You have $3,000 - $4,000 to blow, on what?!

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

Hey, I'm new to Tom's Hardware 😀 So go easy on me!

So a few months down the line I would like to build a super computer, my budget would be around $3,000 to $4,000. I would use the computer for 3D animation, video editing, gaming, and everything in between. I want to play games on a 2560x1440p monitor, and I want a beastly computer to do so.

If you guys had that much money to spend on a computer, what would you buy for parts? Any response is helpful, thanks in advance!

 

[AustinS]

Would you need the price of the monitor in that budget?

Austin

 

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

Would you need the price of the monitor in that budget?

Austin

I wouldn't need the price of the monitor in the budget, no. I guess I should have mentioned that haha

 

[AustinS]

No problem, I'm almost done. I chose a few parts for style too. I have an LED controller that has a 2m light strip that you will be able to change to any colour. It will look sick with the white and black case, black motherboard and red ram. Or if you want, I can put on black ram.

If you are paying that much for a pc, you gotta make it look sick as well as perform like a beast.

Austin

 

[AustinS]

Oh, and do you need an operating system?

 

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

Oh, and do you need an operating system?

No operating system needed, and yeah I am thinking about waiting for the Ivy-Bridge E cpu's. I heard they might be released in September

 

[AustinS]

And one more thing, will you have an optical drive for it, or do you need me to list one. You will probably want to take it off, unless you use it, after installing the os because it will take away from the effect of the case. Or you could even buy an external one.

Austin

 

[AustinS]

Yup, they should be released sometime around then, I was planning on suggesting that when I showed you the build. For now I just have a 3970X.

Austin

 

[AustinS]

sorry about the multiple posts, but you could also take the cover off the optical drive and spray paint it?
Just a suggestion.

Austin

 

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

sorry about the multiple posts, but you could also take the cover off the optical drive and spray paint it?
Just a suggestion.

Austin

I probably wouldn't spray paint it, I'm no the best spray painter xD

 

[AustinS]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XjrI

A little explanation on the parts I chose. The cooler first. This is currently the top performing cpu cooler on the market. And also by a good margin. Swiftech is a watercooling company and so they knew what they were doing when they made this product. If you ever wanted to watercool your system, you are still able to use the rad and cpu block, which is great about it. It is also near silent, which is another plus.

Next, the storage. It looks a little random, but I chose this for speed and space. As you will be doing 3D work, you will need a lot of space, so there is 3 TB of Hard drive. Put these two 1.5 TB drives into raid 0 for twice the speeds, then use the 60 GB ssd as a cache for these. This will essentially create one drive in your OS, but it will be ridiculously fast. The caching system simply works just like the 64 MB cache on each HDD, but it saves the most used information on it instead of only what is being used at the moment, which gives ssd speeds, with HDD space.

I explained the colour scheme earlier, as well as the LED Controller. I chose the GTX Titan though, because it can accelerate rendering using CUDA, as it was originally a server and enterprise workspace card, but now is also a gaming card. It will give you very good performance at the res. you are using. I chose a Blu-ray drive, don't know why, I just did. You don't have to get it, you can decide, but if you do need Blu-ray for something, this is the one.

Hope this helps

Austin

 

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Xj9j

A little explanation on the parts I chose. The cooler first. This is currently the top performing cpu cooler on the market. And also by a good margin. Swiftech is a watercooling company and so they knew what they were doing when they made this product. If you ever wanted to watercool your system, you are still able to use the rad and cpu block, which is great about it. It is also near silent, which is another plus.

Next, the storage. It looks a little random, but I chose this for speed and space. As you will be doing 3D work, you will need a lot of space, so there is 3 TB of Hard drive. Put these two 1.5 TB drives into raid 0 for twice the speeds, then use the 60 GB ssd as a cache for these. This will essentially create one drive in your OS, but it will be ridiculously fast. The caching system simply works just like the 64 MB cache on each HDD, but it saves the most used information on it instead of only what is being used at the moment, which gives ssd speeds, with HDD space.

I explained the colour scheme earlier, as well as the LED Controller. I chose the GTX Titan though, because it can accelerate rendering using CUDA, as it was originally a server and enterprise workspace card, but now is also a gaming card. It will give you very good performance at the res. you are using. I chose a Blu-ray drive, don't know why, I just did. You don't have to get it, you can decide, but if you do need Blu-ray for something, this is the one.

Hope this helps

Austin

Wow I love that build! One question though, what would be the big difference between the 3930k and the 3970x? Performance wise would it be smarter to go with a 3930k and save like $450?

 

[AustinS]

Yes, you could do that, the performance boost from a 3930k to a 3970x is not as much of a jump as a 3820 to 3930k, but there is still a bit of a performance bump. I will do a config with the 3930k instead, because I actually agree with you, I personally would not buy a 3970x, I would go with 3930k because it isn't worth it.

Austin

 

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

Yes, you could do that, the performance boost from a 3930k to a 3970x is not as much of a jump as a 3820 to 3930k, but there is still a bit of a performance bump. I will do a config with the 3930k instead, because I actually agree with you, I personally would not buy a 3970x, I would go with 3930k because it isn't worth it.

Austin

Yeah I'm leaning towards the 3930k, or even the 4930k when the time comes.. But one more question, is there a notable difference between 2400mhz ram and 1866mhz?

 

[AustinS]

Here, in place of the 3970X, I put a 3930k and upgraded the storage solution.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XjEG

Now it is 4TB with Intel's most reliable SSD.

Austin

 

[AustinS]

No, 2133 Mhz ram is the "Point of diminishing returns" and 1866 is very close to the same performance. But, you have to understand that the difference between the two is impercievable, it can only be measured with software. The difference from 1333, to 1600 and 1866 however, you can notice in some instances.

Austin

 

[AlexTheZombieKiller]

No, 2133 Mhz ram is the "Point of diminishing returns" and 1866 is very close to the same performance. But, you have to understand that the difference between the two is impercievable, it can only be measured with software. The difference from 1333, to 1600 and 1866 however, you can notice in some instances.

Austin

Okay thanks! And one last favor if you don't mind.. 😀 Do you think you could piece together a full water cooling loop? I am considering going all out with a custom loop, because I might wait to build this computer until the gtx 780 comes out very soon. What would be the best parts for the loop? It has to cool two graphics cards and a processor. I would like to know how much it would cost and some good parts to buy 😀

 

[Paul Raver]

Hmmmm tasty budget!
Probally i7 Extreme, 3/4 way sli(GTX 6** series), 32gbram(1866corsair titanium), OZC vertex 4 SSD + seagate barracuda HD, Roccat Kone XTD mice, Roccat Isku FX keyboard. win7 ultimate.