MultiTasking, Video and Photo Editing

[Unwina]

Can anyone help please need to confirm good spec

MultiTasking, Video and Photo Editing

I don't play games but i do do serious multitasking, 10 sessions with multiple browsers and tabs etc, office products and memory intensive stuff like video editing using a number of tools. I don't bother with firewire. My main concern is that I have the right mix and matched items for OC and also for the performance i want.

Hopefully I haven't got too much wrong. I do have a concern that OC will shorten the life of the system but I'm prepared to take a risk on that for the extra performance.

COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE

Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core (3.40GHz @ max 4.80GHz)

ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™

8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 430 - DVI,HDMI,VGA

750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)

COOLIT ECO II A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)

ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

this is just over my budget of 950

Thanks in advance for any advice/ideas

Alan

 

[Gorman]

As discussed in other thread

I dont think you need an overclock, so i would drop it and go for air cooling on a 2600. Review the features of 7 pro vs home premium and check you are getting any needed features by going pro.

Other than that i like the spec, it should serve you well.

 

[Wozza63]

If you are doing video editing i believe you need a graphics card with high memory

 

[Gorman]

If you are doing video editing i believe you need a graphics card with high memory

Nope, not unless you are going the CUDA route, its all CPU and system memory.

 

[Wozza63]

Fair do's, not really into all the video editing that is just what i always thought

It looks good to me

Id probably say if you can wait for the 3rd gen tp be released they should have 6 cores then which will be more what you need with the multitasking and all

 

[Gorman]

The Hyper Threading cores on the 2600 should be plenty to be fair

 

[Unwina]

As discussed in other thread

I dont think you need an overclock, so i would drop it and go for air cooling on a 2600. Review the features of 7 pro vs home premium and check you are getting any needed features by going pro.

Other than that i like the spec, it should serve you well.

Hi Gorman,

I was assuming that might be what you'd say about the overclock but I wanted to splash the boat out and give myself some further options later down the line when the warranty has run out.

Being retired as I am I have had huge fun investigating all this new stuff be a shame to not take the the leap. Are the risks of the pc being rendered useless after the warranty has run out very high with an overclock?.

That said, assuming I drop down to 2600 with the "k" and switch to air cooling would that be stock cooling or something a a bit better perhaps.

The Win 7 pro version was to particularly get the Special XP support , I have a lot of old habits and also used to be in software development so have a lot of old tools from years back that are still working, more importantly I use finance stuff like quicken 98 and I have a lot of data that is difficult to port over to newer systems. I'm assuming that it will not work in base win 7 versions so I need the XP capability options that I believe is only in pro and above.

Thanks for your expert eyes perusing over my options, its much appreciated.

regards
Alan

 

[Gorman]

Hi Gorman,

I was assuming that might be what you'd say about the overclock but I wanted to splash the boat out and give myself some further options later down the line when the warranty has run out.

Being retired as I am I have had huge fun investigating all this new stuff be a shame to not take the the leap. Are the risks of the pc being rendered useless after the warranty has run out very high with an overclock?.

Its more a case of the inherant instability that running an OC can bring than the CPU burning out. For example i overclock my machine, laugh at whoever i was trying to beat on whichever daft benchmark and then remove the overclock as i cant be doing with any instability using the machine day to day.

That said, assuming I drop down to 2600 with the "k" and switch to air cooling would that be stock cooling or something a a bit better perhaps.

Something like the quiet cooler, effective enough and not too much noise.

The Win 7 pro version was to particularly get the Special XP support , I have a lot of old habits and also used to be in software development so have a lot of old tools from years back that are still working, more importantly I use finance stuff like quicken 98 and I have a lot of data that is difficult to port over to newer systems. I'm assuming that it will not work in base win 7 versions so I need the XP capability options that I believe is only in pro and above.

Cant fault that logic, XP mode is brilliant once you get to grips with it.

 

[Unwina]

thanks for the pointer wozza,

3rd gen, what gives on that then do you know when it comes, do these probably need a new MB like the gen 2s then.

Having come from a Vista Ultimate load E6700 Core duo I'm sure the gen2 I7 will be a breath of fresh air, as for the 2800 athlon I'm having to work with at the moment it will be like being on warp factor 10, oops showing my age.

 

[Unwina]

Its more a case of the inherant instability that running an OC can bring than the CPU burning out. For example i overclock my machine, laugh at whoever i was trying to beat on whichever daft benchmark and then remove the overclock as i cant be doing with any instability using the machine day to day.

Aha, so I can turn it on and off is that

1. Easy to do for a numpty like me
2. Within warranty

The way my avirus and backup tools were running on the old pc and on this Athlon 2800+ i'm running it may come in handy. I'm not very happy about instability on a regular basis though. I guess it will take some getting used to but I'd like to give it a go, there ain't too many things I risk at my age ;-)

Something like the quiet cooler, effective enough and not too much noise.

Sounds good to me maybe i'll have enough slack in the budget to get a new keyboard that the wife won;t claw back for cosmetics. Any ideas on a good one that the keys don't rub off after a couple of years. ;-), I've gotten quite used to the logitech one I have just can't find some of the keys anymore with a magnifying glass and snopake

Cant fault that logic, XP mode is brilliant once you get to grips with it.

yep I have high hopes I will get the old printer working without having to by a new drivers amongst other things. Also this is my first foray into 64bit working.

thanks again for your help,

I can't think what the lady in "horrible company is on about so far." ;-)

 

[Gorman]

Aha, so I can turn it on and off is that

1. Easy to do for a numpty like me
2. Within warranty

The way my avirus and backup tools were running on the old pc and on this Athlon 2800+ i'm running it may come in handy. I'm not very happy about instability on a regular basis though. I guess it will take some getting used to but I'd like to give it a go, there ain't too many things I risk at my age ;-)

You can indeed, if an overclocked machine is bought a profile for the settings are saved within BIOS, entering into BIOS and selecting the standard or overclocked profile will alter everything you need. Of course i would always recommend that anyone using an overclocked machine learns a little about it. It is afterall an enthusiast hobby, or used to be!

Sounds good to me maybe i'll have enough slack in the budget to get a new keyboard that the wife won;t claw back for cosmetics. Any ideas on a good one that the keys don't rub off after a couple of years. ;-), I've gotten quite used to the logitech one I have just can't find some of the keys anymore with a magnifying glass and snopake

I have had the same problem for a long time, if i find one i will let you know!

I can't think what the lady in "horrible company is on about so far." ;-)

A classic case of you cant win them all im afraid.

 

[Unwina]

You can indeed, if an overclocked machine is bought a profile for the settings are saved within BIOS, entering into BIOS and selecting the standard or overclocked profile will alter everything you need. Of course i would always recommend that anyone using an overclocked machine learns a little about it. It is afterall an enthusiast hobby, or used to be!

Now that's very useful do you know

1. how many profiles you can have
2. do they just deal with the OC stuff or all the BIOS parameters.

It would be nice to be able to turn CD/DVD boot on and off or other boot ordering by just resetting/loading the parameters in a profile, I don't do it often enough to remember what to do so it might be useful

I have had the same problem for a long time, if i find one i will let you know!

Shame I was hoping you would know, I guess I need one of the old school ones where the key marking a quite deep. I have some of the older ones but they are a horrible cream colour and wifey says they mess up the colour coord or something like that.

A classic case of you cant win them all im afraid.

When I read it I thought i've got boxes in my loft for all our PC's going quite a way back, sad git.

thanks again

 

[NMEBowen]

just a suggestion but the gaming backlit keyboards dont have painted letters rather little letters of seethrough plastic which leds are placed behind and if you go for a mechanical version (no offence) should last you the rest of your life

 

[UndeadJack]

just a suggestion but the gaming backlit keyboards dont have painted letters rather little letters of seethrough plastic which leds are placed behind and if you go for a mechanical version (no offence) should last you the rest of your life

Razer!

 

[Unwina]

just a suggestion but the gaming backlit keyboards dont have painted letters rather little letters of seethrough plastic which leds are placed behind and if you go for a mechanical version (no offence) should last you the rest of your life

They push me over budget at the moment but they do look like they would work thanks for the steer.

 

[Unwina]

Razer!

yep had a look i like design but not the price at the mo. Just wondering though how are they in daylight I get it in darkness but in daylight does the blue define the key lettering just as well.

thanks

 

[UndeadJack]

yep had a look i like design but not the price at the mo. Just wondering though how are they in daylight I get it in darkness but in daylight does the blue define the key lettering just as well.

thanks

They look like a regular keyboard in the light. They are cheaper on amazon btw

 

[Unwina]

They look like a regular keyboard in the light. They are cheaper on amazon btw

The Lycosa (not arctosa) seems to be the one, are all the keys illuminated they seem to have picture that suggest this but as the manual does not say anything about Windows 7 drivers I gave up reading anymore.

Does seem like its a good one though and it looks real cool even though i'm not a gaming person.

cheers for the steer though.

 

[UndeadJack]

All of the keys are backlit and there is instant recognition - drivers are instantly installed but you can check for new updates

 

[Unwina]

All of the keys are backlit and there is instant recognition - drivers are instantly installed but you can check for new updates

Yeah I should have checked the drivers section rather than read the manual bum steer sorry, they do have drivers for win7

thanks