Balanced $600 core for photo editing w/ eSATA ?

[expatCanuck]

Greetings -

Looking for a balanced ~$600 'core' build for photo editing.
Need eSATA. I don't game.

Will be able to reuse my Sonata II and, I hope, my Antec Earthwatts 430. Suggestions on PSU welcome if you know it won't work.

Have a couple of SATA 3 Gb/s drives for docs / backup (750GB / 1TB respectively).

I'd welcome any thoughts pro or con, especially as regards the video.
I want the system to support two monitors, hence the dual DVIs.

Thanks,

- Richard

silent AMD Radeon:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131449
or fan'd nVidia GeForce:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130663

Asus P8Z68-M Pro motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131786

w/ 8GB Kingston RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104173

an i5-2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

and a fast small WD drive for a few OS's (WinXP, Win7, Linux)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795
(not going SSD - failure rate & cost too high, & longevity questionable --
I want simplicity, not headaches)

 

[rvilkman]

You should be ok re-using the two components.

Get an after market HSF for overclocking since you intend to get a i5 2500k.
Not sure what fits a Sonata, but check the dimensions and grab one, i am sure you will find something better than the heatsink the CPU comes with.

Change your memory to: 1.5V CAS9 1600Mhz from Corsair, GSkill, Kingston or Mushkin.

Also consider the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB for the OS. Although granted the WD comes with a 5 year warranty.

The graphics card portion, check out what your photo editing SW can use better. If there is CUDA support for some operations then go NVidia. Otherwise I would go with the Radeon since it will be quiet just because you will not be gaming. The power consumption at idle lower than Nvidia cards.
Generally the totally quiet card just have such an overkill markup that they really are not worth it.

Look for either: 6790's or 6850's - same pricerange than the silent card and much better performance. ( or even the regular 6770's )
Or from the Nvidia line: 550Ti possibly 560 if you can get a nice price on one and you can use CUDA in your app.

 

[expatCanuck]

Thanks very much for the RAM voltage catch, and the video card insight.

I'm using Lightroom 3 for editing -- my reading indicates
that it doesn't support CUDA (to' LR4 may).

Definitely plan to upgrade the heatsink.

And I actually *have* a Spinpoint F3 1TB that I use for backup
(in an external eSATA enclosure).

And my storage drive is an F1 750GB.

 

[expatCanuck]

Best answer selected by expatCanuck.