System Spec Advice for a newbie!

[Leo0123]

Hi All,

I want to put together a system mainly that I will be using for video editing, some games, normal stuff (using internet, word etc). I am also looking to overclock it.

The spec I have got together so far is:

processor - Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (my understanding this is better value for money as I can overclock it better than others)

motherboard - Asus RAMPAGE III EXTREME

any recomendations for the case, power supply, video card? I am looking for a top spec system.

Thanks,

Leo

 

[Runebeard]

Power supply, I'd say go Corsair and probably one of the modular HX series. They make top notch ones and depending on wattage you can get up to a huge 7 year warranty.

 

[tinytomlogan]

A good bit of info would be a budget tbh fella. The RE3 is actually overkill unless you are actually planning on raping your processors pink bits.

 

[Leo0123]

A good bit of info would be a budget tbh fella. The RE3 is actually overkill unless you are actually planning on raping your processors pink bits.

Any suggestions? I looked at the rampage II but the price difference is nominal. Plus since I am new to overclocking I wanted something that would make it easier to do. Also, want a motherboard which i wouldnt have to replace for a while.

 

[Leo0123]

Power supply, I'd say go Corsair and probably one of the modular HX series. They make top notch ones and depending on wattage you can get up to a huge 7 year warranty.

Thanks, I will have a look into this

 

[tinytomlogan]

The RE3 wont make first time overclocking any easier than most motherboards. If anything the ammount of things for you to play with and get wrong will probably make it harder dude. Most important thing tbh is to hear what your budget is?

 

[Leo0123]

The RE3 wont make first time overclocking any easier than most motherboards. If anything the ammount of things for you to play with and get wrong will probably make it harder dude. Most important thing tbh is to hear what your budget is?

Hi, sure. I want a system which will last me a long time and enable me to do HD video editing without a problem. Budget is approx £1000 for whole system.

 

[tinytomlogan]

If you only have £1000 then you deffo dont want the RE3 as thats like £300 on its own dude.

RE3 = £300

930 = £200

Ram = £150+

PSU = £150+

GPU = £250+ (5850)

Thats £1050 already

 

[Runebeard]

As my budget for my build was also round £1000, I ended up going for ~£130 Corsair HX850W (7 year warranty, max output of ~1KW) and Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R as it has good bang for buck as far as overclocking goes and it's only ~£150. *EDIT* And it has Sata6 and USB3 so pretty future proof too.

GPU-wise as you'd need some expensive WC to go NVidia atm, Tom's right, ATi is deffo the way to go especially if you can squeeze out the extra for a 5870 with careful budgeting.

 

[Leo0123]

Hi, thanks both for your replies!

If I pushed my budget to £1300 - (if worth it will go to £1500) total for everything, could you please with your knowledge give me an idea of which processor (i7 920?), motherboard, video card etc i should get.

I just spent a bit of money on a HD video camera, i want to ensure it will be able to handle HD editing. Plus as mentioned before i want it to be future proof. Prefer to spend a bit more on components you prob wouldnt replace often e.g. motherboard.

Thanks,

Leo

 

[Rastalovich]

If he's doing some serious work in video editing, it would be worth finding out if the guys software uses stream or cuda.

Also if it's work and not stream/cuda based, an amd hex core maybe a good option ??

It's not good practice to just throw out components when spending a lot of other people's cash.

If it's casual editing (i.e. an excuse to tell the misses just to buy a gaming pc) and just gaming, all of his cash should go into the graphics. U don't need an expensive WC unit to use an nvidia card, u will however probably want to buy ear plugs.

£1300-£1500 and u buy a 5850, u've frankly wasted alot of time. If u get pressured into going amd, u need to atleast get a newer 5870/2g for £400+, hell I'd get the dual gpu option if I got that budget. £600 for that and £600+ to spend on the frivelous stuff.

 

[siravarice]

Maybe 930? I know it's cheaper but it overclocks a lot better. More futureproof that way. Go for corsair PSU, or Be Quiet! PSU's. Go ATi as it's the cheaper option for almost the same performance.

 

[kobus71]

You should go for 6GB of RAM cause your video editing.

Amount of RAM is in this case more important then speed.

 

[Leo0123]

Hi

Hi,

Thanks for all your help. I have changed my spec slightly (as per my message my plan is to do video editing, have a go at overclocking, some gaming)

Spec:

Processer: Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - £166

Motherboard: GA-X58A-UD5 (rev 2.0) - £215

RAM: 2 sets of the following, so 8GB of RAM - Kingston 4GB, 1600MHz, DDR3, Non-ECC, CL9 (9-9-9-27), DIMM, (Kit of 2) (KHX1600C9D3K2/4G) - £194

Video Card: Sapphire 1024Mb ATi Radeon HD 5870 PCI-Express VGA Card - £345

Power Supply: Corsair 1000W HX PSU - 6x PCI-E, 10x SATA - Modular Design with 5 Year Warranty - £174.99

so far spend is £1082. My max is £1400 ideally.

I am now looking for a Case and HDD any recommendations? Plus the case i need it to be quiet.

Thanks,

Leo

 

[Rastalovich]

I'd transfer around £55 from that PSU to the graphics section. Either get a 2G 5870 or a GTX480.

1K psu aint required.

 

[Runebeard]

Aye, if you do, get the Corsair HX850 instead, its about £45-50 cheaper and is the cream of the crop in my opinion.

HDD-wise for large storage I'd think about Samsung Spinpoint F3's either 500GB's or 1TB's depending one what you want. I've got one and the main man TTL has 12(!!!) in his new server project, so they must be good.

Case is a hard thing to recommend I find, people's opinions on cases can vary massively depending on whether looks or functionality is more important. But, if you want something large, with good storage and isn't obtrusive aesthetically, the CM ATCS 840 gets rave reviews wherever you look.

 

[Rastalovich]

That mobo do dual channel or tri channel ?

 

[Leo0123]

Hey,

I have been looking at the HAF 932 but research shows it is noisey! Next one on the list is the Antec

P193. What do you reckon?

Should an 850 be OK even if I had two graphics cards? I am thinking of having getting two if I can afford it one day.

The mobo can do dual and tri as far as I know.

Cheers,

Leo

 

[killablade]

Hey,

I have been looking at the HAF 932 but research shows it is noisey! Next one on the list is the Antec

P193. What do you reckon?

Should an 850 be OK even if I had two graphics cards? I am thinking of having getting two if I can afford it one day.

The mobo can do dual and tri as far as I know.

Cheers,

Leo

As for the case, the CM ATCS 840 and the CM HAF-X(which basically is a renewed HAF-932) are both great cases, but there are more good cases out there. If you see one you like, just read some reviews on it to check if it's any good and you'll probably be fine.

When it comes to the PSU, the Corsair HX850 is an excellent choice. It's one of the best if not the best PSU out there, and it can handle 2 graphics cards and an overclocked CPU just fine. For example: it wouldn't have any trouble running an i7-930 @ 4 Ghz and 2 5870s in CrossFireX.

About the memory: The motherboard is X58 based. That means it's designed for triple channel memory. You'd be better off getting one 3x2GB kit and run that in triple channel. You could even get two kits totalling 12GB.

Now... the hard drives. Whatyou could do is get a SSD boot drive and a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 for data, but if you want more data capacity and save some money you could go for two Samsung Spinpoint F3's and let them run in RAID0. That would give you 2TB and excellent performance.

Just my two cents

 

[Leo0123]

Hi, what do you think of the Antec 193? I heard they have problems with large CPU coolers though as they dont fit.

About the triple and dual. I thought I would just get two duals and then add more if I need to. I would then have space for another dual if I want to (only 6 slots on the gigabyte). From research found that there is no significant perfomance difference between dual and triple - do u agree?