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Stretched as far as it would go - need advice

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AMDGuy

Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2001
After about 7 years (unbelievably!) I think it's time for me to build a new system. I started with an I5-750 and moved to an I7-870. Had one motherboard fail about 3 years ago and kept the system going with an Ebay find on an Asus P7P55D. Now that motherboard is also starting to fail. I've lost the rear I/O panel.

I stuck a NIC card in it to get me network access and use the front panel speaker port for sound. However, I think the Marvel chipset for the drives may also be failing.

I've had the system OC'd to about 4Ghz, and the most taxing thing I do is some HD video editing, thus the reason I've been able to keep this system so long.

I think it's time to just bite the bullet and build a new one, so I'm looking for suggestions from you guys since I've been out of the loop so long.

I "think" a I5-6500 would be plenty for what I need to do, but I have no idea what motherboard is any good. I was thinking an Asus Z170-A and 2 x 8GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 to go with it. Thoughts?

I do plan to OC it if possible.

I'll run the OS on my Samsung 500GB SSD from the current systems, but I do need a suggestion on some 2TB drives for the video storage. I've typically used WD drive like the Caviar Black and would do a RAID 1 for redundancy?

I have a Megahalems CPU cooler that has done a good job, but I'm unsure if it's compatible with the new CPU socket?

Video Card or use the built in CPU one? I run two 18" monitors, nothing fancy.

Appreciate the help in advance. You guys have always steered me in the right direction. Hard to believe I've been coming here for advice for so many years.

I'm not opposed to a high power laptop if there's one that can handle the video editing. I tried a test on my wife's Asus with a I5 and it was very slow and taxed the proc. I'd just have to get external storage.
 
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for the board it's just making sure it has the features, connecters and ports you need, it looks like it's hard to buy a bad one.
other than that, it's time for a new psu, 7 years is a little old and might be a little sketchy.

and the username is fine, amd has given us nothing new in a loooooooooong time so a lot of us have some blue stuff now.
 
You will need to go with a i5 6600k for overclocking, intel locked all the other CPU's except the k and x series. Your socket LGA1156 CPU cooler should work with LGA 1151. WD hard drives are ok, statistics show more reliability out of HGST drives.
 
Thanks for the responses, and the recommendation on the "K" series proc. I've replaced that in my cart.

Here's the current plan:

Asus Z170-A MB
I5-6600K
Corsair Vengeance 16GB Kit DDR4 3200
Samsung 500GB SSD for boot drive
2 x 2TB SATA 6GB/s in RAID 1 for data storage
Enermax Ostrog ATX Mid Tower Case

Any need for a video card if I don't do any gaming?

For the CPU cooler, I've been eyeballing one of the Corsair H series liquid coolers. I built a water cooled PC back in the day before they were "cool" pardon the pun. There's an article I wrote for this site on my setup back then some where. It worked phenomenally. The Corsair systems are barely more expensive than a good air cooler. I don't think I would need anything nuts for what I'm intending, so I was eyeballing the Corsair H90 to KISS.

It looks like that will fit in the top of the Enermax Ostrog case, and if not I have no issue mounting the fan outside the case. Thoughts?
 
Since your not gaming IGPU will be great with all tasks including a 4K monitor. Your list looks good.
 
Cool!

On the HGST drives. I found this model (trying to get everything on Amazon Prime for the fast shipping)

https://www.amazon.com/HITACHI-0F12...e=UTF8&qid=1468274072&sr=1-1&keywords=0F12455

I feel like I'm missing something because it's more than half the price of the WD Black I had picked out?

EDIT: N/M - I think I answered my own question. Seems you have to be careful with those HGST drives to insure they have a proper warranty.
 
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WD Black with "Z" in the model number are the top dog 7200 rpm spinners. They have two processors.

Like the looks of your parts list.
 
Since your not gaming IGPU will be great with all tasks including a 4K monitor. Your list looks good.

He did mention he does some HD video editing, many modern editors like sony vegas on even the much cheaper ($60) sony movie maker platinum offer GPU rendering for accelerated performance. So it's an option if you're wanting a boost in encoding and rendering. Just thought I'd put that out there.
 
WD Black with "Z" in the model number are the top dog 7200 rpm spinners. They have two processors.

Like the looks of your parts list.

Cool, will try to find the "Z" model on the WD drive. Seems they're easier to come by than the HGSTs.

He did mention he does some HD video editing, many modern editors like sony vegas on even the much cheaper ($60) sony movie maker platinum offer GPU rendering for accelerated performance. So it's an option if you're wanting a boost in encoding and rendering. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Yep, I do use Vegas Movie Studio for my editing and rendering. On my current system I had to set it to only use the CPU or it rendered slower. If there's a GPU that won't break the bank and would speed rendering, I'd certainly consider it. Vegas doesn't max out my current CPU and takes about a 1:2 time ratio (one minute of video takes 2 mins to encode). If I could get that closer to 1:1 I'd love it.
 
The WD Black hard drives I mentioned have "z" in the model number string but there are other numbers and letters in the string as well so don't just look for the "Z" model.
 
^^ Yep, I knew what you meant. I just placed the order, Prime Day saved me a few more bucks on Amazon. The drives have Z in the model number and the description did designate dual core.

Someone give me the 411 on video cards. I've never gamed, so I don't know the first thing about those. It's sole purpose would be to speed up video renders.

I decided to go with the Corsair H80i cpu cooler. Should be interesting.

Dang, a quick search found that old water cooling article I did. Has it really been 15 years!!!!

http://www.overclockers.com/detailed-water-cooling-how-to-and-other-tricks/

I later did a little test with a larger radiator (Chevy Chevette heater core LOL ) and added a fan shroud. The fan shroud alone made a 40% difference in cooling ability, so I'm a bit surprised these Corsair kits don't use one. That may be a small modification I add.

http://www.overclockers.com/water-cooling-upgrades-heater-core-and-fan-shroud/
 
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How much are you willing to spend on a GPU and do you know if Vegas can use GPU to render for both nvidia and AMD or just nvidia? Usually its just nvidia...
 
How much are you willing to spend on a GPU and do you know if Vegas can use GPU to render for both nvidia and AMD or just nvidia? Usually its just nvidia...


Specs say Vegas can use AMD, NVidia, or Intel. I specifically remember seeing OPENCL and CUDA as options in the GPU drop down.

I wanna say $100 for video card, but you're probably gonna spit your drink laughing LOL.
 
If it can use Intel I would try the IGPU first, it is good performance for a IGPU in the i5 6600k.
 
Yep, I do use Vegas Movie Studio for my editing and rendering. On my current system I had to set it to only use the CPU or it rendered slower. If there's a GPU that won't break the bank and would speed rendering, I'd certainly consider it. Vegas doesn't max out my current CPU and takes about a 1:2 time ratio (one minute of video takes 2 mins to encode). If I could get that closer to 1:1 I'd love it.
My 4790K CPU only is pretty much running a 1:1 by it's self. I'd imagine the 6600k would be about the same. For my GPU it's a good chunk over $100... currently $479.99 on amazon, at that price the fury X is a better deal as it's a little faster and now actually cheaper (about $25 cheaper from XFX) for some reason. It does cut down on render times bringing it somewhere around 1:0.6 ~1:0.7 ratio. So not really worth it strictly for editing unless you are working on a massive scale.

edit: When I talk about HD I'm editing 1920x1080@30fps footage. Just thought I should clarify that.
 
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That's what I was afraid of, the graphics cards have seemed pretty pricey. I'll try with embedded and see how we do and go from there.

Thanks again all for helping me out. Nice to see this is still the place to come for solid advice on technology.
 
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