I7 System build for Flash CS4 64-bit

[ross_OU]

I've been asked at work to spec up and build a system for use with Flash CS4 64-bit. The current 32-bit XP system is crashing due to memory issues so i've been tasked with coming up with a system that won't have memory issues, hence the i7 \ 64-bit direction. The OS will also have to go to Vista Business too, as our network doesn't support Home versions of Windows.

I've got a budget of around £1500 give or take a few hundred and need to have something tailored to do the job well. The most important features of the system are going to be reliability and warranty should anything go wrong.

I'm a bit unwise on graphics and hard drive requirements of Flash, if any at all. I'd like to have as much of a cool and quiet running system as possible as i know the user will only winge if theres a PSU\cpu cooler in there that constantly sounds like a jet taking off, and i know he'll leave it on for unnessicarily long periods of time too.

Any and all advice welcomed.

Ross

 

[evongugg]

ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Retail

EVGA 01G-P3-1280-AR GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Pioneer Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-R 32X CD-RW 40X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner - OEM

 

[evongugg]

You could probably go with a faster processor within budget and a fancier case:

Intel Core i7 940 Nehalem 2.93GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Retail

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

 

[ross_OU]

Would i need the 280 GFX card?? I wasn't sure if i'd be able to cope with a 8\9800 of some variety.

 

[WR2]

The most important features of the system are going to be reliability and warranty should anything go wrong.

Considering the most important features you've asked for you may want to visit http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk where you can order a PC built to your custom specifications. You can order an extended period of "return to base" type warranty service.

For £1308 inc VAT and Delivery I was able to spec this system:
Intel Core™i7 Processor i7-920 CPU
6GB CORSAIR XMS3 1333MHz RAM
ASUS P6T Motherboard (not Deluxe)
Vista Business 64 bit Edition SP1
150GB WD Raptor HDD1
640GB HDD2
22x DVD WRITER
9800GT 1GB Video Card
Silver Aluminium Trigon Case
600W Quiet PSU
ASUS TRITON 81 PURE COPPER CPU COOLER
2 Year Return-to-Base incl 2 Years Free Collect & Return Warranty
(plus the other standard options like USB/Firewire/Internal Card Reader/Onboard Sound, etc.)

I did not add any of the usual peripherals (keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor) but they are available as well.

 

[swong]

Like myself I use Adobe CS4 quite a bit for work. I was doing all my design work on a 6-year old P4 3GHz mildly overclocked to 3.2 running Windows XP-Professional SP3 with 2Gig of DDR dual channel. I use Adobe Indesign exclusively designing e-sized full color posters to be printed on a Xerox 8390 full color wide format solvent printer. Decided to finally upgrade the old P4 and went with a Intel i7-920 processor, Asus P6T with 6gig of DDR3 1600 Corsair. My distill times went from a horrible 22 minutes to less than 2 minutes. Presently testing Vista 32-bit with SP1 and 90% of my applications migrated over cleanly leaving just my VPN to be resolved. My advice is for design work you really don't need a high end gaming card. My video card is a NVidia 8600 GTS with 256meg purchased for $30 after a $30 rebate from Newegg.com. I got my i7-920 design rig up and running for $711 after I salvaged the full tower case, ide dvd burners, keyboard, mouse, and 19-inch flat panel. You didn't mention what monitor you were using but depending on size of your flat panel display choose your video card according to what you plan on having for resolution. I run 1280x1024 which satisfies all my screen requirements for Adobe CS4.

Going for either i7 or soon-to-be-obsolete P5 Intel quad core processor was a conscious decision I made purely on insuring my $711 upgrade would last a minimum of 5 years or more. Suggest you shop cautiously as pc parts are almost always continually rebated due to the nature of new product announcements every 90 days or so. Wife not happy spending the $711 but even she got tired of system crashes during summer months, having to do "full scrapes", a.k.a., complete o/s -re-installs every 6 months for virus'/trashed o/s'. Vista is very stable but still a resource hog and requires all the patches which seem to come on a almost daily basis from Microsoft.

Good luck!

 

[ross_OU]

Buying in the UK where the rebate system doesn't seem to have kicked off just yet. I'm actually a little shocked at the price of the system from PC specialist. I priced up nearly an identical system for about £200 more from dabs.

I'm unfortunatley in a position where I can only deal with certain vendors, hence looking at dabs. We have an in house supprt department but they only take on warranty repairs for Viglen and RM, neither of which i'd trust to build me a paper hat, let alone a half decent PC.

I'm not spending my money so watching a few pennies isn't a huge issue, but still I might go contact PC specialist to see what they can offer an educational institution in the way of a discount =D

Cheers for the read about adobe too, glad to see i'm looking along the right lines!

 

[ross_OU]

For the curious i speced up this from dabs.

- Antec Solo Quiet Mini Tower
- Asus P6T Deluxe
- i7 920 2.66GHz
- 6GB Corsair 1333MHz DDR3
- Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB GDDR5
- Vista Business 64-bit
- 150GB WD VelociRaptor
- 640GB WD 16GB (Not black)
- Pioneer 20x SATA DVD-RW
- Zalman 850w

£1372.20 delivered and me building it (which will be kinda fun and stop peope pestering me at work for a few hours whilst I "look busy")

I'm half expecting someone to have a say about the graphics card, it was the only 1GB DDR5 card that was in stock at dabs.

 

[swong]

Ross-OU...

Your list of parts are top notch and rather pricey. Understand the need of 6gig of Corsair especially if you plan on vista64-bit o/s but isn't the Zalman a little bit of "overkill" considering you can probably save quite a bit backing down a bit for the Zalman and the VelociRaptor. Consider any decent SATA hard drive with 7200rpm, 32mb buffer, with a 3-5 yr warranty.....I would consider a WD and avoid Seagate considering all their 7200 rpm sata drives have been "dropping like flies".

Excuse my ignorance but considering it takes 2.2 us dollars for each British pound are we talking $636 US?...if so you've got a excellent source for your parts exclusive of VAT

 

[WR2]

Can you use Scan.co.uk?

For a video card I'd take one of the Nvidia cards for it's better Open-GL support. BFG Graphics GeForce 9800GTX+ 1GB £189

 

[WR2]

£1372 = $USD 1,928
@ 1 GBP = 1.40546 USD

 

[WR2]

I made myself go look 😱

 

[ross_OU]

^^^ how depressing for people in the UK that buy stuff from the US!! looks like i'll be selling stuff over the pond in future rather than buying!

I quoted the Zalman purely as i've got one in my system at home and its a great bit of kit. I might see what else is in stock at the time, but the price isn't a huge issue if it's £100 here or there on the over all system price, I just can't go pricing up a super monster at £4k+

I'm still tempted to find somewhere to get a graphics card from. I'm slightly favouring nVidia cards as i'm under the impression they run cooler and are a bit more reliable with regard to software. However I like the idea of 1GB of GDDR5 for the extra power poke when needed. (i just know someone will end up asking "can we do video editing on this system then")

 

[swong]

So much for me going over for some "bangers and mash"!

Definitely a wee bit overpriced for the parts. Consider ebay but then you would have to wait quite a bit until you have bid, won, then pay for all the parts.

 

[Why_Me]

This is the build your looking for....the video card on here is specifically meant for programs like CAD, CS4, etc...The case is a real plus for an office.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx.html <--- NVIDEA Quadro FX 3700



http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-252-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1272 £252.99 inc VAT
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-159-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1283 £175.94 inc VAT
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-164-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat= £106.94 inc VAT
Corsair 6GB DDR3 XMS3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 (TR3X6G1333C9)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-015-PN&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1287 £609.49 inc VAT
PNY NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-164-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=29 £74.74 inc VAT
Coolermaster Sileo 500 Silent Case - Black (NO PSU)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-014-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084 £72.44 inc VAT
Corsair VX 550W ATX Power Supply

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-094-LG&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=951 £21.84 inc VAT
LG GH22NS30 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black/Beige) - Retail

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-246-WD £83.94 inc VAT
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD10EADS)

Total £1398.77 inc VAT

 

[ross_OU]

I can't even think about ebay for this build. I have to use certain places we (Open University) deal with. The only one that can supply proper PC components is Dabs. But I'm spending their money, so i'm not too fussed with the price.

However a £600 GFX card is a total no no!!! I'm pretty sure on a performance comparison Quadro's weren't twice as good as a £300 gaming card.

Mucho thanks for all your suggestions though, they are all being taken on board!

Ross

 

[Why_Me]

I can't even think about ebay for this build. I have to use certain places we (Open University) deal with. The only one that can supply proper PC components is Dabs. But I'm spending their money, so i'm not too fussed with the price.

However a £600 GFX card is a total no no!!! I'm pretty sure on a performance comparison Quadro's weren't twice as good as a £300 gaming card.

Mucho thanks for all your suggestions though, they are all being taken on board!

Ross

You wanted i7 build for Flash CS4 64-bit with a budget of £1500, and I posted about as good as you can get for that budget and what this build is targeted for.

 

[ross_OU]

Sorry if i've caused any offence i'm just pretty sure that i won't get a £600 gfx card past my bosses.

The system is for a web developer and there won't be massive amounts of video done via the machine. Given the savings you've made else where to be able to include that card i'm inclided to try persuading my bosses to use a different suppliers to save some cash.

 

[WR2]

The system is for a web developer and there won't be massive amounts of video done via the machine.

Considering that usage do you want to consider something other than a Core i7 system? The C2Q 9550 (2.83GHz) isn't that far off in processing power from the Core i7 920 (2.66Ghz). It's the major reason the CPUs are very close in price. You'd save in the cost of motherboard and RAM however.

Either Core i7 or Q9550, I would say the 150GB WD VelociRaptor would be the item you could safely pass up and still not compromise performance except by a very small margin.

Asus P6T Deluxe vs Asus P6T (plain). Side by side comparisons show very little advantage to the Deluxe model.
If you go with P6T Deluxe try to get your hands on P6T Deluxe V2

Be sure to let us know how things turn out.

 

[ross_OU]

The final spec was submitted, which I shall post up with pics of the system builds.... yes, plural! I was rather shocked coming into work yesterday! Pics should be up next week right after the parts arrive!