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THRobinson

THRobinson

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May 17, 2009
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I've built my own systems for years, but not in quite a few years so a bit behind on things. I was going to get a DELL XPS 8700 and not worry about building anything, but, their support annoyed me when I was trying to get information, and as people pointed out, I can build a better system for less.

So... I can get a DELL XPS 8700 i7-4770 with 16GB on sale for $950 (Canadian) before tax. Goal is to make something better for less.

I've been looking at (Canadian Prices)


  • Asus Z97-P ATX Motherboard - $140
    Intel i7-4790 3.6Ghz - $370
    G.Skill 12800CL9Q-16GBXL (4x4GB) Memory - $130
    Corsair Carbide 300R Case - $95
    ASUS DVD Burner DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - $25
    Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB - $60
    Thermaltake TR2 TR-600 600W ATX12V v2.3 PSU - $60

    About $880 total

I have an ASUS GTX 650 Ti OC 2GB video card that I'll transfer over, and my old system will get a cheap ATI card with 1GB memory and become a devoted Media Player on my TV.

I use Adobe CS6 (Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign) and surf a lot, but once every couple months I'll load something like BioShock or Borderlands on and play, finish it, uninstall, and probably not play any games again for a month or two. I also use Handbrake and re-encode video often, usually at night when in bed.

I chose that board because can handle a 5th Gen i7, so maybe 2-3yrs from now, can upgrade the system a little. 600w power supply is also in case next summer I want to buy a newer $150 video card.

Just looking for feedback, opinions, what may be a better/cheaper/faster option, etc...

2 things I won't change are that I want an Intel Processor, and an ASUS ATX motherboard.

I am also NOT overclocking anything. My video card come pre-overclocked, otherwise, I never overclock.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
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Ya HDD is cheap, but like I said, I don't really need extra space. I have a 250GB with 130GB free...

My media drives are a pair of 3TB and a 2TB external.

My thinking on SSD drives though is, do I really gain anything with the speed... I mean... I see how fast Photoshop opens on an SSD, but really, once it's open, it only goes as fast as you work. Samd as games like World of Warcraft... saves me 40sec to load up the game, but, once the game starts... would I benefit more from a faster drive or a better card?

I see so many YouTube videos talking about how fast an SSD is for startup/launch times... but once an app is started, I don't know that I'd really gain much.

But... again, a 1TB internal backup drive and main SSD would be my goal. Faster is still faster, and 1TB of drive space is more than enough for me. Use my 2TB external for long term storage, and the 1TB for short term, scratch drive, and music.

Card wise... sigh... figures the price went up.

Maybe I'll add my two 3TB drives to the new system as well as my old video card for a month or two... wait for a deal on the ATI card. Be nice for a full upgrade all at once, but, if I can use 1 or 2 old parts for a month then get what I want instead of just what I can afford, I'd probably be better off.

R9 280 vs R9 270x... kinda a close call, few specs one beats the other, and other specs it's reversed. Soon as I switched you link to Canadian prices.... seems about the same price as well... bit cheaper for the 270x and Asus 280's in stock in Canada.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-280-vs-Radeon-R9-270X

All about gflops right?

 
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Geezus... price went from $190 for a 270x, to $240 for an r9-280 to $280 for an r9-380... price is going the wrong way! 😀

There's always a better video card out there for just $20-$40 more... trick is to know what the $ limit is. :)

The Asus 270x 1050mhz is on sale (sale + rebates) from $255.20, down to $189.99 (like $35.21 off and $30 rebate). Definitely more in my budget, and from what I can see online, I think should be a noticeable jump up from my Asus GTX650TI-OC-2GD5.

Sale though ends in a day... rebate a month but sale I think today so probably place and order for it tonight. I think for that price and what it's replacing, it should be a good card to get. It's not the DC2T model I initially looked at, but, only 100mhz difference that I doubt I'd see for $25 more.

Hmm... not really planning on it or anything but... just curious... what if say 4-5 months from now I get another identical r9-270x, since I saw it say crossfire support.... again no plans, but, how much better does that make the card? always wondered if worth while.
 
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Ya... rebates for me are only a tie breaker deal. Because the rebates come from the USA, they always send us stupid prepaid AMEX cards, and no one in Canada takes American Express.... only reason I even consider a rebate now, is because I discovered that the auto wreckers will take them. 😀

But even without the card, $35 instant rebate as well.

Card wise... because buying everything else, and because I didn't really think of upgrading for another year... was thinking $200CAD. Like I said, my "system" so far has been to upgrade every 2yrs to the best $150 card I can find. I bought the GTX650 last year, but, since building a full new system, I figured I'd splurge.

But... not a gamer, don't need MAX-HIGH settings all the time... also would like to stick with ASUS. Video cards and motherboards, always had great luck with them despite their crappy support. Will consider other good brands though, heard good things about Powercolour and XFX.

Use to get BFG... video card, and my current power supply is BFG... they were great to deal with. But... no longer around. 🙁
 
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Hey... just wanted to say, ordered the parts this week, final order an hour ago. I have an LG DVD Burner that will be put into the system, which is why no optical drive listed, but, video card was on sale, as was the case and PSU when I grabbed them a few days ago, plus finally sold my welder so, decided to max the ram to 32GB and add the SSD drive. I won't be using transfer software to the SSD, I'll just do a fresh clean install from the Win7 disc.

I did end up getting the 650w GS not the 650W G2... the GS model was on sale for about 2 days, dropped from about $125CAD down to $90CAD... price drop made me switch back from the G2 model. Also helped fund the extra ram and SSD drive because wasn't a mail-in rebate.

Here's what I have coming... now I have to wait for it to arrive.

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/rkgHTW
 
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I deal with a lot of large Adobe files, like 500MB Photoshop files, 200MB Illustrator file, and I'm starting to get into a bit of CAD stuff for simple product rendering. I do a lot of reencoding large 18-25GB mp4/mkv files down to around 3.5GB as well. Not sure if the extra ram will help, but figured, can't hurt.

That being said... nothing installed yet. Nothing showed up yet either. Could always look at returning 16GB and the videocard... but, looking at the passmark benchmark website for videocard rankings, that R9 270x is ranked 38th... not sure how much a jump an extra $100 would be. Most of the top card look to be in the $450CAD range.

ie. R9 270x vs an R9 285... $100 jump in price, but looking at the comparisons, it's not leaps and bounds better. R9 390 has a decent jump in performance but more than double the price. Just worried I'd be paying more for a card, that I'd need a computer benchmark to tell me is better because I can't see much a difference.

Hypothetical, which I think I mentioned before in passing, but, what if I kept an eye open for a sale later this year, did a crossfire with the R9 270x? I hear those setups are really good, also hear that they are sometimes finicky... also, 650w may not be enough for the PSU.
 
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Maybe, thing is, the R9 270x was $255, but I got it on sale for $189. Was a pretty good savings on that one. BUT... $30 is a mail-in rebate so kinda like $219 really.

Asus GTX 960 STRIX OC is on sale for $265, so not too bad a jump in cost... I'll email the store and see what the options are. Video card shipped on it's own so maybe can 'reject' the card when comes from Purolator and when goes back, refund and pay the extra few bucks for the GTX960.

Is it 'that' much better that it be worth the trouble? Maybe for the difference, get the GTX960 and keep the 32GB ram?
 
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Ah, so a better card but, not noticeably better than the R9 270x I ordered?

Anything else under $300CAD that is?

I'm kinda looking at the PassMark site. The R9 270x is #38... which doesn't seem too shabby. GTX960 would jump up to the #20 spot... and I prefer Nvidia. But, if the improvements are that great, the card coming may be fine enough. My GTX650Ti I think is #63.

... of course, that's not looking at 2GB vs 4GB models and all the little sub-models they have. Boost, OC, Turbo, etc... they need a better way of naming cards to make knowing what's better than another easier. 😀

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
 
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Now I'm a bit lost. 😀

When you said "It probably isn't worth the trouble" did you mean sending the R9 270x back for a better card like the GTX960?

Or "It probably isn't worth the trouble" referring to the difference between the R9 380 and the GTX960?

I'd take nVidia over ATI... because it's the way it's meant to be played. 😀

Side note, NCIX said simply reject the item when delivered, and they'll refund the money. So both it and the RAM are pretty easy returns except I'll have to pay for the RAM going back (can't reject because in a box with other stuff).
 
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Yea sending it back may not be worth the trouble. If you are fine with going through with it, though, then by all means do so. The 380 isn't greatly faster than the 960, but it is better, from a gaming standpoint. Would be nice if some people with CS6 experience, with AMD and Nvidia cards would chime in. I have never had any real interest in such things, so I am not very knowledgable on them. What cad program do you intend to use?
 
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Looking at the Passmark rankings... I think the GTX960 is #20, and the R9-380 is #27... R9-270x is #38 and the GTX650TiOC I have is down at around #63.

Passmark wise it shows the GTX960 as the better card, but some reviews say the reverse... it's really hard to sort out what's what, which makes me think that the GTX960 and R9-380 are close enough to being the same that its down to price vs preference for radeon or nvidia.

I'll research a bit more tomorrow (kinda slow at work) but, I'm wondering if $60 is worth the performance bump I'd get between the GTX960 and R9-270x I already ordered.

PassMark Comparison
=2702&cmp[]=3116&cmp[]=3114]http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2702&cmp[]=3116&cmp[]=3114

Links has a bunch of squared brackets throwing the url off... will have to copy/paste. Though when you see it, is that max memory accurate? 96MB vs 2GB? Typo maybe?
 
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Well, nice and easy... just rejected the video card, and the ram gets picked up/shipped tomorrow. So, will get the ASUS GeForce GTX 960 Strix OC 1253MHZ 2GB card probably ordered on Friday.

Sadly, although in stock when ordered, looks like the motherboard is now back ordered so, got some time to kill I guess.

Not sure why the hold up on the case though. Otherwise, CPU, ram, sata cables and SSD arrived today, PSU and 1TB drive arrived last week.

Thanks for all the help/advice. System should run great.
 
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