsung SyncMaster P2450 24" Monitor
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

The 1200W PSU is to (hopefully) accomodate another GTX 480 at a later date if needed, and maybe few more HDD or SSD at a later date. Also I may eventually increase the RAM to 24GB. Having an Nvidia card is a must for me, because Adobe only allows nvidia cards to make use of Medusa video rendering in Adobe Premier.

One other query is whether I need a sound card or not. I currently use the onboard spdif to connect to my Logitech Z-5400 Setup. Would a sound card make any noticable difference ?

Thanks in Advance!

[skuzzzzy]

Hi folks,

I'm looking to upgrade (actually build a new pc from scratch), and I just wanted some input on whether I've chosen the best bits for the job or not.

The pc I'm looking to build, will be used for three main things: media pc, gaming rig and as a media work horse (i.e. adobe premier, photoshop and maybe some 3D animation). Because of all the things I wanted to do with this pc, I've set aside a budget of around £2500, and my potential setup comes in at roughly £2300. I'm looking at:

Asus Sabertooth X58
Intel Core i7 950 3.06
OCZ 12GB 1600MHz Gold XTC Triple Channel Kit
OCZ 120GB Vertex 2E SSD
Either 4x Seagate 2TB Barracuda 5900rpm
or 4x Samsung Spinpoint F3 2TB 5400rpm
Corsair H70 Hydro Series CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GTX 480
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX 1200W
LG BH10LS30 10x BD-RE
NZXT Phantom White Full Tower Case
Samsung SyncMaster P2450 24" Monitor
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

The 1200W PSU is to (hopefully) accomodate another GTX 480 at a later date if needed, and maybe few more HDD or SSD at a later date. Also I may eventually increase the RAM to 24GB. Having an Nvidia card is a must for me, because Adobe only allows nvidia cards to make use of Medusa video rendering in Adobe Premier.

One other query is whether I need a sound card or not. I currently use the onboard spdif to connect to my Logitech Z-5400 Setup. Would a sound card make any noticable difference ?

Thanks in Advance!

motherboard looks good to me.
id suggest g.skill, mushkin or corsair ram over ocz.
id suggest the gskill sandforce or the crucial c300 ssd.
samsungs over the seagates for hdd's.
id suggest thermalright silverarrow/noctua d14 over h70 unless you were willing to buy gentle typhoon 15's for the h70, the stock fans are really loud.
not sure on the gpu but the msi twin frozr II looks like it would cool much better with its after market heatsink.
1000hx corsair should be plenty.
im looking to buy a soundcard myself and dont know much about them, however unless you use high end audiophile speakers or headphones i dont think you really need a soundcard.

[Pob255]

Wow that's one heck of a machine you're planning to build.

I'd generally agree with skuzzzzy although mushkin memory is hard to get over here and any RMA would have to involve sending it to the US as AFAIK mushkin don't have any EU returns office

The stock fans on the h70 are not that bad, esp if correctly setup with PWM (almost any PWM fan correctly setup is very quiet) however the gentle typhoon is probably the best radiator fan you can get due to it's high static pressure.

Corsair HX vs AX, the AX is amazingly good and one of the best PSU's around (also look at the Seasonic X) It's going to come down to overclocking, the HX is still good and very solid in performance with great ripple control the AX just takes it a step further and it is probably overkill.
And if you are looking at adding a 2nd gtx480 then 1000w is the range you're looking at, maybe slightly less.
Might also want to look at
900W Enermax Modu 87+ Gold
1000W NZXT Hale90 Power

If you stick to a single gtx480 then a good 750-850w will be more than enough, although I do have a feeling that a high end 750-850w psu could probably cope with a gtx480 sli system as we do tend to over rate PSU needs.

Hard drives I favour Samsung or Western digital, Seagate just doesn't seem to be as good as they used to be.

[skuzzzzy]

Wow that's one heck of a machine you're planning to build.

I'd generally agree with skuzzzzy although mushkin memory is hard to get over here and any RMA would have to involve sending it to the US as AFAIK mushkin don't have any EU returns office

The stock fans on the h70 are not that bad, esp if correctly setup with PWM (almost any PWM fan correctly setup is very quiet) however the gentle typhoon is probably the best radiator fan you can get due to it's high static pressure.

Corsair HX vs AX, the AX is amazingly good and one of the best PSU's around (also look at the Seasonic X) It's going to come down to overclocking, the HX is still good and very solid in performance with great ripple control the AX just takes it a step further and it is probably overkill.
And if you are looking at adding a 2nd gtx480 then 1000w is the range you're looking at, maybe slightly less.
Might also want to look at
900W Enermax Modu 87+ Gold
1000W NZXT Hale90 Power

If you stick to a single gtx480 then a good 750-850w will be more than enough, although I do have a feeling that a high end 750-850w psu could probably cope with a gtx480 sli system as we do tend to over rate PSU needs.

Hard drives I favour Samsung or Western digital, Seagate just doesn't seem to be as good as they used to be.

yea im US so im not really sure what products are widely available in the UK or what can be easily rma'd.

i believe the ax series by corsair is made by same makers of the xbox 360 power supplies and have had a bunch of problems since release. i believe the hx series is by seasonic.

[sithlord3k]

Wow that's one heck of a machine you're planning to build.

I'd generally agree with skuzzzzy although mushkin memory is hard to get over here and any RMA would have to involve sending it to the US as AFAIK mushkin don't have any EU returns office

The stock fans on the h70 are not that bad, esp if correctly setup with PWM (almost any PWM fan correctly setup is very quiet) however the gentle typhoon is probably the best radiator fan you can get due to it's high static pressure.

Corsair HX vs AX, the AX is amazingly good and one of the best PSU's around (also look at the Seasonic X) It's going to come down to overclocking, the HX is still good and very solid in performance with great ripple control the AX just takes it a step further and it is probably overkill.
And if you are looking at adding a 2nd gtx480 then 1000w is the range you're looking at, maybe slightly less.
Might also want to look at
900W Enermax Modu 87+ Gold
1000W NZXT Hale90 Power

If you stick to a single gtx480 then a good 750-850w will be more than enough, although I do have a feeling that a high end 750-850w psu could probably cope with a gtx480 sli system as we do tend to over rate PSU needs.

Hard drives I favour Samsung or Western digital, Seagate just doesn't seem to be as good as they used to be.

Yeah, after skuzzzzy's suggestions, I started looking into the gskill ram, and I've decided to go for them instead (hoping to find 4GB ram sticks). Also decided to do some research into the gentle typhoon. I've taken your advice and decided to go with a lower spec psu, likely the Corsair 850w hx, which will hopefully also be able to cope with the gtx 480's in sli. I'm going with the Samsungs as advised by both of you.

The only things I'm not sure about is which ssd to get (which I'm going to research further into), and whether the H70 is the best choice for my build, especially since I'm hoping to OC at some point. Skuzzzzy's listed a few choices for both the ssd and cooling fans, which puts me in a great position to start my research.

Any more advice/opinions that anybody wants to give is welcomed, and thanks to both skuzzzzy and pob255 for their help so far!

[skuzzzzy]

Yeah, after skuzzzzy's suggestions, I started looking into the gskill ram, and I've decided to go for them instead (hoping to find 4GB ram sticks). Also decided to do some research into the gentle typhoon. I've taken your advice and decided to go with a lower spec psu, likely the Corsair 850w hx, which will hopefully also be able to cope with the gtx 480's in sli. I'm going with the Samsungs as advised by both of you.

The only things I'm not sure about is which ssd to get (which I'm going to research further into), and whether the H70 is the best choice for my build, especially since I'm hoping to OC at some point. Skuzzzzy's listed a few choices for both the ssd and cooling fans, which puts me in a great position to start my research.

Any more advice/opinions that anybody wants to give is welcomed, and thanks to both skuzzzzy and pob255 for their help so far!

i think you should get the 1000hx to play it safe, if you plan to sli and oc. also when are you buying?

the gtx 580 is coming out next month on the 19th, according to a few sites. its expected to be 20% better from what i read.
aswell as the 6950/6970 amd cards.

[Pob255]

No the AX is made by different companies depending on model

The 1200w model is made by Flextronics
I don't know if they also made xbox external power bricks (there are 3 different revisions, 203w 175w and a 150w depending on xbox 360 version)
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...tory5&reid=189

The HX1000w is made by CWT
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story4&reid=89

Both are very good units

PS the AX750w and AX850w which are made by Seasonic based off their X series

[skuzzzzy]

No the AX is made by different companies depending on model

The 1200w model is made by Flextronics
I don't know if they also made xbox external power bricks (there are 3 different revisions, 203w 175w and a 150w depending on xbox 360 version)
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...tory5&reid=189

The HX1000w is made by CWT
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story4&reid=89

Both are very good units

PS the AX750w and AX850w which are made by Seasonic based off their X series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flextronics
says they have a contract with xbox 360, so im guessing that was the company that everyone was referring too.

anyways i dont really mean the ax1200 is bad when it works, im mainly referring to the quality control of the ax1200. there has been a bunch of problem ax1200's since the release. from labels being upside down, fan hissing, to whole psu malfunctioning.

and sorry i didnt mean to comment on the entire ax series, just the 1200ax.

[Pob255]

I'd not heard about the ax1200 issues, I knew Flextronics make PSU's for Cisco and server grade psu's

I'm guessing from that that they assemble the xbox, whether or not they make the power bricks is unknown, at least I couldn't find any info on the manufacture of xbox power bricks.

Interesting

Dell Computer Corporation (AC Adapters for portable computers)

I know Dell used to use Delta to make all it's laptop power bricks.

[nibbler]

I'd say tone it down a little and get a better quality monitor or case. The question is do you really need 8TB of storage? 0.o
Otherwise a nice build, personally I'm a fan of those asus sabertooth mobos.

[skuzzzzy]

I'd not heard about the ax1200 issues, I knew Flextronics make PSU's for Cisco and server grade psu's

I'm guessing from that that they assemble the xbox, whether or not they make the power bricks is unknown, at least I couldn't find any info on the manufacture of xbox power bricks.

Interesting
I know Dell used to use Delta to make all it's laptop power bricks.

http://www.overclock.net/power-suppl...200ax-psu.html
http://www.overclock.net/power-suppl...ems-fixed.html

however a few people have posted stating that the problem has been fixed.

[sithlord3k]

I didn't realise that the gtx 580 was coming out in November, I might have to wait a bit before building this new pc now, lol. I think that if I end up going for the 580, then I'll definately get the 1000W

I'd say tone it down a little and get a better quality monitor or case. The question is do you really need 8TB of storage? 0.o
Otherwise a nice build, personally I'm a fan of those asus sabertooth mobos.

Lol, let's just say that I've already got over 5TBs of data already. But, to be honest, 4TB will be used up fairly quickly by my Adobe Premier projects, and 3D animation projects. That just leaves me with 2 x 2TB, which I'll be using in RAID 1.

Was there anything else in regards to toning it down ?

[Pob255]

Actually the power demands should come down, it's hard to see how nvidia could get the power demands much higher than the femi chip

@nibbler, the Phantom is a Quality case.

[sithlord3k]

It seems that nobody in the UK has the Silver Arrow in stock. Anyway, I'm not sure whether I could fit in a Silver Arrow or Noctua d14 without losing ram slots on the sabertooth.

[skuzzzzy]

It seems that nobody in the UK has the Silver Arrow in stock. Anyway, I'm not sure whether I could fit in a Silver Arrow or Noctua d14 without losing ram slots on the sabertooth.

i use g.skill eco series ram which is low profile ram, and its a tight fit with my silver arrow. the d14 has better ram clearance then the silver arrow and is easier to find. but as long as its nothing higher then g skill ripjaw series your fine.

[nibbler]

Fair enough, in which case stick with what you got case wise and data wise
Maybe a better monitor though if it's for media work?