For what I think is the first time since my arrival here I'm upgrading my PC. And by that I mean I'm going to replace nearly everything but the case, sound card, input/output devices, and peripherals. And it's going to cost me a ton. :\ And I would like to confirm that what I've chosen is really good for the money I'm giving for it; basically, I'm looking for best bang for the buck ratio on the hardware involved, with a certain performance and expansion leeway for future upgrades, and comfortably low noise level (since this thing will most likely be turned on 24/7).
Applications and performance goals: video editing and rendering in high resolution; HD video encoding; realtime 60 fps videogame footage recording; playing some modern 3D games at reasonably high settings.
Operating system: Windows 7.
CPU:Intel Core i5-750 OEM ($215; delivered).
Motherboard:MSI P55-GD65 Intel P55 chipset ($160; delivered).
RAM: 2x2 GB Patriot DDR3-1066 ($90; delivered).
Video:Palit GeForce GTS 250 1 GB ($135, not right now).
Audio:E-MU 0404 USB (from the old system).
Resident storage:
1) 60 GB IDE Seagate 7200.8 (from the old system);
2) 160 GB SATA Seagate 7200.8 (from the old system);
3) 400 GB SATA Western Digital WDAAKS4000 (from the old system, but will have to repair it first);
4) 3x1 TB SATA Seagate LP 5900 rpm for use in RAID5 ($340, delivered).
Total storage space: ~2.5 TB.
Removable storage:
1) BenQ DW1640 DVDRW (from the old system);
2) ??? (currently some old Sony CDRW; should probably migrate to BDRW sometime in near future).
PSU:Corsair 650TXCorsair HX520W ($105; delivered).
Peripherals:TP-LINK TL-WN851N 802.11n PCI WLAN card ($30).
Cooling
CPU: Zalman CNPS7000C-Cu ($30; delivered).
Case: 2x Scythe S-FLEX 1600 RPM (from the old system; should most probably be swapped for more silent fans).
Total budget: $1105. (* moozooh dies.wav)
This system, aside from the graphics card, should be assembled and ready for work within two weeks from now. Comments?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
<flamewar> You should totally go for Linux instead of that Windows crap </flamewar>
Can't say much about the CPU, I'm not informed about Intel's offerings right now. Would be pointless anyway, since it's already ordered. No comments about the motherboard, either, although any recent mobo should have it's own audio processor onboard.
4 GB Ram should be the minimum for video editing, but you can always add another 2x2 when you have the money.
The GTS 250 is just be a rebranded 9800 GTX, a card from mid-2008. It was high-end back then, but ATIs current mid-range GPUs are stronger, more modern (DX11 / openCL) and draw less power. If you plan to use the system for another quantupillion years before upgrading, lower power consumption can save you a bunch of money. Don't forget to figure that in when comparing prices.
I've gotten a HD 5770 for christmas, no regrets so far.
PSU: look for something with a high efficiency will save you long-term costs. No specific recommendations here, go browsing. I don't think you need 650W, even with 6 hard drives - try any of the online PSU calculators, you'd be surprised how few is actually enough. PSUs are usually more efficient close to their specified load, so don't overdo it.
<flamewar> You should totally go for Linux instead of that Windows crap </flamewar>
Largely conflicts with the applications I'm going to use it for, so no. :)
Tub wrote:
Can't say much about the CPU, I'm not informed about Intel's offerings right now. Would be pointless anyway, since it's already ordered. No comments about the motherboard, either, although any recent mobo should have it's own audio processor onboard.
Well, I can return the goods at no penalty within 7 days of purchase. On topic of audio, integrated shit is always going to be worse even than a budget discrete solution. Since I already have a good one at that, it's not an issue.
Tub wrote:
4 GB Ram should be the minimum for video editing, but you can always add another 2x2 when you have the money.
Are you sure that would be the minimum? I won't be able to buy another 2x2 most likely because (this may be outdated information) double-sided sticks don't cope well with dual channel operation, so I'll have to make it 2x4 and at a higher speed. Which is actually an acceptable solution because it won't happen any time soon.
Tub wrote:
The GTS 250 is just a rebranded 9800 GTX, a card from mid-2008. It was high-end back then, but ATIs current mid-range GPUs are stronger, more modern (DX11 / openCL) and draw less power. If you plan to use the system for another quantupillion years before upgrading, lower power consumption can save you a bunch of money. Don't forget to figure that in when comparing prices.
I've gotten a HD 5770 for christmas, no regrets so far.
Yeah, I know about this card. I'm monitoring GPU performance comparisons and they seem to suggest the GTS 250 to be in the sweet spot for performance/price. Power consumption is a very good point (actually thanks for bringing that to my attention), but the next couple years I won't be paying electricity bills, so it's not an issue yet. The closest match for that performance & price slot would be HD 4850, but it's more noisy and doesn't have CUDA which I'm planning to use.
Tub wrote:
PSU: look for something with a high efficiency will save you long-term costs. No specific recommendations here, go browsing. I don't think you need 650W, even with 6 hard drives - try any of the online PSU calculators, you'd be surprised how few is actually enough. PSUs are usually more efficient close to their specified load, so don't overdo it.
That series of PSUs is the best I could find for <$150 in terms of efficiency, stability and noise level. I know 650W is way overkill (even 520W, which I originally planned, is), but I'm running out of options here since the best PSUs I could find have vanished from our stores. :\ Then again, having a leeway in power output is not a bad thing since it won't really draw more from the outlet. At the same time, working in relaxed conditions should increase its lifetime.
Thanks for reviewing.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
4 GB Ram should be the minimum for video editing, but you can always add another 2x2 when you have the money.
Are you sure that would be the minimum?
No, I haven't done any video editing. But if you plan to edit >1TB of video files, that data has to live somewhere. I'd prefer to keep as much of that in memory as possible.
Hint: download the motherboard handbook off the manufacturer's website, check which RAM modules and configurations are "supported". Buy those.
moozooh wrote:
and doesn't have CUDA which I'm planning to use.
Why the nvidia-specific technology and not DirectCompute or openCL?
nvidia claims to cater the HPC segment, but they're losing customer after customer because they cannot deliver fermi. Of all the GPGPU APIs, I wouldn't expect CUDA to matter in the long term.
moozooh wrote:
Then again, having a leeway in power output is not a bad thing since it won't really draw more from the outlet.
yes, it will, PSU efficiency varies depending on the workload. You'll want a PSU that reaches high efficiency at the workload you're expecting.
But yeah, as you're taking it out of someone else's wallet, I don't think you'll spend days googling reviews and stuff.
Why the nvidia-specific technology and not DirectCompute or openCL?
nvidia claims to cater the HPC segment, but they're losing customer after customer because they cannot deliver fermi. Of all the GPGPU APIs, I wouldn't expect CUDA to matter in the long term.
Because I'm not a developer, all the practical difference between the APIs would be in the applications I use. CUDA has a relatively solid application base, so I'm not going to switch to HD 4850 just to spite nVIDIA for their potentially inferior technology. In any case I won't be having this graphics card in the long term.
Tub wrote:
yes, it will, GPU efficiency varies depending on the workload. You'll want a PSU that reaches high efficiency at the workload you're expecting.
But yeah, as you're taking it out of someone else's wallet, I don't think you'll spend days googling reviews and stuff.
Well, since I'm spending my own earned money on all this hardware (the total cost of which is about two times my current monthly salary), yes, I have already spent that time googling for reviews, actually. The TX series of Corsair's PSUs seems to be universally highly regarded for its stability and uniformly high efficiency spread over the workload percentage, and this particular model is additionally lauded for its extremely low noise level at low workload. Read this review, for instance, and be surprised by the numbers.
But in any case, it has active PFC (reportedly 99%) so the difference in power draw between it and a similarly efficient ~460W PSU is going to be strictly marginal. I bet I waste more money just forgetting to turn off the light in bathroom.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
alright, if those numbers are correct, then that is a good PSU :)
On the topic of prices, why are intel CPUs / mobos so expensive? It seems that a Phenom II X4 945/955/965 and fitting motherboard would be cheaper. Is the Core i5 (4x 2666 MHz) really faster than the Phenom X4 965 (4x 3400 MHz) in your workloads, or did you just opt for Intel by default? Because (at least at my vendor) the Phenom costs 15€ less, and in my experience matching motherboards are a bit cheaper es well.
A few other thoughts:
- do you actually have a full-HD monitor? As far as productivity goes, a good monitor or two are worth more than a few MHz under the hood.
- get rid of the 60GB HD, maybe even the 160GB. Those must be old enough to die anytime. You could use one of them for swap and temporary files until it dies, but obviously don't trust them with important data.
- on that note, don't trust the RAID with important data, either. A RAID is for speed and availability, not for data security - it cannot replace backups. It only takes a virus or filesystem corruption and your data is gone from all three disks at once.
- try to keep the HDs cool. If you actually plan to cram 6 HDs into an older chassis, things might get a little hot.
On the topic of prices, why are intel CPUs / mobos so expensive? It seems that a Phenom II X4 945/955/965 and fitting motherboard would be cheaper. Is the Core i5 (4x 2666 MHz) really faster than the Phenom X4 965 (4x 3400 MHz) in your workloads, or did you just opt for Intel by default? Because (at least at my vendor) the Phenom costs 15€ less, and in my experience matching motherboards are a bit cheaper es well.
I kind of opted for Intel by default in this case because Phenom II X4 965 is the only model that comes close to i5-750, and at the same time it costs more, draws more power and is less perspective as a whole. LGA 1156 is a brand new platform, it's going to be in business for years when I can't say the same for AM3. All my CPUs before that were AMD (K7 550, XP 1900+, 64 3400+), though.
Tub wrote:
- do you actually have a full-HD monitor? As far as productivity goes, a good monitor or two are worth more than a few MHz under the hood.
Currently I'm on a semi-professional grade 19" 4:3 CRT, but am going to buy a 21–24" full HD *IPS panel later this year (in autumn or winter). I most likely won't be working with 1080p content until then.
Tub wrote:
- get rid of the 60GB HD, maybe even the 160GB. Those must be old enough to die anytime. You could use one of them for swap and temporary files until it dies, but obviously don't trust them with important data.
Those are not for important data. I'm only keeping them that way because separate HDDs are easier to maintain and remove/swap if needed.
Tub wrote:
- on that note, don't trust the RAID with important data, either. A RAID is for speed and availability, not for data security - it cannot replace backups. It only takes a virus or filesystem corruption and your data is gone from all three disks at once.
I've already discussed it in both #tasvideos and #sda a bit earlier today. The rationale is that I have no means to backup 1 TB (or more) of important data, so the only economically feasible choice for me is RAID5. If I had a spare 1 TB drive to copy stuff to, I could as well use it in the array in case one of the drives sustains mechanical damage.
I generally take good care of my system, though, so the only times I lost any information in the last 9 years were due to hardware faults (and my inattentiveness during information transfer, once).
Tub wrote:
- try to keep the HDs cool. If you actually plan to cram 6 HDs into an older chassis, things might get a little hot.
I have a pretty powerful Scythe S-FLEX blowing right on the HDD basket so it should be fine. :)
Thanks for your advice, you bring up good points.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Alright, I managed to find the PSU I wanted originally: Corsair HX520W, with its awesome 24 dBA fan and 82–88% efficiency all around. Saved fifteen bucks and solved the excessive power issue both at once. :)
The CPU cooler is the only missing prerequisite for assembly at this point. Can't wait to see all this hardware in action!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
I think it will work.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
