Help with gaming / 3D build

[Shedis]

Hi guys, it will be my first build since years so I hope you can help me with sanity check on the list below . Hope it's not too confusing with prices both in € and £..

Budget Range: EUR1800 (~$2570).. roughly.
System Usage: Gaming, Photoshop, Maya 3D
Parts Not Required: Keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS licence
Country of Origin: Ireland
Parts Preferences: Intel CPU, AMD gpu, excellent Creative sound card but open to suggestions
Overclocking: Yes, but nothing hardcore
SLI or Crossfire: Yes, crossfire
Screen Resolution: 1600x1200 ATM, will add 2 more screens for Eyefinity later
Additional Comments: No bling-bling , build to last & upgrade. Decent MOBO is a must: I'll be happy to invest extra money as long as it's not spent on gimmicks. If some parts (like water cooling) can wait for a while, that's great.

CPU: Intel i7 2600k (already bought)
MOBO: ASUS P8Z68 DELUXE
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 6970 2GB x 2
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8B (2 x 4GB)
HDD1(SSD): Intel SSD 120GB 510 series (already bought)
HDD2: Western Digital Caviar 1TB SATAII 64MB Cache 3.5-inch Green
CPU COOLING: Initially would like to stick to the stock cooler but what next? Corsair CWCH50-1 Water Cooler ?
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850AXUK Professional Series Gold 850W Picked PSU from AMD Crossfire recommenation page but will it be enough for this setup / upgrades?
CASE: Corsair Graphite Series 600T
SOUND CARD: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

 

[bmwbaxter]

Hi guys, it will be my first build since years so I hope you can help me with sanity check on the list below . Hope it's not too confusing with prices both in € and £..

Budget Range: EUR1800 (~$2570).. roughly.
System Usage: Gaming, Photoshop, Maya 3D
Parts Not Required: Keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS licence
Country of Origin: Ireland
Parts Preferences: Intel CPU, AMD gpu, excellent Creative sound card but open to suggestions
Overclocking: Yes, but nothing hardcore
SLI or Crossfire: Yes, crossfire
Screen Resolution: 1600x1200 ATM, will add 2 more screens for Eyefinity later
Additional Comments: No bling-bling , build to last & upgrade. Decent MOBO is a must: I'll be happy to invest extra money as long as it's not spent on gimmicks. If some parts (like water cooling) can wait for a while, that's great.

CPU: Intel i7 2600k (already bought)
MOBO: ASUS P8Z68 DELUXE
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 6970 2GB x 2
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8B (2 x 4GB)
HDD1(SSD): Intel SSD 120GB 510 series (already bought)
HDD2: Western Digital Caviar 1TB SATAII 64MB Cache 3.5-inch Green
CPU COOLING: Initially would like to stick to the stock cooler but what next? Corsair CWCH50-1 Water Cooler ?
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850AXUK Professional Series Gold 850W Picked PSU from AMD Crossfire recommenation page but will it be enough for this setup / upgrades?
CASE: Corsair Graphite Series 600T
SOUND CARD: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

Everything looks good. I would suggest getting a different cooler. For around the same price you can get the a better cooler. Just given the high quality of your build it seems like a better cooler would fit it more.

Check out the H80

it is a bit more than the H50 but superior.

 

[EarthDog]

I would seriously look in to getting a Nvidia GPU for that setup. Photoshop can run on the CUDA cores of the GPU drastically speeding things up. Not sure on Maya though (I think its on there).

Otherwise, nice build!

 

[Janus67]

Everything looks great, and I agree with E.D. to pick up an nVidia card in order to take advantage of Cuda.

 

[Theocnoob]

I loathe Corsair cases. I have the 650D. The quality of the included fans is anger-inducing. I also feel that they are generally overcharging for what is less than stellar fit and finish and quality. That's my opinion.

I don't have a mic atm but if I recorded the weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee sound that their 200mm fans make at 12v, you'd look at other cases. That wouldn't matter if they pushed a reasonable amount of air in my opinion on less than 12v, but they do not. Their 120mm fans one of which is included on the 600 and 2 of which will come on their hydro series coolers are about 1/6th the quality of an Antec 120mm tricool, which itself is only about a $12 mediocre fan. I swapped the 120mm on my case out for a better fan and the 200mm in the roof has gone to a better place in favor of 2 140mm noctua fans which are quieter than the audience at a Jonas Brothers concert.

I also suggest you get Nvidia GPU(s) and also that you go to a 'black' drive over green as it is faster for very little $. Get a better cooler. Corsair H80 if you want to water cool, but with the 2000 series CPUs there's no situation where you actually need water (and the closed loop water cooling is inferior to good air cooling. Only DIY water cooling with a thick rad is better). You can spend less money on something like a Thermalright Archon and be a few degrees cooler.

Look at Silverstone's Raven and Fortress line. I wish I had gotten one. That's what buying a case based on a cursory look at the store without turning it on will get you.

 

[Knufire]

Look into a Hyper212+ or a Corsair A70 for the cooler.

Cogage True Spirit and the MUX-120 are also higher performing options.

 

[Shedis]

Thanks a million for a great input, you picked all the pieces I actually wasn't sure about . I updated the cooler to H80 (was looking at Hyper212+ as well but water cooling is a total novelty to me, sooo tempted!), case to Silverstone Raven and HDD to Caviar Black.
I am still hesitating whether to go with Radeon 6970 or Nvidia 570. Nvidia CUDA really can do miracles in Photoshop but from what I read, currently it's only used by a particular plugin. 99% of time I wouldn't be able to take advantage of it then. Very similar for Maya. Full support is only available in Adobe Premiere which I don't use. Radeon has the only bit of advantage for me that I learned some basics of overclocking on ATI card. No point being sentimental though when you're about to spend a lot of hard-earned money.

Here's the updated list:
CPU: Intel i7 2600k (already bought)
MOBO: ASUS P8Z68 DELUXE

GPU: XFX Radeon HD 6970 2GB x 2 OR EVGA GeForce GTX 570 Superclocked 1.28GB x 2

RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8B (2 x 4GB)
HDD1(SSD): Intel SSD 120GB 510 series (already bought)
HDD2: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 32MB Cache Hard Disk Drive SATAII 300MB/s <8.9ms 7200rpm
CPU COOLING: Corsair CWCH80 Hydro Series H80 High Performance CPU Cooler
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850AXUK Professional Series Gold 850W Picked PSU from AMD Crossfire recommenation page but will it be enough for this setup / upgrades?
CASE: Silverstone Raven RV-03 Tower Case w Window : RV03B-W
SOUND CARD: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

 

[EarthDog]

That PSU will be plenty for either GPU choice you have listed.

 

[Janus67]

Your system looks excellent! You can go with either of the videocards if the cuda addition won't benefit you at all, they are both great.

 

[psionic98]

If you have the spare change I'd suggest picking up a small series 1 or 2 ssd for the cache options on the Z board.. if it wasnt mentioned above.. should speed things up a good bit

Wouldn't it also be cost beneficial to just get a single 6990 4GB than 2x 6970 2GB and xfire them? I think the 6970s are close to 300 a pop and the 6990 is upper 500s?

 

[bmwbaxter]

If you have the spare change I'd suggest picking up a small series 1 or 2 ssd for the cache options on the Z board.. if it wasnt mentioned above.. should speed things up a good bit

Wouldn't it also be cost beneficial to just get a single 6990 4GB than 2x 6970 2GB and xfire them? I think the 6970s are close to 300 a pop and the 6990 is upper 500s?

He already has a nice ssd on his list. Also 2 6970's out perform a 6990.

 

[psionic98]

Right but you dont use your primary SSD as that option on the Z boards from my understanding, you use a standalone.. course i could be wrong

 

[TomasDaPCman]

I don't mean to troll and i know this is completely off topic but you do you start a new topic on this forum?

I'm sorry for ruining your post but i am new and have no idea where to get help :/

 

[Knufire]

Right but you dont use your primary SSD as that option on the Z boards from my understanding, you use a standalone.. course i could be wrong

Psionic's right, you can't have your OS on an SSD that's used for cacheing.

I still don't agree with the cooler, It's overpriced and louder and underperforming compared to air coolers for the same price. If you really want water then go full out.

Also, Creative sound cards, while good for gaming, are pretty bad for everything else. ASUS cards have a much better reputation, so do Auzentech.

 

[bmwbaxter]

If you already have a good ssd caching is pretty much pointless IMO. it's neat if you only have a small ssd but a 120gb boot drive and a terabyte data drive is plenty. Why bother adding the cost of a second ssd? since his setup is already good in the storage department. Since it is to give ssd like performance to a conventional hdd setup. No need for a second. That is all I have to say on that topic so as to not get this into a pro/con of caching argument.

 

[Shedis]

He already has a nice ssd on his list. Also 2 6970's out perform a 6990.

2 x 6970's and 6990 work out the same price unfortunately, I checked good few IE /UK shops today and it was nearly impossible to find 6990 for less than €600 (~$850) and not a single XFX??. In that scenario 2 x 6970 will be better value for money.
I'm a 'she' by the way .

EarthDog, Janus67, psionic98, bmwbaxter and Knufire: thank you for a very interesting conversation. I hadn't a clue about the caching nuances. For now I'll stick with a single SSD but there aways will be space to add a second one in a future if needs be.

 

[bmwbaxter]

I'm a 'she' by the way .

my bad

 

[psionic98]

We traditionally call everyone a He since the common assumption is guys are the bigger geeks and more in to this stuff.. our apologies!

Let us know how it turns out!

 

[Shedis]

Hehe I don't blame you at all!
I'll be back with the photos of the build and lots of questions in a couple of weeks time

 

[apttuioman]

Im building 3d machine, is this good rig?

ASROCK S1155 Z68 USB3 DDR3 SATA6 GBE ATX
ASUS HD6990 PCI-E 4GB GDDR-5
INTEL CORE I7-2600K 3.4G 8M LGA1155 BOX
ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO V3 GAMING CASE
SEA CONSTELLATION ES 1T SATA3 7.2K 64
HyperX/16GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9DIMM
SSD/120Gb 2.5" SATA-3 Vertex 3 Max IOPs
CM SILENT PRO M PSU 1000W 13.5CM 80+BRON
SAMSUNG 27" LED 3D LS27A950
NVIDIA GEFORCE 3D VISION + DUKE NUKEM F