Advice will be appreciatted please

[raydee]

Advice will be appreciated please.
I have worked out a build based upon my previous PCS desktop of 2 years back with some upgrades.
The details are below and I would appreciate help from anyone on my choice of set up please.

Many thanks
raydee.

---------------------------
Case COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) AMD BULLDOZER EIGHT CORE FX-8150 (3.60GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard ASUS® M5A99X EVO:USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, Quad CrossFireX™/SLI™
Memory (RAM) 16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk NONE
4th Hard Disk NONE
RAID RAID 1 (MIRRORED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD) (£9)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£46)
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19)
Fan Controller NONE
Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£32)
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£35)
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software Microsoft® Office Home & Business 2010 (1 License Product Key Card) (£159)
Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor IIYAMA E2273HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£129)
2nd Monitor IIYAMA E2273HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£129)
3rd Monitor NONE
4th Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse LOGITECH® MK250 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO (£21)
Mouse NONE
Speakers LOGITECH Z323 2.1 SPEAKERS - 30W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£44)
Webcam NONE
Headsets (VOIP) NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)

 

[bigben]

Hello,
What is it being used for?
Do you have a budget? If so how much does the current spec. cost?
Would recommend homeplugs instead of wireless.
Also, gtx 670 is only a small decrease in performance but for about £100 less.
If it is a gaming build then 16gb ram is overkill.

 

[raydee]

Thanks bigben.
I have to admit that I am not all that clever or knowledgeable with computers.
I just know that I want best speed and performance. I am not interested in gaming.
To be used for heavy use for home and office work plus photo editing etc, etc.
No particular budget within reason, I want top speed and performance.
I have always connected via Ethernet and never used wireless but I just thought that it would be more update and useful as I now have a wireless capable printer.
I have 8gb of ram at the moment and just thought that 16gb would make things faster.


raydee.

 

[keynes]

Thanks bigben.
I have to admit that I am not all that clever or knowledgeable with computers.
I just know that I want best speed and performance. I am not interested in gaming.
To be used for heavy use for home and office work plus photo editing etc, etc.
No particular budget within reason, I want top speed and performance.
I have always connected via Ethernet and never used wireless but I just thought that it would be more update and useful as I now have a wireless capable printer.
I have 8gb of ram at the moment and just thought that 16gb would make things faster.


raydee.

If gaming is not your intended use then you should downgrade the GPU. An SSD as a primary drive would speed up applications and the OS.

 

[pagepack]

Any particular reason in going AMD? Performance wise a 4 core i7 wipes the floor with it.

 

[Karlos]

go with intel Much better in the long run (i thinkanyway) i have the i7 and i use it for editing video and picture and general home use and it kick ass. i have gone with the 16gb i know it a bit of a over kill but worth every penny in the long run. i would also change your primary drive to a 120gb SSD Intel520 and then get a 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) as a storage drive

 

[raydee]

Any particular reason in going AMD? Performance wise a 4 core i7 wipes the floor with it.

bigben, pagepack, rubensolo and Karlos.
Thanks for the feedback. It seems that I need a rethink.

No there is no reason to stick with AMD it is just that I was guided towards that with my last PCS desktop.
I was told 2 years ago by PCS that the AMD Phenom 6 core was the best thing.
When I spoke with them recently they said that the 8 core was an improvement.
They did not suggest changing to Intel but I am prepared to do so if as you indicate it would be an far better..

Maybe things have now changed.

With regard to the hard drives and SSD. How is this best done ?
Could just the operating system be loaded onto SSD and have the normal hard drives for storage as I understood that it would work faster.

I have asked PCS about this and have not had a really clear answer.
I will be very happy for guidance from anyone and to change my spec if there can be proved to be an advatage.

Thanks to all.
raydee.

 

[keynes]

bigben, pagepack, rubensolo and Karlos.
Thanks for the feedback. It seems that I need a rethink.

No there is no reason to stick with AMD it is just that I was guided towards that with my last PCS desktop.
I was told 2 years ago by PCS that the AMD Phenom 6 core was the best thing.
When I spoke with them recently they said that the 8 core was an improvement.
They did not suggest changing to Intel but I am prepared to do so if as you indicate it would be an far better..

Maybe things have now changed.

With regard to the hard drives and SSD. How is this best done ?
Could just the operating system be loaded onto SSD and have the normal hard drives for storage as I understood that it would work faster.

I have asked PCS about this and have not had a really clear answer.
I will be very happy for guidance from anyone and to change my spec if there can be proved to be an advatage.

Thanks to all.
raydee.

I have an SSD as a primary drive for drivers, OS, antivirus and main applications. It makes my computer faster when turning it on and opening any of those applications, I have a caviar black for pictures, movies and games and storage of my work. I'd go with that combination.

 

[raydee]

Thanks rubensolo, that is the sort of information that I needed.
What size of SSD would be best in this case to take what you suggest plus some space in reserve?

I was intending to use 2 hard drives in raid 1 mirrored for back up safety.
If I go for the SSD/hard drive combination how will this be effected. Can I do something similar?.

I am using 2 x 1tb caviar black at the moment and they are fine but I do find them rather noisy and they always seem to be busy even when I am not doing anything. Is this normal?.

 

[keynes]

I heard some people complaining about the caviar black being noisy, I have not experienced it. I have 1 caviar black 2tb and it doesn't make a noise as far as I can tell. I have a 240 Intel SSD 520 and I am very happy with it, after installing the OS, microsoft office, all the drivers, some applications and a couple of games I have 190 GB left, really depends on what your needs are.

 

[Big_Rich]

You can't raid an SSD and an HDD together, RAID needs matched drives. Besides, an SSD is still faster than raided HDDs.

The size of SSD you need depends on how much stuff you install. Bearing in mind you'll be storing all your mp3s, videos, pictures, documents etc on the HDD, you could get away with an 80-120 gig SSD.

As a guide, I bought a SanDisk Extreme 240Gb SSD for my Vortex II last week. After doing a clean install of W7, all the required drivers, installing Office, doing all the necessary Microsoft Updates, installing AVG, EVE Online, Skyrim, five versions of 3dMark, Aquamark and PCMark7, I still have 180Gb left.

 

[raydee]

Thanks for all of the info to date. It would seem that SSD plus a hard drive is the way to go for me.

Is it possible to install the SSD as explained by rubensolo and big_rich for the OS and Office etc,
and then install two hard drives in raid 1 for all of my other stuff for safety in case one HD fails ?.

 

[keynes]

If you chose the SSD as the fist drive PCS will install the OS in there, you can then choose the caviar black as the secondary drive.

 

[raydee]

Using an SSD for the first drive woud I still be able to have two caviar black drives installed raid 1 for back up security ?.

 

[Wolvo7]

Using an SSD for the first drive woud I still be able to have two caviar black drives installed raid 1 for back up security ?.

Yeah of course