Monster Build Advice Appreciated

Interloper · 11-05-2012 05:54PM #1

Hi Everyone,

After 10 year of using computers that have been made from parts I've found in skips and recycling centers, I've finally got the money to do a proper self build. I'm a programmer / 3D modeller / video editor / gamer / general computer fetishist and want to put together something special that I’ll be happy to be in front of for up to 16 hours a day. On a side note, I’m going as far to moving into a new apartment so I’ll have enough room to house this computer.

I’m looking to spend around 3000 euro (2400 pounds, 3800 dollars) not including monitors, of which I’m hoping to have 3.

I’ve done a bit of digging about and this is the spec I’m currently investigating;
Asus P8Z77-V DELUXE S1155
Intel Core i7-3770K
2x Sapphire Technology ATI Radeon 7970 1000MHz 3GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI OC
G.Skill 16GB (4 x 4GB) TridentX DDR3 2400MHz
2x Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green
Crucial 256GB m4
Corsair H100 High-Performance CPU Cooler
Corsair 800D - Obsidian Case
Corsair 850W Modular PSU

I have four questions:

1) I really need some advice so I can put the thorny issue of graphics cards to bed, I’ve been humming and hawing for about a month over it now. The only reason I’m leaning towards the Radeon is for the Eyefinity multi monitor support.
2) On the heels of that I need some tips on power consumption, as I’ve got wildly different results from various calculators. eXtreme Power Supply Calculator. Came in at 660 Watts, but the NewEgg calculator said 930 Watts. I’m planning on doing a bit of overclocking, so I assume I’ll need a bit of headroom.
3) Monitors, any suggestions? Should I be aiming for Display Port over HDMI? Or does it really make a difference?
4) Retailers. I’ve specced and priced this on Dabs.ie but haven't dealt with them before. Has anyone got anything positive or negative to say about them? Or any suggestions for alternate sources?

Thanks in advance for your help, I’m looking forward to your suggestions.

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 05:57PM

i presume its for gaming?

drop to 2500k or that ivy one
swap 7970 to gtx 670. better card for same money and they support multimonitor too.
8gb ram is more then enough.
monitors. 3x u2312hm around 190eu each. cant go wrong with those things.

edit: get 1x2tb hdd.
drop psu to 750w

we all recomend www.hardwareversand.de here. way cheaper for full builds m8.

Dapics · 11-05-2012 06:01PM

That GPU is brilliant, i have it for my planned build. It's the best on the market currently, quiet cheap as well.
I would defo go with it, particularly in how easy it is to crossfire and how well it performs. The fans it comes with are quite good, yet maybe a custom built fan mounted onto the chassis of the case near the GPU may help it cooldown as it can get very hot, especially when crossfired.

Im not that good with calculations, il leave that to the pro's no doubt haunting this forum.

G-skillz are a brilliant series of ram modules. Work brilliantly, take a look at Corsair vengeance 16gb ram, its a bit cheaper and does the same job.

Im planning on getting the exact same motherboard for my build, it seems to be the one to get.
you could build a very good desktop computer for 1300 euro's nowadays that will play any game for the next 2 years on high settings as it is becoming more and more about GPU's and their dedicated memory.
Seeing as you have the money, nvidia have released a 3gb graphics card and so have asus, i dont have the time to go digging but do take a look. Nvidia graphics cards can be paired up using their sli mechanism.

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 06:09PM

Dapics wrote: »

That GPU is brilliant, i have it for my planned build. It's the best on the market currently, quiet cheap as well.
I would defo go with it, particularly in how easy it is to crossfire and how well it performs. The fans it comes with are quite good, yet maybe a custom built fan mounted onto the chassis of the case near the GPU may help it cooldown as it can get very hot, especially when crossfired.

Im not that good with calculations, il leave that to the pro's no doubt haunting this forum.

G-skillz are a brilliant series of ram modules. Work brilliantly, take a look at Corsair vengeance 16gb ram, its a bit cheaper and does the same job.

Im planning on getting the exact same motherboard for my build, it seems to be the one to get.
you could build a very good desktop computer for 1300 euro's nowadays that will play any game for the next 2 years on high settings as it is becoming more and more about GPU's and their dedicated memory.
Seeing as you have the money, nvidia have released a 3gb graphics card and so have asus, i dont have the time to go digging but do take a look. Nvidia graphics cards can be paired up using their sli mechanism.

gtx 670 says hello

Dapics · 11-05-2012 06:11PM

Tell the gtx 670, he is too expensive for my tastes and he behaves like a beached walrus sometimes, just like his other gtx friends who get hot-headed really easily and then blow up with anger

Interloper · 11-05-2012 06:12PM

Thanks for the fast reply, I will be doing quite a bit of gaming on it, but also 3D work using Cinema 4D / 3DS Max, Nuke / After Effects, and game development using Unity. Currently my poor Dell can take 7-8 hours to render out a 30 second animation with the fans screaming like a crashing 747.
@ShadowHearth I went for the 2x 1 TB for two reasons; drive failure paranoia and separate work and play drives. Will 750 Watts be enough with the corsair cooler factored in?

Interloper · 11-05-2012 06:15PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

we all recomend www.hardwareversand.de here. way cheaper for full builds m8.

Wow, that is cheap, thanks for that...

glynf · 11-05-2012 06:15PM

Hi Interloper,

1) Most AMD cards since the 5XXX series have Eyefinity support, granted you'll have to use adapters etc. and if you are more of a casual gamer, there's better value to be had than the 7970's. The good thing about the 7XXX series is they are bundled with various adapters to cover most monitor connection configurations.

2) I'm currently running 2 x 7970's off a corsair AX850. A good quality 850W should be fine if you don't plan on any major overclocking.

3) What is your monitor size preference? Depending on budget you could go 120hz, in which case DVI-D or DP are the way to go.

4) Dabs.ie are saucy. A lot of people here use hardwareversand.de, great value but payment through bank transfer is the best option with them. Other than that there's Komplett, not the cheapest but free shipping, or scan.co.uk, again not the cheapest but a huge range.

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 06:18PM

Dapics wrote: »

Tell the gtx 670, he is too expensive for my tastes and he behaves like a beached walrus sometimes, just like his other gtx friends who get hot-headed really easily and then blow up with anger

gtx 670 is cheaper then 7970 and is more powerful, less power consumtion and you can get better aftermarket cooler, oced versions too.
i am not a fanboy at all, i got 6870 in old pc and gtx 680 in new pc ( upgraded from gtx 570 ). all cards are are briliant for what they are, though 680 is a very bad value now, with 670 out.

op: if you do go 7970x2 you might as well stick to 850w. just to be on a safe side m8.

Interloper · 11-05-2012 06:25PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

gtx 670 is cheaper then 7970 and is more powerful, less power consumtion and you can get better aftermarket cooler, oced versions too.
i am not a fanboy at all, i got 6870 in old pc and gtx 680 in new pc ( upgraded from gtx 570 ). all cards are are briliant for what they are, though 680 is a very bad value now, with 670 out.

op: if you do go 7970x2 you might as well stick to 850w. just to be on a safe side m8.

I've read good things about about the 7970s power consumption. At some point I'll upgrade to water cooling, hence the ridiculously over sized case

deconduo · 11-05-2012 06:30PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

gtx 670 is cheaper then 7970 and is more powerful, less power consumtion and you can get better aftermarket cooler, oced versions too.
i am not a fanboy at all, i got 6870 in old pc and gtx 680 in new pc ( upgraded from gtx 570 ). all cards are are briliant for what they are, though 680 is a very bad value now, with 670 out.

op: if you do go 7970x2 you might as well stick to 850w. just to be on a safe side m8.

The 670 is about the same performance as the 7970 at stock, however the 7970 far surpasses it when overclocked. Basically if you want to overclock your GPU get the 7970, otherwise get the 670.

Interloper · 11-05-2012 06:30PM

glynf wrote: »

Hi Interloper,
3) What is your monitor size preference? Depending on budget you could go 120hz, in which case DVI-D or DP are the way to go.

Anything would be better than the 19 inch I'm on at the moment, I'm just scoping out this at the moment:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/22+inch/56629/Dell+U2312HM+silber.article

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 06:31PM

Interloper wrote: »

I've read good things about about the 7970s power consumption. At some point I'll upgrade to water cooling, hence the ridiculously over sized case

performance. its higher then 7970 m8.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200-4.html

power consumption. its 55w lower at full load thenb 7970

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200-14.html

Now 7970 can overclock very well, but 670 can do that too. thought in the end of the day it will be more expencive. more hungry, more noisy card.

trust me, its very hard for me to recomend gtx 670, because i am one of those idiots who bought gtx 680 for 520eu. i hate nvidia for bending me over and releasing 670 cheaper and almost same performance. i still have to admit it is a great card.

Dapics · 11-05-2012 06:36PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

gtx 670 is cheaper then 7970 and is more powerful, less power consumtion and you can get better aftermarket cooler, oced versions too.
i am not a fanboy at all, i got 6870 in old pc and gtx 680 in new pc ( upgraded from gtx 570 ). all cards are are briliant for what they are, though 680 is a very bad value now, with 670 out.

op: if you do go 7970x2 you might as well stick to 850w. just to be on a safe side m8.

your chosen graphics card is indeed brilliant and seeing as the op has the money it would be a very good choice. Im just saying that at the moment the op could get a 2 gb o/c 7850for almost half the price, he can get two of them for almost the same price as the nvidia gtx 670. Thats 4gb dedicated memory versus 2 gb.

Thats what nvidia will do to you shadowhearth.
Around december you will find they will release the gtx series cards under a new name and half their original prices..... just like nvivia always do... then they will really have bent you over.

glynf · 11-05-2012 06:38PM

For multi monitor/resolutions over 2560x1440, the 7970 would outperform the 670. 3GB VRAM has an impact.

glynf · 11-05-2012 06:41PM

Interloper wrote: »

Anything would be better than the 19 inch I'm on at the moment, I'm just scoping out this at the moment:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/22+inch/56629/Dell+U2312HM+silber.article

Great choice monitor esp. for eyefinity/surround as the bezels are quite slim. They can be rotated so you can easily switch between portrait or landscape view.

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 06:42PM

glynf wrote: »

For multi monitor/resolutions over 2560x1440, the 7970 would outperform the 670. 3GB VRAM has an impact.

i cant argue about this now, but 680 with 2gb vram still does not drop in performance vs 7970 on 1440p and 3x1080p

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/03/22/nvidia_kepler_gpu_geforce_gtx_680_video_card_review/5

i presume 670 should act similary?

i presume you cant go wrong with both setups, just depends how deep your wallet is.

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 06:44PM

glynf wrote: »

Great choice monitor esp. for eyefinity/surround as the bezels are quite slim. They can be rotated so you can easily switch between portrait or landscape view.

+1. i got it myself thats why i recomended it

i would love to get 2 more of these now, at least one more!!!

Interloper · 11-05-2012 06:47PM

glynf wrote: »

For multi monitor/resolutions over 2560x1440, the 7970 would outperform the 670. 3GB VRAM has an impact.

That's what I was thinking, more VRAM the merrier

glynf · 11-05-2012 06:53PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

i cant argue about this now, but 680 with 2gb vram still does not drop in performance vs 7970 on 1440p and 3x1080p

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/03/22/nvidia_kepler_gpu_geforce_gtx_680_video_card_review/5

i presume 670 should act similary?

i presume you cant go wrong with both setups, just depends how deep your wallet is.

Depends on the games/driver support is a huge factor as well. I went from a 6970 (2GB) > 7970 (3GB) xfire and believe me the VRAM plays a big part in the amount of eyecandy you can display.

I'm no fanboy either, I'm flogging my 7970's to fund a GTX690 as I have a pain in my hole with half arsed ATI drivers of late:D

Dapics · 11-05-2012 06:56PM

There really should be a sticky thread where users can clearly state whether they are nvidia or ati fanboys cause lets face it, we all have a preference....

For me ati>nvidia, simply because i dont like nvidia's marketing practises, re-releasing graphics cards under new names at half the original price.

But yeah,OP, if you have the money the gtx 670 seems to be the best to get at the moment, but remember you can crossfire two 2gb 7850's oc'd for almost the same price.

Interloper · 11-05-2012 06:59PM

Dapics wrote: »

There really should be a sticky thread where users can clearly state whether they are nvidia or ati fanboys cause lets face it, we all have a preference....

That's not a bad idea. The choice of graphics card is whats pulling me in circles. At the end of the day I need a card that weighs in around 500 euro, can support 3 monitors, and comfortably last 3-4 year.

Dapics · 11-05-2012 07:01PM

Interloper wrote: »

That's not a bad idea. The choice of graphics card is whats pulling me in circles. At the end of the day I need a card that weighs in around 500 euro, can support 3 monitors, and comfortably last 3-4 year.

well then i suppose the gtx 670/680 is the way to go as you can bridge 2 of them in sli at any later stage, then you will have some serious GPU. Looking at it that way, if you did that then im fairly sure you could have a desktop that can play games at the highest settings for up to 4, maybe 5 years?

Interloper · 11-05-2012 07:03PM

Dapics wrote: »

well then i suppose the gtx 670/680 is the way to go as you can bridge 2 of them in sli at any later stage, then you will have some serious GPU.

Noice.. Any vendor recommendations? Asus, EVGA, MSI Gigabyte?

Dapics · 11-05-2012 07:23PM

Interloper wrote: »

Noice.. Any vendor recommendations? Asus, EVGA, MSI Gigabyte?

Came across this, all i can say is holy ass! What a card! SLI enabled and all! Im guessing that baby is gonna need a very good cooling system though,

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-evga-gtx-670-superclocked-28nm-pcie-30-%28x16%29-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-967mhz-boost-1046mhz-cores-1344-d

Hope this helps.

ShadowHearth · 11-05-2012 07:30PM

Dapics wrote: »

There really should be a sticky thread where users can clearly state whether they are nvidia or ati fanboys cause lets face it, we all have a preference....

For me ati>nvidia, simply because i dont like nvidia's marketing practises, re-releasing graphics cards under new names at half the original price.

But yeah,OP, if you have the money the gtx 670 seems to be the best to get at the moment, but remember you can crossfire two 2gb 7850's oc'd for almost the same price.

We really dont need a fanboy war thread.

This forums is the only place on Internet, where there is no fanboism. It's shocking how good we have here. Most core forum members, will just go for best option there: perfoamce/value.

It was quite amazing how we all go for intel CPU and almost always recomend ati cards. Not because we like one or another, but just because it is best option.

Dapics · 11-05-2012 07:33PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

We really dont need a fanboy war thread.

This forums is the only place on Internet, where there is no fanboism. It's shocking how good we have here. Most core forum members, will just go for best option there: perfoamce/value.

It was quite amazing how we all go for intel CPU and almost always recomend ati cards. Not because we like one or another, but just because it is best option.

I didnt mean to come across that strong, i aint a fanboy, just have grown used to seeing ati outperform nvidia.
Yet thats about to change i think, your suggestion card is good and if i had the money i would prob go for it. Nvidia's recent card releases are undoubtedly better than ati's

Serephucus · 11-05-2012 07:43PM

I'd go with something like this:

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-3770K Tray, LGA1155|€303.49
ASRock Z77 Extreme6, Sockel 1155, ATX|€164.71
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 670, 2048MB DDR5, PCI-Express|€817.96
16GB-Kit Corsair XMS3 PC3-10667U CL9|€76.94
Crucial M4 256GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€212.09
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€102.40
Enermax Platimax 850W|€215.26
Cooler Master Cosmos Pure Black ohne Netzteil|€201.95

Leaves you enough left over for three U2412Ms, and a custom watercooling loop. Should just about fit in budget.

Interloper · 11-05-2012 07:51PM

Serephucus wrote: »

I'd go with something like this:

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-3770K Tray, LGA1155|€303.49
ASRock Z77 Extreme6, Sockel 1155, ATX|€164.71
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 670, 2048MB DDR5, PCI-Express|€817.96
16GB-Kit Corsair XMS3 PC3-10667U CL9|€76.94
Crucial M4 256GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€212.09
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€102.40
Enermax Platimax 850W|€215.26
Cooler Master Cosmos Pure Black ohne Netzteil|€201.95

Leaves you enough left over for three U2412Ms, and a custom watercooling loop. Should just about fit in budget.

Nice, that looks pretty solid, your a gent.
So the consensus on the graphics card is the GTX 670? That will save a few quid.

Serephucus · 11-05-2012 07:54PM

Is there anything in particular you want from this system? Silence, overclocking potential, "future-proofness", etc.?

Interloper · 11-05-2012 08:08PM

I'm not to worried about sound levels, I'm used to computers that sound like a Harrier Jet hovering in my living room.
I'd like to have something I can overclock, mainly for my own amusement, and the "gee whiz" geek factor.
Future proofness is a factor, just because I don't want to be emptying my wallet for another 3-4 years.
The real driving factors are a) 3D modelling, I want a machine that speeds up my render times. This is an old example, it took about 7 hours to render. b) gaming, I've never had a decent computer, my current machine bottoms out when I play Minecraft.

Serephucus · 11-05-2012 08:22PM

Then the above setup will be fine. I'd maybe add an NH-D14 to the setup (CPU cooler) and you're set. There's not a whole lot of point dumping €500 on water cooling if you're not bothered about the noise.

Interloper · 11-05-2012 08:37PM

do you reckon EVGA GeForce GTX 670 will manage 3 monitors at decent resolution?

Serephucus · 11-05-2012 08:50PM

One of them will manage most games at high-ish settings very well. Two of them will own anything.

Dapics · 11-05-2012 08:56PM

I dont know if you seen this but here is a 4gb superclocked gtx 670

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-e...z-cores-1344-d

2 of these boyo's in sli and you will effectively have 8gb of dedicated memory.

deconduo · 11-05-2012 09:05PM

Dapics wrote: »

I dont know if you seen this but here is a 4gb superclocked gtx 670

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-e...z-cores-1344-d

2 of these boyo's in sli and you will effectively have 8gb of dedicated memory.

Common misconception. 2 cards in crossfire/SLI will NOT have double the dedicated memory. The data is mirrored and each card takes turns to render each scene using its own effective VRAM.

Dapics · 11-05-2012 09:37PM

alas, i have learnt something new today, i must get more into hardware capabilities.

WistfulSoul · 12-05-2012 12:19AM

That's a nice budget.

I can't help feeling that people have overlooked how important the "programmer / 3D modeller / video editor " piece of your opening post is.
You mention using 3DS Max, After Effects etc.
When it comes to rendering, the accepted wisdom was always the more CPUs and RAM the better.

If an application can use 6 cores, then the Sandy Bridge-E i7-3930k generally trounces the Ivy Bridge i7-3770k.

Note the Anandtech results for rendering http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=552 .

Applications such as x264 video encoding, par 2 archive compression recovery and Chromium compilation have significant performance advantages.
The Cinebench 11.5 multi-threaded result is close to 33% better !
The i7-3930k can also support 8 memory slots, which would allow you to use RAM disks ( the ASUS p9X79 Pro supports up to 64GB of RAM )

The i7-3770k generally wins on gaming, but by tiny amounts.

You mention your priorities are : 1) rendering 2) gaming.
The more expensive i7-3930k would seem to be the perfect fit.
A socket 2011 motherboard would also allow drop in replacment of Ivy Bridge-E 6/8 core processors when they arrive in the future.

Or you could look at workstation class dual 2011 socket motherboards ...

This link might be relevant to you http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=23&t=1045347&page=1&pp=15

###########

Ignore online power supply calculators, they're usually rubbish.

Guru3d website gives a peak power usage of a tri-sli Gtx670 system ( fans, disks cpu ram motherboard ) as 583W
( Source: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-670-2-and-3way-sli-review/4 )

A solid '80+ Gold' Corsair AX750 would be more than enough ..

############

The GTX670 looks like a great card but the new Nvidia cards don't have the same 'Compute power' that the Fermi based 580/570 cards had.

From Anandtech

"Shifting gears, as always our final set of benchmarks is a look at compute performance. As we have seen with GTX 680, GK104 appears to be significantly less balanced between rendering and compute performance than GF110 or GF114 were, and as a result compute performance suffers. Cache and register file pressure in particular seem to give GK104 grief, which means that GK104 can still do well in certain scenarios, but falls well short in others."

Source ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/5818/nvidia-geforce-gtx-670-review-feat-evga/15 )

I only mention this in case you plan on doing GPU based rendering.

##########

You should consider if you need to get an IPS monitor such as a Dell U2410.
IPS panels give far superior colour accuracy ( maybe for your video editing ? )

Finally, beware of buying from UK sites at present, the exchange rate is horrible.

Interloper · 13-05-2012 03:09PM

Thanks for the input wistfulsoul, I'm taking your advice on board and will go for a 2011/ Sandybridge configuration, the extra cores will help the 3D modelling side of things as well as with video transcoding.

hopefully in the next month or so I'll start getting the bits in, and I'll put p some pics as the build progresses.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice and helpful suggestions!

Interloper · 21-05-2012 09:40PM

hi all,
I'm still fine tuning the build, and came across this during my travels

http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/SubProductCategory/1342.html

It's a German price comparison site / aggregator that works well in Chrome using the auto translate. It may be useful if your planning any upgrades of your own.

Monster Build Advice Appreciated

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