New Build, Open to opinions

[SushiSlayer]

Okay fellow PCers I've got something for ya,

After much anticipation I am getting married! the mrs wants a strand of pearls (thank you charge account) and I get a new rig. Boom, now that's negotiating if I must say so. After extensive research I think I have something of worthy note to bring to the community and I am in need of opinions. I want to get the most bang for my buck with room to go.

So first off I've got roughly $1350 budget for parts, $150 for case and a few more $$ for ... ... *dramatic pause* ... a water cooling system, whooooo! i don't know why but man am I excited for that part. I'm thinking out of the box too, I want to create my own helix or something. Any ideas? lets make this challenging but clean.

I'm thinking about the thermaltake z71 case. Fully modular so I can remove all the bays, AND it has mounts behind the curtains so the HDD and SSD can chill behind the scenes with the cables. Boom. With that out of the way I can severely utilize the option for the massive radiators or fans or whatever I want really.

For all you DC fans I will be doing a themed build, yes the fastest man alive, red and yellow... The Flash. I've got the paint, trying to come up with a design and it's happening.

I really would like to stick with the x99. I know the first question is what is your rig going to be used for. Gaming, Design & editing, OC, Entire home entertainment. This rig will basically be my everything and with that I need the ability to expand the ram and graphics. what better way to do that than make 128 gb of ram available plus 3 +1 graphic cards. Which I don't completely understand how the +1 ties in but I am researching it.

Without further jabber jawing I present my parts list:



Tell me what y'all think!?!

 

[EarthDog]

My questions..

1. Why 5820k and x99?
2. Why so much ram and so 'slow'? I'd go 4x4GB and 2800-3k cl15.
3. Why 1kw psu for a 400W system?

 

[SushiSlayer]

1. x99 because of the expansion ability. I need to be able to expand ram and graphics for work and fun.

Just a kinda of rundown of its purpose, I use autocad, autocad architect, photoshop, and dream weaver for design (sometimes all running at one time)
I am working on getting into game creation and of course playing games.
I forgot to mention that I will also have multiple users (virtual user) for my fiance so she can do whatever she wants while I am doing whatever I want. Basically a 2 user 1 rig build.

With all this running I need high high ram and will be adding on graphic cards 1 by 1. That's why I like the x99

2. I didnt think about the 'slowness' of it..... hmm.. i guess i should do 32 gb at 2800??

3. I will be adding the water cooling and future graphic cards and I dont want to buy another power supply, Plus i will be taking it apart and painting it. I don't want to paint it twice.

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oh and with the 5820k.... I just picked one that gave me the most bang for my buck that I could find. No special purpose really

 

[EarthDog]

Looks like you are in good shape all around really well done!

 

[SushiSlayer]

Hey! thank you very much. I've never really cared about what parts went into my past builds but this one has such purpose I cant afford to screw this up haha.

 

[OddsCrazyStuff]

Just a kinda of rundown of its purpose, I use autocad, autocad architect, photoshop, and dream weaver for design (sometimes all running at one time)
I am working on getting into game creation and of course playing games.

I would take a look at cuda vs opencl, since you are doing a lot of work that benefit from them.
Just so you select the best overall GPU for your programs.

 

[SushiSlayer]

OddsCrazy,

Thanks for the info. I haven't even heard of cuda before, I will definitely check it out. Do you have any preference on which one? do you use either?

 

[OddsCrazyStuff]

OddsCrazy,

Thanks for the info. I haven't even heard of cuda before, I will definitely check it out. Do you have any preference on which one? do you use either?

CUDA is a parallel computing platform and programming model invented by NVIDIA. It enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU).
AMD GPU's can only use opencl, last I checked.

 

[Janus67]

OddsCrazyStuff is correct, was about to bring up the same point. You will want to see which (if not both) your applications can take advantage of when rendering - be it AMD/OpenCL or nVidia/CUDA (granted nVidia I believe can also do OpenCL, just not as well as AMD last I checked).

 

[SushiSlayer]

Okay so I'm a big Nvidia fan but the benchmarks for the R9 390 beat the GTX 970 into the dirt. What should I do? Should I go with the GTX and do cuda or stick with AMD and go OpenCL. I am kinda sorta not really familiar with OpenCL and know nothing about Cuda....

I know if we continue on this tangent I might as well go to another thread but answers anywhere are cool

ALSO Janus67!!!! I want to join the benching team!!! I just signed up for the team and I understand the point system but are all these benchmarks based on actual computers or are they just all virtual builds???

 

[Janus67]

The 390 beating the 970 into the dirt is a bit of a stretch:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1594?vs=1595

Looks to be about even to me.

Again, I would check the support in the applications that you utilize to determine if they support OpenCL GPU computing or CUDA computing (should be easily searchable) and you can find benchmarks for that as well very likely.


Would love to have another bencher on the team. The benchmarks cannot be run on virtual machines, but be run on a physical box

 

[tachi1247]

Not sure where you saw the 3+1 graphics card info. That board only supports 3 cards and to get quad you would have to run two dual gpu cards.

Not that you will ever need that many cards or that it Wil really affect performance, but the 5820 only has 28 pci lanes vs 40 of the higher chips.

 

[SushiSlayer]

Janus,

Ill check the GPUs out at the link you provide. I will say, beating it into the dirt is a bit of a stretch but this is what I was looking at. This is also why I settled with AMD




Oh and New Update on the build: Im changing the ram to 32gb Tridentz DDR4 3200

GREAT buy for the price but I was supprised to find two 16gb (2 x 8gb) packs cheaper than buying the 32 gb (4 x 8gb) pack. crazy....

 

[SushiSlayer]

Maybe I misunderstood the information. It has 4 PCI-E slots so I read somewhere (I really wish I could find it) that this guy did his SLI on slots 1,2, and 4 then he used slot 3 for some sort of 'lower' power GPU or something along those lines. He went over my head in about 2 seconds.... Man I really wish I could find that article....

 

[mimart7]

Remember that X 99 is a Quad Channel platform as far as ram goes. You should be able to run dual without any issues afaik.

 

[Janus67]

Janus,

Ill check the GPUs out at the link you provide. I will say, beating it into the dirt is a bit of a stretch but this is what I was looking at. This is also why I settled with AMD

View attachment 173908


Oh and New Update on the build: Im changing the ram to 32gb Tridentz DDR4 3200

GREAT buy for the price but I was supprised to find two 16gb (2 x 8gb) packs cheaper than buying the 32 gb (4 x 8gb) pack. crazy....

Thanks for the pic.

Unfortunately it isn't really possible to compare cards of different generations let alone different brands because of large architecture differences. Really the only major thing to consider is if you will be gaming at about 1080p (1440p, 4K, etc) if so, then a 970 would limit that with only having 3.5GB of VRAM (specs say 4, but it is really 3.5GB of fast VRAM). Ultimately, as I said before though, I would go with the card that is compatible with the software that you use on a daily basis.

 

[SushiSlayer]

Mimart,

I understand that 16gb is good enough but is it really good enough when I have 2 monitors running design stuff, 1 monitor running games, and 1 monitor designated for home entertainment?

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Ah! I see. It looks like I need to go through my programs and figure everything out. You're a smart cat Janus and thanks for the unbiased opinion. that's why I joined this forum.

 

[mimart7]

I never said that 16 Gb is fine for your needs, I just misread your 2 X 8 post, nvm. With what you are doing get the 32 GB. I just run the odd vm for testing, so for me 16 GB is plenty.

 

[Joe88]

You would only be able to fit 2 cards on that board anyway, the 4th slot is right next to the 3rd slot
and the msi r9 390 is a 2.5 slot card due to the large cooler is it uses

 

[SushiSlayer]

Ah! I see. It looks like I need to go through my programs and figure everything out. You're a smart cat Janus and thanks for the unbiased opinion. that's why I joined this forum.

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Joe, Kinda sorta not really.... I can fit 3 GPU easy because I am doing a custom water cooling system so the coolers will shrink massively seeing they will be replaced by water blocks. And all of the reading I have done says that when I get to the 3 Crossfire point I have to use the 1,2, and 4 slots (according to MSI)

BUT DUDE!!!!! your desktop build is almost the same as mine. How do you like it? Any pros? Cons? changes you wish you made?

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I never said that 16 Gb is fine for your needs, I just misread your 2 X 8 post, nvm. With what you are doing get the 32 GB. I just run the odd vm for testing, so for me 16 GB is plenty.

Cool beans man. Thank you very much for the input. I really enjoy the support! I appreciate it