My first build in over 8yrs! Need your advice all!

Hi Guys,

So, bad horrible news gentlemen/ladies. My computer is starting to really struggle. I've just had an HDD fail yesterday and the noises coming from the ol' gal is not sounding too healthy these days. It's a q9450 @ 3.2ghz / 4gb ddr1 ram / 260gtx. The only thing I've upgraded on this computer was the chip. It used to be a core2duo. Yeah.... pretty ancient, but it's been such an awesome computer though. I'm thinking now is the time to upgrade though.

I work in Maya/Max a bunch and Adobe and maybe a little Corel Painter. I do play games as well. Saying that, it's work first and games second, but games is also apart of my work so it's important. I'm trying to save what I can on a completely new build, but I do want a pretty powerful computer if possible.

5820k - 6 core
MSI X99S Gaming 7 - cheaper board than the 9. I'm hoping it's okay? I don't need wifi etc..
16gb or 32gb DDR4 (dunno what speed/brand) - I dunno if I can stretch the budget to allow 32gb, but I honestly think I may need it.

Plextor M6e PX-G512M6e M.2 2280 512GB - This will be the boot/program drive.And is $$$$ maybe I should just do ssd? I thought this would be a great upgrade though.

1TB HDD WD - This will be where all the data will go. Just a standard drive.

Nvidia 980gtx - $500 max budget, but I hear it will be around this price I hope when available in the coming weeks.

Corsair Power supply 750w or 850w

CPU cooler? I'm not sure with this chip. Rather not water cool it since my data is precious to me and I wouldn't want to take the chance of a leak. Yes I will overclock!

Any comments on this build would be a huge, HUGE help. Anywhere I can save money and still keep the performance up to the same level would be awesome. I was shopping for everything on newegg and the setup above came out to.... well..... pretty pricey. Like over $2600.00. I can do it, but yikes I'd like to get it down further. I'm up in the SanFran area so no microcenter :/. Unless it's worth a 6hr drive to go there. The tax on this machine will be eye-watering sigh.....

Cheers!

I do not know the programs use you specifically but if they will utilize all the cores and threads of the 5820k then yes it's the way to go. Also judging by the age of your current Pc you probably want to buy something on the upper end of the processor range, so it will be viable for a good amount of years, again 5820k good choice.

As far as motherboards go I like the price/performance of the Gigabyte Ga 99x UD3 board I also like the Asrock X99 Extreme 4 or 6 boards.

Memory, if you really feel you will need 32g of ram then the Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB 2400's look like a pretty good price. Though the DDR4 stuff is just coming to market so prices may start getting competitive when more sticks become available.

The SSD, I feel the Plextor is a waste of money, yes it's fast but for nearly double the price of the Samsung Evo? You can get a 500g Samsung Evo for around $250.00, which would be my choice. I would also mate it to a WD Black Hd.

Gpu, what screen resolutions? Do you really need a top of the line Gpu? Again not being familiar with the programs your using will they be using the Gpu?

Unless you're planning on adding a second Gpu down the road or overclocking both the Gpu and Cpu to the moon. A quality 650w Psu will be plenty. Though if you're looking for something a little bigger the Evga Supernova G2 750 is arguably one of the best units on the market today.

For a Heatsink it will also depend on the case chosen, I really like the Thermalright Ts 140 for it's price/performance.

Mandrake4565 said:

I do not know the programs use you specifically but if they will utilize all the cores and threads of the 5820k then yes it's the way to go. Also judging by the age of your current Pc you probably want to buy something on the upper end of the processor range, so it will be viable for a good amount of years, again 5820k good choice.

As far as motherboards go I like the price/performance of the Gigabyte Ga 99x UD3 board I also like the Asrock X99 Extreme 4 or 6 boards.

Memory, if you really feel you will need 32g of ram then the Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB 2400's look like a pretty good price. Though the DDR4 stuff is just coming to market so prices may start getting competitive when more sticks become available.

The SSD, I feel the Plextor is a waste of money, yes it's fast but for nearly double the price of the Samsung Evo? You can get a 500g Samsung Evo for around $250.00, which would be my choice. I would also mate it to a WD Black Hd.

Gpu, what screen resolutions? Do you really need a top of the line Gpu? Again not being familiar with the programs your using will they be using the Gpu?

Unless you're planning on adding a second Gpu down the road or overclocking both the Gpu and Cpu to the moon. A quality 650w Psu will be plenty. Though if you're looking for something a little bigger the Evga Supernova G2 750 is arguably one of the best units on the market today.

For a Heatsink it will also depend on the case chosen, I really like the Thermalright Ts 140 for it's price/performance.

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Mandrake, you are awesome. Thanks a ton for the help. I use Maya mainly for animation. I should be buying a quadro, but that's too far out of the budget for me and in all honesty for what I do gaming cards do the job "well enough".

The whole M.2 thing has me a little lost. I'm hearing performance is better on it, but most don't even notice. I was reading that M.2 was much more reliable, but I haven't heard much from users and that was only one review site. So, it looks like you're right about that. It's almost half the cost going with the samsung then going with M.2.

A good video card would be great. I'm wondering though if I can get by with a 970 as they are supposed to debut at around the $400 mark. So I might go that route. I won't SLI.

Looks like i'll be buying that power supply! Big thanks for pointing that one out.

Motherboard. Wish there were more reviews of the cheaper models. I only want to spend max $350. More like $300 I'll see if I can track down some reviews of those.

Looking at the reviews on the M.2 it is better then the Samsung Evo but for me to pay almost double for it to me isn't just worth it. You could always go for a Samsung 850 Pro which is a tad faster then the Evo. I own the Evo for a bit over a year now without issue and it is a big improvement over a platter hd for sure. I'm just looking at it from a price perspective.

It's going to be tough to find reviews on the X99 boards, as they have just come to market. The other day I was looking at the egg and they only had 3 of them, now I see 22. We have a review on the Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard in the forum. Though I believe it's above what you want to spend. Of late I'm really liking the boards Asrock has been coming out with for Intel, particularly the Extreme 6, they seem to be really good boards for the money. I own an Extreme 4 Z77 for my 2500k and it's a really nice board and it has served me well.

The Psu read this review for the Evga G2 750 it really is a good unit.

The new NVidia Gpu's coming out I can't comment on, I really haven't been keeping tabs on them. I'm pretty happy with my GTX 780 Lightning so I haven't been looking at new ones. If those programs can take advantage of the cuda cores then the more the better.

+1 to everything Mandrake said. Took the words from my mouth.