First PC Build Thoughts

[TylerWedell]

Hi so I'm planning on building a new PC. I'm want to be able to game, but more important than that I'm in school for film making so I need something to render out projects. I want to stay under $1000 and this is what I'm thinking so far. Let me know if you see any conflicts or if there is something better for same price.

Intel i5-2500K $200 planning on OCing
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard $150
2xGeForce GTX 550 Ti in SLI $210
COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 case $60
CORSAIR 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 $65
COOLER MASTER RR-T812-24PK-R1 120mm cooler $65
COOLMAX ZP-750B 750W ATX 12V V2.3 power supply $60
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 2 in raid0 $100

Don't really think I need a Blueray drive at this point. Might get one latter. Like I said any thoughts on what I have? Am I over looking anything? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[DarkSable]

Get a 3570k instead of a 2500k. There's no point in not getting the newer, better tech when it's only a $10 increase. Along with that, get the Gigabyte z77x-ud3h. Get a Hyper 212 EVO instead of the cooler master cooler - it'll be just as good for $30 less.

You don't need anywhere close to 16GB of ram - get 8GB of 1600MHz ram at CAS 9.

Coolmax makes rather bad power supplies - get a good brand : Antek, Corsair, SeaSonic, or others.


Don't buy two drives to RAID0 anymore - get a 500GB drive and an SSD. It'll make a HUGE difference.


Are you buying the 550ti's new, or do you already have one? If you don't, then that's a REALLY bad option. Respond to this and I'll help you out with the video cards.

 

[azathoth]

Get a 3570k instead of a 2500k. There's no point in not getting the newer, better tech when it's only a $10 increase. Along with that, get the Gigabyte z77x-ud3h. Get a Hyper 212 EVO instead of the cooler master cooler - it'll be just as good for $30 less.

You don't need anywhere close to 16GB of ram - get 8GB of 1600MHz ram at CAS 9.

Coolmax makes rather bad power supplies - get a good brand : Antek, Corsair, SeaSonic, or others.


Don't buy two drives to RAID0 anymore - get a 500GB drive and an SSD. It'll make a HUGE difference.


Are you buying the 550ti's new, or do you already have one? If you don't, then that's a REALLY bad option. Respond to this and I'll help you out with the video cards.

I fully support everything that has been said by DarkSable, I don't believe anyone on the forums would tell you differently than what he has suggested.

The difference between 8 and 16GB's of RAM is non-existent unless you like to fiddle with RAMDisks, personally I would throw in the extra $30 to double the RAM available. But when there isn't really going to be a difference anyways, that is still $30 that has basically been wasted.
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With the Hard drives, as he has stated nobody RAID0's HDD's anymore. Doing so gets you better sequential read and write, but twice the chance of data loss whilst still being slower than a SSD + HDD combo.

Pickup a 80-128GB SSD for ~$100 instead of two HDD's, and install your OS + Applications onto the SSD, and all your media onto the HDD. It will be MUCH more responsive than RAID0 Hard drives.

 

[TylerWedell]

Get a 3570k instead of a 2500k. There's no point in not getting the newer, better tech when it's only a $10 increase. Along with that, get the Gigabyte z77x-ud3h. Get a Hyper 212 EVO instead of the cooler master cooler - it'll be just as good for $30 less.

You don't need anywhere close to 16GB of ram - get 8GB of 1600MHz ram at CAS 9.

Coolmax makes rather bad power supplies - get a good brand : Antek, Corsair, SeaSonic, or others.


Don't buy two drives to RAID0 anymore - get a 500GB drive and an SSD. It'll make a HUGE difference.


Are you buying the 550ti's new, or do you already have one? If you don't, then that's a REALLY bad option. Respond to this and I'll help you out with the video cards.

OK thanks I'll definitely get the 3570k and the Hyper 212.
The reason I was looking at 16GB of ram was because I tend to do a lot of multitasking and when I do it is often with fairly memory intensive programs like Premiere pro and after effects, but if the difference would still be unnoticeable there I'll just get the 8GB.
I was debating for a while about getting an SSD but your probably right and I'll go that route.
No I don't have a 550 t I was just looking to stay fairly cheap, but I want to get good performance. Would would you suggest instead.
Also would it be better to go for SLI or just spend the money on a higher end independent single/double card?

 

[TylerWedell]

So now I'm looking at getting
MSI N660 TF 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 660 for about $220 I'll look at getting a second later, but only one for now.
SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064D/AM 64GB SSD
Western Digital WD AV-GP WD5000AVDS 500GB HDD
Antec EarthWatts Series EA-750 power supply

 

[Schlect]

If you are going to be doing some seriously heavy editing and have money in your budget for it you could benefit from 32 GB of RAM and an i7 for the hyperthreading.

 

[hdeezie80]

4-8 Gbs of ram is all you need, I went from 16 to 8 on my new build and there is no noticeable decrease in performance, 8 just to future proof for me but the stuff is as cheap as it gets so get what ever you feel comfortable with.
Definitely get a SSD, mine has made the biggest impact in performance out of all of my upgrades. You only need to run your OS and work tools off of it so 60-128 is way more than enough.
get a single GTX 580 its the same price as 2 550's, you would end up losing efficiency between 2 mid range GPU's.
If you are looking into using it for video editing/ rendering an AMD card may be a better bet, since they generally are more robust in terms of raw processing power.
Get a better case and a better PSU as well, don't buy Chinese firecracker's.

and if your budget allows
get an i7, this and the SSD make all the difference especially with video editing/rendering where it may save you hours on encode time, etc., etc.