New build for end of June

[frozen]

2,100 euro budget (1 781.69786 British pounds, 2,827.02 U.S. dollars)

Only a new months left before I can sink my teeth into a new build..

!

Rig shall be almost entirely for video editing and photoshop work, not even sure if I should go with a consumer graphics card for this one. (Although it would be nice to be able to do *some* gaming.)

Will be picking up just one Dell U2412M monitor as I've already got a decent enough monitor which I will use as a secondary.

Total build cost: €2,689.70 + €30 shipping

OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 6,4cm (2,5") SATA3 €151.19

NZXT Phantom Big Tower - white/red , ATX, ohne Netzteil €139.34

ASUS RAMPAGE IV EXTREME, Sockel 2011, enhanced ATX, DDR3 €339.59

Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Retail (ohne Kühler), LGA2011 €901.95

Sapphire HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 PCI-Express €502.14

Noctua NH-D14, Sockel AM2/AM2+/AM3/775/1366/1155/1156 €67.99

Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850, 850 Watt €165.82

2 x 16GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1600) €87.71

Special item: Dell UltraSharp U2412M (schwarz) €246.26

I'll be claiming back 21% vat so that price is actually 2 148.563 euros.

Any help choosing parts would be very much appreciated, I haven't ever done a build with this sort of budget before so all help would be appreciated.

My choices above are just from me starting to mess about with a config, I'm not set on any of these parts (and June is a long time away so I know there will be new parts out by then so this is just a template for the build.) I haven't included a copy of windows as I have a spare copy of windows 7, and I haven't included a HDD because 1. They're expensive 2. I've got a few spare drives laying around and I can always upgrade at any stage later on.

~Also I'm hoping that by the time I get around to buying for this that the 3960x will have dropped in price by a bit because it's still ridiculous at the moment! I thought about getting a dual cpu motherboard and using two 3930s but maybe that's not the best idea! (Price is actually pretty comparable too, which is insane!)

Did I mention that I'm excited?!?!

 

[PetrolHead247]

Looks pretty good to me, but i'd change a couple things. Firstly i'd change the CPU from a 3960X to a 3930K. The only major difference between them is the cache size, so i doubt you'd see any performance gain from the 3960X over the 3930K (or you could use dual 3930K's on a dual board if you so wish). Another thing is the case. The Phantom is a decent case, but it can be a little bit of a pain to work with, so i'd swap it for a Cooler Master HAF X or NZXT Switch 810 (not sure if it's out yet) if you want a full tower case, or a CM Storm Trooper or Fractal Design Arc Midi if you could live with a mid tower case. Apart from that it looks good to me.

However, if i was you i'd definitely think about waiting until the full specs and benchmarks from Ivy Bridge are released. This time last year the I7 2600K completely smashed the performance of the 990X, and considering the 990X was near enough £1000 and the 2600K was about £220-£250, that's a huge saving on a CPU that is actually quicker. History could repeat itself and we could see the top i7 Ivy Bridge CPU could be quicker than the 3960X but for almost 1/5th of the price. So you may want to wait a little bit.

 

[JackyBoy]

Nice bunch of kit you have selected there. But there is a couple of things I would change. Firstly like petrol head says, unless you want the most performance you can, just go for the 3930. But if you really do need the performance then go for it!

Also don't get the rampage extreme. It is designed for super overclockers and as you are just going to be using an air cooler you don't fit this category. Save the money and go for a cheaper board. Also you can't put 2x 3930s together, I am looking into getting the EVGA sr-x dual 2011 socket board and you can only use the Xeon version of the sandy bridge e, not just the normal consumer chips.

Also in my opinion don't wait for ivy bridge, they are aimed to take over the 2600k chips, so will not perform as good as the 3960 at all, it is a different market, and as you will be doing video editing etc you may as well go for the better chips!

All my options though, something to think about at least!

 

[frozen]

Looks pretty good to me, but i'd change a couple things. Firstly i'd change the CPU from a 3960X to a 3930K. The only major difference between them is the cache size, so i doubt you'd see any performance gain from the 3960X over the 3930K (or you could use dual 3930K's on a dual board if you so wish). Another thing is the case. The Phantom is a decent case, but it can be a little bit of a pain to work with, so i'd swap it for a Cooler Master HAF X or NZXT Switch 810 (not sure if it's out yet) if you want a full tower case, or a CM Storm Trooper or Fractal Design Arc Midi if you could live with a mid tower case. Apart from that it looks good to me.

However, if i was you i'd definitely think about waiting until the full specs and benchmarks from Ivy Bridge are released. This time last year the I7 2600K completely smashed the performance of the 990X, and considering the 990X was near enough £1000 and the 2600K was about £220-£250, that's a huge saving on a CPU that is actually quicker. History could repeat itself and we could see the top i7 Ivy Bridge CPU could be quicker than the 3960X but for almost 1/5th of the price. So you may want to wait a little bit.

I'm waiting until around June 20th to order parts so I'll have to choose then. I was looking at the Switch 810 also, but the phantom looked so cool. I definitely don't want to get caught out like 990x buyers did, I would probably be forced to cry myself to sleep for weeks. I've got nothing but time at the moment though so I'll be able to choose before buying.

Nice bunch of kit you have selected there. But there is a couple of things I would change. Firstly like petrol head says, unless you want the most performance you can, just go for the 3930. But if you really do need the performance then go for it!

Also don't get the rampage extreme. It is designed for super overclockers and as you are just going to be using an air cooler you don't fit this category. Save the money and go for a cheaper board. Also you can't put 2x 3930s together, I am looking into getting the EVGA sr-x dual 2011 socket board and you can only use the Xeon version of the sandy bridge e, not just the normal consumer chips.

Also in my opinion don't wait for ivy bridge, they are aimed to take over the 2600k chips, so will not perform as good as the 3960 at all, it is a different market, and as you will be doing video editing etc you may as well go for the better chips!

All my options though, something to think about at least!

Damn I really didn't think about the dual 3930 thing! Thanks for that - would have been an expensive mistake!

In regards to the motherboard, I'm not quite sure at all which one I should choose, and I've heard nothing but good things about the rampage extreme, it is a lot of money though so this is good that I can shave maybe a hundred off the price. If ivy offers similar performance to a 3960 for a cheaper price I may be better off to choose that and spend the difference in cash on a raid 0 ssd setup, although I'm pretty sure the bottleneck is still going to be my graphics card (even though I do most of my editing in sony vegas, where it's next to useless.)

 

[PetrolHead247]

If you do end up going for a 3930K build but want to drop the Rampage IV due to price take a look at the Asus Sabertooth X79. It's £250 on Aria (compared to the Rampage at £320), it's a great overclocker, has tons of features and is quite a lot cheaper than the Rampage.