3-4yr build for photo editing and video transcoding

[chrisjs]

I already have monitors, storage, keyboard, mouse and software

Might be easier to view at i43.tinypic.com/fz59xt.jpg

550W PSU, Corsair Enthusiast Series 9020001, Modular, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX
£63.55 £76.26

LN35625
Edimax EW-7612PIn 300Mbps Wireless 802.11 b/g/n PCI Express Adapter
£12.89 £15.47

LN41909
Asus P8Z68-V GEN3, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub/DVI-D/HDMI, ATX
£101.60 £121.92

LN40233
120GB Corsair Force Series GT, SATA III SSD, SandForce SF2200, Read 555MB/s, Write 515MB/s, 85K IOPS
£112.12 £134.54

LN38959
1GB Asus GT 520 Silent, 40nm, 1200MHz GDDR3, GPU 810MHz, Shader 1620MHz, 48 Cores, D-Sub/ DVI/ HDMI
£33.52 £40.22

LN37506
Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad, 3.3GHz, HD3000 IGP 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W OEM
£136.15 £163.38

LN30100
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator and Fan Quiet CPU Cooler
£53.48 £64.18

LN41931
Fractal Design Define R3 USB 3.0 Black Pearl, Mid Tower Case with cable routing and noise absorbing material
£61.98 £74.38

LN42795
LG 10x Blu-ray Reader, 16x DVD±R, 8x +RW, 6x -RW, 12x RAM - OEM
£39.98 £47.98

LN40235
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance LP Cerulean Blue, PC3-12800 (1600), CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V
£65.60 £78.72

LN34923
AKASA AK-HDA-01 SSD & HDD adapter fits 3.5" HDD or 2.5" Notebook drive into 5.25" PC bay

I know IB isn't too far away but to me the performance gain for desktops seems much less than for laptops. As I would like the system ASAP, unless I'm completely wrong about performance gains, I don't see much point in waiting. I plan to OC, probably to ~4.5Ghz, hopefully cancelling out any performance benefit IB would bring (?) Is the RAM up to this?

I want to run a quiet, fast system with 2 x 1920x1080 displays, hopefully for ~4 years without a major Mobo/RAM upgrade although i might add a sound card or an ssd cache drive at some point.
The main use would be Photoshop (2d) and video transcoding. Is the low end GPU up to this? I don't plan on gaming at all and would still like to have a silent card if the gt520 isn't capable.


Main questions:
[1] Is the RAM up to overclocking
[2] Is the GPU too underpowered? Is there a better silent or quiet option (ideally below £70)
Would something like a HD6670 be worth the extra cost or would I not notice any difference?
[3] Any potential issues that i've missed?

Any input welcomed, thanks for your help.



(<-- posting cause it looks cool.)

[chrisjs]

100 views and no responses

I've made some slight changes:

Fractal R3 Case
ASUS P8Z68 Gen 3
i5 2500k
Thermaltake silver Arrow Cooler (I believe it's quieter than the Noctua?)
120 GB Corsair GT SSD
8GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance LP, PC3-12800, 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V (16GB Seems like overkill

Still torn on GPU, GT 520 or £30 more for a HD 6670?

[DannyM]

I would stick with 16GB of memory for future proof sakes, adobe have some funky new festures in the works which I imagine would be RAM intensive.

Also stick with nVidia for gfx, cuda is becoming fairly well integrated into video software these days.

Also the i7 2600k would be better suited for video transcoding and encoding.

[Ross1]

hyperthreading might be worth taking a look at for lots of video encoding. I do a fair amount myself, and well this log:

--[Information] [04/02/2012 03:42:06] Encoding started
--[Information] [06/02/2012 07:25:52] Standard output stream

tells you how long some things can take ;p

[jim]

Are you intending to offload encoding to the GPU then?

If not, the Z68 and 2500K/2600K would have built-in GPU for free and with the 2600K the hyperthreading may come in very useful.

[chrisjs]

Not planning to do GPU encoding, but it looks like CS6 will use GPU acceleration a lot more than currently. Upgrading my GPU once it's released is an option if i go cheap (or integrated) now i suppose.
How well does the HD3000 deal with multiple monitors?

Would cooling an i7 OC be an issue with that setup? Bearing in mind i'm looking to keep it quiet and on air.

[jim]

Mine's at 4.5GHz on air, you're not going to get a better air cooler than the NH-D14. Personally, I might be looking at the equivalent Antec Kühler or similar, but it's not going to make a serious difference to temps. I just quite like the idea of keeping all of the weight away from the mobo and leaving more space for air to circulate around the board.

[chrisjs]

I was looking at the Noctua before but the thermalright Silver arrow looks like it has almost identical performance in a quieter package,Do you reckon the Noctua is still better? Its also £20-30 more expensive...

[jim]

I was looking at the Noctua before but the thermalright Silver arrow looks like it has almost identical performance in a quieter package,Do you reckon the Noctua is still better? Its also £20-30 more expensive...

It's not going to be that much better, if at all. The Noctua packages have always been good, that's all I was saying.

If you want to get some more information, I'd start off here http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

[chrisjs]

Interesting, thanks very much.