First Custom Build PC Specs Ok???

drewster

New Member
Hey everyone, I'm saving for my first PC build project. Im into film, animation, as well as gaming. So Adobe up the wazoo, Maya, and the occasional game.
Here are the specs I've put together, could you please let me know how the compatibility looks? ALL suggestions and tech wisdom are GREATLY appreciated! I don't wanna make any mistakes here as it's a lot of money I'm saving to be making mistakes. Thank you much :)


Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9

Power Supply Unsure about this was considering: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2

Case ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO

Graphics Card XFX HD-597X-ENFN Radeon HD 5970 BLACK 4GB
(Considering getting 2, good idea or no?)

Memory CORSAIR DOMINATOR 12GB (3 x 4GB)

Harddrive SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB

SSD Drive Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 2.5" 256GB

CPU Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition

DVD Drive SAMSUNG BLACK SH-S223

Sound Card Asus Xonar Essence STX


That's it, anything missing? Again, all advice is GREATLY appreciated! Thank you very much :)
 

joh06937

New Member
those are all somewhat overkill. i am not sure entirely what it takes to do film editing and stuff so i'll leave that for someone else. but for gaming, you definitely don't need a 980x or 12 gb of ram (but like i said, i don't know if that would be more for the animation and stuff).

for the psu though, go with this one.
 

linkin

VIP Member
Get a better case that allows for cable management, those Antec cases are horrific. A CoolerMaster HAF 922, 932, 912 or HAF-X come to mind, as well as the CoolerMaster Storm Scout and Storm Sniper cases, also look cases from Lian-Li or Corsair.

If you're doing 3D rendering the 12gb of RAM and 980x are appropriate, and will let you game on maximum settings too.
 

linkin

VIP Member
Well from what I've seen the 900 and 902 have no space behind the motherboard to route cables. You have a 902 so you probably know about every nook and cranny better than I do.
 

joh06937

New Member
i personally think it is a pretty good case for cable management. customization is a completely different story though.
 

drewster

New Member
Thanks for the input guys! And may I ask why you suggest the XFX Black Edition XPS-850W-BES? Also, I'm not sure about what wattage I'd need, with the specs I've listed, would this power supply be enough?

As for the case, could you verify the validity behind the information given here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-igk9kT2P8

And if the general consensus remains that the Antec Nine Hundred Two would not be my best option I was also considering the Corsair Obsidian 800D ATX Full Tower. Please keep in mind my knowledge regarding any of these subjects is EXTREMELY limited so all advice and input, regardless of any bias, is greatly appreciated.
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
Thanks for the input guys! And may I ask why you suggest the XFX Black Edition XPS-850W-BES? Also, I'm not sure about what wattage I'd need, with the specs I've listed, would this power supply be enough?

As for the case, could you verify the validity behind the information given here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-igk9kT2P8

And if the general consensus remains that the Antec Nine Hundred Two would not be my best option I was also considering the Corsair Obsidian 800D ATX Full Tower. Please keep in mind my knowledge regarding any of these subjects is EXTREMELY limited so all advice and input, regardless of any bias, is greatly appreciated.

I would suggest against the 800D, at that price level i would suggest looking into the Lian-Li line of cases. The HAF-X is a good case, albeit to some people (myself included) it is not very asthetically pleasing.

850W would struggle to cope with twin 5970's, and along that same line i would suggest not purchasing a 5970 at this point in time, and wait for the HD6000 line of cards to arrive. If you are located domestically, i would suggest going with the TPQ-1200, which is available for $216 from provantage:
http://www.provantage.com/antec-tpq-1200~7ANTS03K.htm

Purchasing 4GB Dimm's of memory is really a waste, as is purchasing Corsair dominator memory. If you really need 12GB of memory, i would suggest purchasing two 6GB kits from a manufacturer such as Mushkin or G.skill. In general, by the time you would need 24GB of memory, the price of 4GB dimm's will have dropped dramatically and we will be on a new platform.

What kind of audio device will you be outputting to? Headphones, or speakers, and what type of setup do you have (eg- what type of headphones/headset or your speaker setup). In general i would tend to recommend going with an HT Omega card over the Asus offering, although both are extremely good cards, it really depends upon intended usage.

Now... Motherboard....the UD9 is extremely overpriced, its not worth the money. I also see you are considering the 980x...stop right here, and i'll offer an alternative solution. The EVGA SR-2 is a dual CPU motherboard, and coupled with some of the lower cost xeon's ($380 for an E5520), which would provide you with 8 cores and 16 threads, which would be a pretty good powerhouse when working with the type of editing you are doing. If you were to go the SR-2 route, there would be numerous things to change, such as case(only a handful of cases are large enough), CPU's, memory, etc. Cost would be probably less than your current build right now, and if you were to go the SR-2 route you could probably go with a liquid cooling setup and still be at a lower price point than your current build.
 

drewster

New Member
Oh wow! That HAF-X Lian-Li looks almost identical to the Antec Nine Hundred Two I had been looking at! So I'm guessing the HAF-X is better because of size and cable management?

In looking into the Radeon HD 6000, It seems that it will be released Tuesday, am I correct?

I'm wondering how you decide what kind of RAM you'll get, and in what kind of kit. Would you mind explaining why the 3x 4gb corsair dominator memory is a bad idea? Also do you think you could delve into the benefits of the two 6gb memory, in addition to which company you most highly recommend? As I'd prefer to get the best I possibly can in regards to durability and performance.

In regards to audio, I'd be switching between speakers and headphones. For film editing I would be using speakers, for creating music/playing games I would use headphones (my Triton AX720 headset).

As for that Motherboard, I'd like to go that route, the EVGA SR-2 I mean. Would 2 Intel Xeon X5650 work? Or would the computer be unable to utilize 12 cores?

Due to this change in motherboard, what case(s) would you suggest I look into?

In any and all suggestions, please do not consider money to be a factor, I'll save up as much as I need to and I'm very patient. I'd just really like as perfect a rig for what I do as is possible so that I don't have to worry about updating for awhile.

Thanks again for all the help, I really appreciate it!
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
Oh wow! That HAF-X Lian-Li looks almost identical to the Antec Nine Hundred Two I had been looking at! So I'm guessing the HAF-X is better because of size and cable management?

In looking into the Radeon HD 6000, It seems that it will be released Tuesday, am I correct?

I'm wondering how you decide what kind of RAM you'll get, and in what kind of kit. Would you mind explaining why the 3x 4gb corsair dominator memory is a bad idea? Also do you think you could delve into the benefits of the two 6gb memory, in addition to which company you most highly recommend? As I'd prefer to get the best I possibly can in regards to durability and performance.

In regards to audio, I'd be switching between speakers and headphones. For film editing I would be using speakers, for creating music/playing games I would use headphones (my Triton AX720 headset).

As for that Motherboard, I'd like to go that route, the EVGA SR-2 I mean. Would 2 Intel Xeon X5650 work? Or would the computer be unable to utilize 12 cores?

Due to this change in motherboard, what case(s) would you suggest I look into?

In any and all suggestions, please do not consider money to be a factor, I'll save up as much as I need to and I'm very patient. I'd just really like as perfect a rig for what I do as is possible so that I don't have to worry about updating for awhile.

Thanks again for all the help, I really appreciate it!


For memory, the main reason i would suggest against it is two reasons. 1) It's sold by corsair, so it will be hideously overpriced(in fact, a few months back when corsair still sold their GTX2 dominators, you could get memory from Super Talent using the same IC's and PCB, with a different heatsink, for Half the price. $300 for 6gb vs $600 for the same from corsair), and the fact that High density memory is more expensive per gigabyte. In the case of the SR-2, since you need Six DIMM's of memory, you would be better off with two separate kits as 12GB should suffice for your needs. For SR-2 memory, any of these would be my recommendation (Lower CAS is better, the ridgeback, PI, and Redline would be the two "best" kits due to their CAS6 latencies, but the difference between CL6 and CL7 in real world usage is pretty much nil, so you could save some money going with the backlines):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226124
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231352
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226030

Between mushkin and Gskill, you really can't beat either company. Both are manufacturers that have high QC standards and an excellent warranty.

For release date on the HD6000 series, I've heard this coming week, unsure as to an exact date though.

There is an extremely limited number of cases that support the SR-2, among them being mountain mods pinnacle 24, which would be my recommendation as far as case is concerned. Bear in mind, these cases are made custom to order, do not include 5.25" bay covers, fans, or fan grilles. For the SR-2 you would want the 10 slot back panel and HPTX motherboard tray:
http://www.mountainmods.com/pinnacle-24-cyo-p-498.html

SR-2 is compatible with any 5500/5600 series Xeon, so yes, the X5650 will work, and you will have a major powerhouse on your hands with that setup:good:

Also, when it comes to SSD's, i would suggest waiting for the SATA III/Sata 6.0Gb/s sandforce SF-2000 controller based drives, impressive stats:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3971/...troller-sf2000-capable-of-500mbs-and-60k-iops

If you are going to be switching between headphones and speakers, the Asus is probably the best best. I'd suggest purchasing the STX before the 31st from newegg, as they are giving away a free Operational Amplifier upgrade kit with the STX until the 31st, which basically gives you a set of 49720MA's to replace the ones already on the card. The STX's have a nice feature with the OpAmp sockets, owners of older cards like creative X-fi's have to solder in new OpAmps if they want to upgrade them.

Also, on a side note. If you work in music creation, I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of Grado labs offerings for headphones, the SR125i's are entry level audiophile headphones at a relatively reasonable price, and far exceed anything that you'll find in the likes of a best buy or consumer store.
 

drewster

New Member
Thank you so much for all of this great advice!!

Alrighty for the case I did not seem to have an option for 5.25" bay covers, fans, or fan grills. Here's how it wound up looking when I went through the customization process at http://www.mountainmods.com/CYO_picker.php:

PINNACLE 24

Front Panel: Standard
Back Panel: Motherboard specific
Right Panel: Solid
Top Panel: Quad
Bottom: Standard
Motherboard: HPTX
Acrylic Finish: UV Blue
Finish: Brushed Aluminum


So thus far, this is how my specs are looking:

Motherboard: EVGA SR-2
Power Supply: Antec 1200W
Case: Custom Pinnacle 24
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6000
Memory: two sets of G.SKILL PI 6GB (3 x 2GB)
Hard Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB
SSD Drive: SF-2000
CPU: Intel Xeon X5650 Westmere 6 core TWO OF THEM
DVD Drive: SAMSUNG BLACK SH-S223
Sound Card: Asus Xonar Essence STX

Any other concerns, ideas, tips, suggestions, etc??

Again, thank you SO much for helping me get this right the first time instead of wasting time saving, just to make silly mistakes.
 

drewster

New Member
For memory, the main reason i would suggest against it is two reasons. 1) It's sold by corsair, so it will be hideously overpriced(in fact, a few months back when corsair still sold their GTX2 dominators, you could get memory from Super Talent using the same IC's and PCB, with a different heatsink, for Half the price. $300 for 6gb vs $600 for the same from corsair), and the fact that High density memory is more expensive per gigabyte. In the case of the SR-2, since you need Six DIMM's of memory, you would be better off with two separate kits as 12GB should suffice for your needs. For SR-2 memory, any of these would be my recommendation (Lower CAS is better, the ridgeback, PI, and Redline would be the two "best" kits due to their CAS6 latencies, but the difference between CL6 and CL7 in real world usage is pretty much nil, so you could save some money going with the backlines):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226124
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231352
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226030

Between mushkin and Gskill, you really can't beat either company. Both are manufacturers that have high QC standards and an excellent warranty.

For release date on the HD6000 series, I've heard this coming week, unsure as to an exact date though.

There is an extremely limited number of cases that support the SR-2, among them being mountain mods pinnacle 24, which would be my recommendation as far as case is concerned. Bear in mind, these cases are made custom to order, do not include 5.25" bay covers, fans, or fan grilles. For the SR-2 you would want the 10 slot back panel and HPTX motherboard tray:
http://www.mountainmods.com/pinnacle-24-cyo-p-498.html

SR-2 is compatible with any 5500/5600 series Xeon, so yes, the X5650 will work, and you will have a major powerhouse on your hands with that setup:good:

Also, when it comes to SSD's, i would suggest waiting for the SATA III/Sata 6.0Gb/s sandforce SF-2000 controller based drives, impressive stats:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3971/...troller-sf2000-capable-of-500mbs-and-60k-iops

If you are going to be switching between headphones and speakers, the Asus is probably the best best. I'd suggest purchasing the STX before the 31st from newegg, as they are giving away a free Operational Amplifier upgrade kit with the STX until the 31st, which basically gives you a set of 49720MA's to replace the ones already on the card. The STX's have a nice feature with the OpAmp sockets, owners of older cards like creative X-fi's have to solder in new OpAmps if they want to upgrade them.

Also, on a side note. If you work in music creation, I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of Grado labs offerings for headphones, the SR125i's are entry level audiophile headphones at a relatively reasonable price, and far exceed anything that you'll find in the likes of a best buy or consumer store.



So am I good to go now? With that list I put up before this, or are there other changes I need to make?
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
I would suggest the spinpoint F3's over the F4, the F4 are meant to be a lower energy drive vs a higher performance drive, although for 2TB you would need two 1TB F3's.

Also, you still need to consider what you are going to do for processor cooling. At a rig of this caliber i would recommend liquid cooling(which i could help set you up with a list of components), but high end air cooling units would also be good options.

For 5.25" Bay covers, those can be found on their website here:
http://www.mountainmods.com/parts-525-bay-covers-c-21_34_67.html

Fan Grilles:
http://www.mountainmods.com/fans-related-fan-grills-c-36_39.html

Specifically, these would be the brushed finish ones: (If you are using one 5.25" drive, then you will need two 5.25" bay covers)
http://www.mountainmods.com/mountain-mods-alu-brushed-514-bay-cover-p-327.html

What type of noise levels are you looking for? You can go anywhere from high airflow higher noise fans to lower airflow lower noise fans.

Rest of the list looks great;) (Although, I'd recommend the redlines over the PI right now as they have a good rebate on them)
 
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drewster

New Member
I would suggest the spinpoint F3's over the F4, the F4 are meant to be a lower energy drive vs a higher performance drive, although for 2TB you would need two 1TB F3's.

Also, you still need to consider what you are going to do for processor cooling. At a rig of this caliber i would recommend liquid cooling(which i could help set you up with a list of components), but high end air cooling units would also be good options.

For 5.25" Bay covers, those can be found on their website here:
http://www.mountainmods.com/parts-525-bay-covers-c-21_34_67.html

Fan Grilles:
http://www.mountainmods.com/fans-related-fan-grills-c-36_39.html

Specifically, these would be the brushed finish ones: (If you are using one 5.25" drive, then you will need two 5.25" bay covers)
http://www.mountainmods.com/mountain-mods-alu-brushed-514-bay-cover-p-327.html

What type of noise levels are you looking for? You can go anywhere from high airflow higher noise fans to lower airflow lower noise fans.

Rest of the list looks great;) (Although, I'd recommend the redlines over the PI right now as they have a good rebate on them)


You know what I think I'll just start off with the 1TB F3 and see how long that lasts.

I'd be more comfortable going with the Air cooling, I think I'd mess something up trying to setup water cooling... with my luck I'd probably get water all over everything and short everything out lol.

Of the bay covers and fan grilles, which would get your highest recommendation? Also how many would I need, because I'm not sure how many slots that case is gonna have; I went through the customization but it had no mention of 5.25" bays. Also, you said with one drive I'd need two, so seeing as I'm only starting with that 1TB F3 should I just get two bay covers?

I would imagine the highest airflow would be best correct? I don't mind noise so much. I guess preferably, I'd want the highest airflow possible with the least noise. But whatever you think I'd need to make sure everything always stays cool, because I can always wear earplugs or noise dampening headphones lol.

Thanks again!!
 

Russ88765

Active Member
The haf-x doesn't have enough usb 2.0 front ports for me. One of the turnoffs to me was the usb 3's, I don't have anything that would make good use of them so it's something I wouldn't use(I would need a hub). I ended up going with the cheaper 932, because at the time I was able to hear more back on that one than the 942.
 

BurningSkyline

New Member
Well, If you are going to be using adobe Products why not get a Nvidia card? GTX 470 is the only Geforce 4xx Card Supported as of now for full hardware acceleration, and these are taken straight off the Adobe Website. CLICK HERE
Or you could just get a Quadro. ATi Cards are supported as well, Just take a look at that link. I know nothing about Maya so I really can't say anything there. I don't know if anybody mentioned anything about a fan controller. You would more than likely want one of those :p Along with some big, High CFM cans. (I love my 140MM Fans in my case...)

I really like the idea of the Dual Xeons, that would be amazing.

Honestly I don't know too much about (Very?) High end machines so yeah...
 
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BillOhio

New Member
i personally think it is a pretty good case for cable management. customization is a completely different story though.

The 902 seems to do awesome in reviews and awful on the forums. I like mine a lot but it's the only case I have, so I can't compare. I don't have any major complaints about cable management though.

Nice build, btw.
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
You know what I think I'll just start off with the 1TB F3 and see how long that lasts.

I'd be more comfortable going with the Air cooling, I think I'd mess something up trying to setup water cooling... with my luck I'd probably get water all over everything and short everything out lol.

Of the bay covers and fan grilles, which would get your highest recommendation? Also how many would I need, because I'm not sure how many slots that case is gonna have; I went through the customization but it had no mention of 5.25" bays. Also, you said with one drive I'd need two, so seeing as I'm only starting with that 1TB F3 should I just get two bay covers?

I would imagine the highest airflow would be best correct? I don't mind noise so much. I guess preferably, I'd want the highest airflow possible with the least noise. But whatever you think I'd need to make sure everything always stays cool, because I can always wear earplugs or noise dampening headphones lol.

Thanks again!!
The 5.25" bay covers are for optical drives(DVD/CD drive), the hard drives would use the 3.5" bay.

For higher airflow fans that are moderately reasonable as far as noise, i'd suggest Yate Loon's as case fans since they are available cheaply:
http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-120mm-Case-Fan-D12SH-12-High-Speed-pr-3771.html

Or, if you want slightly lower noise fans, these are only 33db vs 40 and only about 15cfm difference:
http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-120mm-Case-Fan-D12SM-12-Medium-Speed-pr-3770.html

As far as fan grilles...those are asthetics, pretty much just choose the 120mm that best suits what you would like to see. I'm sorta partial to the standard concentric circles though.

For heatsinks, I'd recommend two of these, although with the SR-2 i would highly suggest liquid cooling although i can understand your hesitation:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018
 

drewster

New Member
The 5.25" bay covers are for optical drives(DVD/CD drive), the hard drives would use the 3.5" bay.

For higher airflow fans that are moderately reasonable as far as noise, i'd suggest Yate Loon's as case fans since they are available cheaply:
http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-120mm-Case-Fan-D12SH-12-High-Speed-pr-3771.html

Or, if you want slightly lower noise fans, these are only 33db vs 40 and only about 15cfm difference:
http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-120mm-Case-Fan-D12SM-12-Medium-Speed-pr-3770.html

As far as fan grilles...those are asthetics, pretty much just choose the 120mm that best suits what you would like to see. I'm sorta partial to the standard concentric circles though.

For heatsinks, I'd recommend two of these, although with the SR-2 i would highly suggest liquid cooling although i can understand your hesitation:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018

Do you think I'd run into any problems going with just the fans?

Also, for water cooling, is it easy to make mistakes and cause problems? Because I'd like to do it, but I don't wanna bite off more than I can chew and flush thousands of dollars down the toilet lol.

Also, what are your thoughts regarding use of both fans and water cooling?

What is the maintenance on water cooling systems like? Are the mechanics behind it similar to that of an engine? Water absorbs the heat which is than dissipated through a radiator of some sort??

Thanks again for everything!

And thanks everyone else for your input as well!
 
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