Need help with buying comp for photo editing and music production

kclubta

New Member
Here's what I'm trying to decide between:

The XT:

xt.jpg


or the SE:

se.jpg


I'm running Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 for photography and Ableton Suite 8 for music production. I really just need to know if I can justify going from the 7600 to the 990x. The benefits of the xt are that I can get 320G of solid state space and the extra usb ports. I can only get 160G of solid state space with the SE and no extra ports but I get the 990x plus an option to get a secondary 1TB 7200rpm drive that wouldn't be available with the options I chose on the XT.

Thanks for any advice!

-Greg
 
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Really, neither of them. You can build your own and get rid of many things you don't need, while getting better quality parts (Such as the power supply). Both of them have a gaming graphics card, which is not needed for the tasks you want to do. Build a computer with a 2600k, 16gb of 1600mhz RAM, and whatever else you need. That will be more than enough to suit your needs.
 
really for that price you could dek it out with raid 0'd ssd's, raid 0'd hdd's, a i7-3630K (it's like the 990x version of the 2600, 2600 is a faster processor, but with less cores, so 3930k kills both for what you want and you can afford), plus overclocking too. hell you can get alienwares for less with more power.
 
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Thanks for the replies. The aesthetics of the computer itself is also an issue. As for the graphics card, I need something with two DVI outputs so that's why I went for that one. I'm not handy enough to physically build one myself. Can anyone recommend a site that I could have one built?
 
^ I agree, I would rather go ibuypower, or cyberpower, than Hp, I mean why do you need a 990x? A 2500K would be plenty of power, and you could build a rig like that for 1k.
 

Yikes! To me, this is a little aesthetically challenged haha! Thanks but I think looking around these forums I've decided to try to build one. I'll be spending around the same amount but I'll get more.

Here's what I've got:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=18276852

I need you guys to double check compatibility, make sure I've got enough power, and I need help deciding on the case. I'm planning on going Raid 0 on the two solid states. Also, I'm guessing I don't need a sound card since I'll be using a Focusrite Sapphire firewire audio interface, right?

Thanks for all the help!

-Greg
 
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I know that is not part of your question, but since you are all into movie and picture editing, have you considered going for a mac?
 
Well, I've purchased all of my software and spent thousands of dollars on it so I think for now I'll stick with a pc. Thanks for the suggestion, though. A lot of people have suggested the same thing.
 
If you have all the software for PC, then a mac would be pointless.

Couple things you can change in your build.

Your motherboard is overkill for your uses. It has a ton of PCI slots for multiple graphic cards that you don't need, so you may want to get a different one.

A 6770 could run 3 monitors easy so you can get that.

Good choice on the corsair case.

Get a matching 16GB of RAM instead of two 8GB kits. It's guaranteed to run together fine, and costs less.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231497

Get an aftermarket CPU cooler, something like the coolermaster 212+ so you can overclock your CPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
 
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