Extreme Gaming and Video Editing Desktop.

[Zynced]

Hi everyone,

Around the summer period of next year, I am planning on buying a very powerful PC from this website. As a gaming and video editing enthusiast, and with a new found passion for both software and hardware engineering, I have decided to purchase a PC that can not only realise my current needs, but any future needs as well.

My knowledge of custom computers is basic/ borderline intermediate. I am completely self taught on how components work, and what works best together. So I've decided to start designing and researching my PC now, and gain advice and knowledge from people that know what they are talking about. This is a very serious project for me, and I want my moneys worth. This is where anyone that can help me comes in.

This is the desktop that I have created:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM SNIPER - NEXT GEN GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
OverClocked Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-980X (3.33GHz @ max 4.00GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® RAMPAGE III EXTREME: 3-Way SLI & CrossFireX, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX570 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX570 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
60GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W PRO SERIES (HX1000) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£169)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
Bigfoot Killer 2100 PCI-E Gigabit LAN Card - Max Performance Online Gaming (£69)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£143)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2472HD 24" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£169)
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® G19 Gaming Keyboard with Gamepanel LCD Display (£129)
Mouse
Logitech® G9x Laser Gaming Mouse (£62)
Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector + Auto Power Off Function (£18)
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Data Recovery
2 x Hard Drive Data Recovery Service - Protect 2 Hard Drives Against Failure (£58)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £3,121.00 including VAT and delivery.

I have set myself a budget of £3000 +/- £200.

This is for high end gaming (Crysis ultra settings standard), video editing with 3D applications, opportunity to upgrade for the next 3-5 years, and ability to overclock easily (planning on overclocking 980x to 3.7Ghz or 4Ghz).

I could have made ridiculous decisions somewhere, and I am completely open to this build being completely poorly designed. So please, critique extensively at will, for my sake.

I have a number of questions of cooling, power supply's, RAM timings and processing speeds, and lots of other components. I will ask if anyone helps me here.

Thank you for reading, and hopefully giving me the knowledge I need.

Jack Douglas.

*Edits from help I receive*

Edit: Changed graphics card to GTX580
Edit: Changed HDD and put in SSD.
Edit: Switched to an overclocked i7-980X
Edit: Added Data Recovery
Edit: Add 24" IIYAMA Monitor
Edit: Changed graphics card to 2 GTX570's for SLI'ing.

 

[Rakk]

Around the summer period of next year, I am planning on buying a very powerful PC form this website. As a gaming and video editing enthusiast, and with a new found passion for both software and hardware engineering, I have decided to purchase a PC that can not only realise my current needs, but any future needs as well.

Just as a point, an awful lot can change with PC components in the space of a month let alone 6, so anything you configure now will be completely out of date come summer time .

Having said that, a few little points about that spec:
I'd pick the single best graphics card you can afford, rather than two lesser ones, means for an easy upgrade later, you just buy another one of the same card .

May want a Caviar Black as you're initial hard drive instead of the Green, though admittedly by the time you order the next gen SSD's will be out and hopefully should be a lot more affordable, so that may be an option at that point.

Not sure the LAN card is really necessary, may make a small difference, not sure I'd pay 70quid for that much difference, but then I have no experience of it and am just going on what I've read.

 

[Zynced]

Just as a point, an awful lot can change with PC components in the space of a month let alone 6, so anything you configure now will be completely out of date come summer time .

Having said that, a few little points about that spec:
I'd pick the single best graphics card you can afford, rather than two lesser ones, means for an easy upgrade later, you just buy another one of the same card .

May want a Caviar Black as you're initial hard drive instead of the Green, though admittedly by the time you order the next gen SSD's will be out and hopefully should be a lot more affordable, so that may be an option at that point.

Not sure the LAN card is really necessary, may make a small difference, not sure I'd pay 70quid for that much difference, but then I have no experience of it and am just going on what I've read.

Thanks for the reply

I realise that components will change, hence why I chose the 980x because it's relatively new, and will be running as one of the most advanced CPUs for years, I think. My GPU will change depending on the new NVIDIA releases. The build is open for complete change.

I'm a bit stuck on the graphics card. I've had people tell me to go for 2 ATI 5770's, go for the GTX580, get 2 GTX470's, or keep 2 GTX460's. I want to run the program 3DSMAX, and maybe lightwave for rendering 3D. The games I want to run on max settings are Crysis, Dirt 2, Battlefield (Battlefield 3 when it comes out and Bad Company 2), Half-life 2, Call Of Duty. Can you recommend me the best option?

I'm clueless on HDD, I'll look into the Cavair Black, thanks

I'm sure on the LAN card. I have a terrible internet connection for gaming, 4mb down 0.3mb up on a good day. I need to have the gaming network prioritised over anything else I'm using. I'm using Skype for communication, and that's going to take up half of my bandwidth if I'm not saying what it can use.

 

[Phoenix]

The GTX460 and HD5770 aren't extreme gaming cards, you should be looking at SLI'ing GTX580's or crossfiring HD5970's.

 

[Zynced]

The GTX460 and HD5770 aren't extreme gaming cards, you should be looking at SLI'ing GTX580's or crossfiring HD5970's.

I looked at having SLI GTX580's, but the power consumption and not having water cooling made it seem not worth the money in the long run. I'm thinking of just having the GTX580 single, would having 2 make a noticeable difference that matches the extra cost + maintenance? I don't want to go over £3000.

 

[Phoenix]

No not right now with the current games available unless you're playing at 2560x1600 with max AA and AF enabled.

 

[Zynced]

Hmm, I don't see any games in the next 6 months changing that, Metro 2033 is the only game I have seen giving the SLI 580's trouble when benchmarking, however I think it's the CPU that is bottlenecking the game's FPS.

On Hard Drives, is it good to have 2 SSD's with Raid0 for the operating system and programs, and a 1TB HDD for everything else (HD footage mainly)?

 

[Phoenix]

Well having two SSD's in RAID 0 will provide incredibly high read/write speeds but without using a dedicated RAID card it's quite unstable so I'd just go with a single SSD and use a 1TB HDD for other files.

 

[Zynced]

I chose this SSD:
60GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)

And this HDD:
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

If I dedicated the SSD for the operating system and core programs, and then use the HDD for everything else, would this run fast and stable?

 

[Phoenix]

Yes, just make sure that you put the SSD in the first storage drive slot so that PCSpecialist install windows 7 on it.

 

[Zynced]

I might get 2 HDD's and use Raid0, because I fill up 1TB after about a year. Would it be worth it on 2 1TB HDD's?

 

[Phoenix]

The failure rate is just as high, so I don't think so.

 

[Zynced]

I'll update it with what I chose then.

Thanks for your help

Is there anything anything else in the build that you would change?

 

[Phoenix]

Aside from upgrading the power supply to a HX1000+ power supply (if SLI'ing) no.

 

[Zynced]

I've just looked at the section for buying over clocked computers, it seems like a good idea to buy straight from there with the same build but with the 980x OC to 3.7GHz and thermal paste. I don't want to go up to 4.0GHz yet because I can't buy the best CPU cooler with the case I want.

 

[Zynced]

I've got 2 questions for anyone that can answer.

Is there a noticeable difference between a HDD with 10,000rpm, and a HDD with 7,200rpm? The biggest things that I'll be working with is 1280x720 footage, and I want to be able to read it all as fast as possible for smooth previewing in my editing software.

I would probably want to buy another graphics card a few months, or maybe a year after purchase. If I was to buy the GTX580 again, would I be able to buy it from here? If I buy anywhere else, they are all branded and references, so I don't know if they would be compatible for SLI (without any problems) with the GTX580 that comes from PCSpecialist.

 

[Rakk]

I would probably want to buy another graphics card a few months, or maybe a year after purchase. If I was to buy the GTX580 again, would I be able to buy it from here? If I buy anywhere else, they are all branded and references, so I don't know if they would be compatible for SLI (without any problems) with the GTX580 that comes from PCSpecialist.

Yes, you can buy components from here if you are an existing customer

 

[Zynced]

I didn't think that was possible, that has just made this so much easier. Thank you

 

[Zynced]

Aside from upgrading the power supply to a HX1000+ power supply (if SLI'ing) no.

I've been looking into SLI'ing the GTX570's and upgrading to a 1000W. The price of the 570 is a lot less than the 580 and has better power consumption (from what I'm told).

In your opinion would it be worth upgrading to 2 570's instead of a 580? Or would the difference be to little to justify the extra cost?

 

[Phoenix]

Well two GTX570's would beat one GTX580 by quite a considerable amount so if it fits your budget then it's a good idea.