New PC Build. Any bad "Intel" inside?

stokes

stokes

Messages
3,113
Name
Tom
Edit My Images
Yes
Having decided to get a new pc build, i toyed with the idea of a nice iMAC but decided to stay with a pc.

Here is the build im going with, unless anyone sees some serious issues?

2nd Generation Intel® Core? i7 2600K 3.40GHz
16 GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM
Asus Sabertooth P67 Motherboard
XFX AMD Radeon HD 6870 Graphics Card
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w PSU
OCZ Vertex 120 Gig Solid State HD
Blu Ray reader/writer
Corsair H60 CPU Cooler
and a couple of 2tb WD Hard drives to add to my current collection.

The idea is that its going to be my editing setup and replace my PS3 and Xbox. Its all going in my trusty Thermaltake case.
 
Last edited:
looks good, nothing bad I can see here

The 120GB drive seems a bit small, I trust you keep the photos backed up on the external 2TB drives :)

Bit skeptical about the H60 cooler, if it were me I would liquid cool the graphics too, custom loop

the modular PSU makes sense :thumbs: eliminates cable clutter

What case are you going for?
 
Rob 80386 said:
looks good, nothing bad I can see here

The 120GB drive seems a bit small, I trust you keep the photos backed up on the external 2TB drives :)

Bit skeptical about the H60 cooler, if it were me I would liquid cool the graphics too, custom loop

the modular PSU makes sense :thumbs: eliminates cable clutter

What case are you going for?
Click to expand...

The 120 Gb is a SSD and just for the system use, windows, programs etc. Ive got a 1 TB and 2 TB here for storing music, stuff, videos etc. The two 2 Tb drives are for mirrored photo backup only, and will also have a copy on my 2 Tb External

I know nothing about liquid cooling, any examples of bits i might need?
 
From what I've read you probably won't see any significant difference between the i7 and i5 for photoshop and gaming - neither really using multi threading. I'm considering doing something similiar and using the savings from a i5 and cheaper motherboard to put towards a graphics tablet.
 
Just to put across something different, I may be tempted to hold off untill the new AMD bulldozer chips come out (hopefully next month).these should be true 8 cores (rather than the i7 4 + 4hyperthreads).maybe worth looking at? also new intel chips out this year,again hopefully next month!
 
It's never worth waiting for new tech imo, always something new round the corner.

Unless you're doing something that can really utilize multi-core like video encoding or 3D graphics rendering, there's not much to gain.
 
Rod.F said:
From what I've read you probably won't see any significant difference between the i7 and i5 for photoshop and gaming - neither really using multi threading. I'm considering doing something similiar and using the savings from a i5 and cheaper motherboard to put towards a graphics tablet.
Click to expand...
That's pure poppycock ;) Lightroom 3/Photoshop 5 when running on an i7 will light up all 8 cores (4 real + 4 hyperthreads) when it's doing any image manipulation (well, nearly any - there are a couple of filters that aren't multithreaded). What is true is that the cores are so quick they don't spend much time processing so the 4 or 8 core usage is very spiky.

If you do any form of HD video encoding, you will see a big benefit. I use ffmpeg to recode off-air HD recordings and the second pass of that keeps the CPUs (real and virtual) almost fully loaded.

As to mobos and which version of the i5/i7: P67 and a K variant definitely. These things are so easy to overclock and the price differential is minimal. You'll need a good heatsink tho.

monkeytennis said:
Just to put across something different, I may be tempted to hold off untill the new AMD bulldozer chips come out (hopefully next month).these should be true 8 cores (rather than the i7 4 + 4hyperthreads).maybe worth looking at? also new intel chips out this year,again hopefully next month!
Click to expand...
Bulldozer has had a very luke warm reception. See: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested for an example. 8 cores vs 4+4 - any difference is probably lost in the noise. They tend to either be full doing stuff or your waiting on I/O which means they're spending a significant proportion of time idle. Whether the core is real or virtual doesn't make any difference :)

As to Intels new cores, that's Ivy Bridge which is part of their tick/tock design strategy (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick_Tock). Essentially, they will be die shrunk versions of the Sandy Bridge chips so will be slightly faster/lower power, but there won't be any major architectural changes (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge#Ivy_Bridge for a quick overview). I wouldn't wait personally...
 
id agree with andy, the i7 in lightroom3 definately is capable of using all cores/threads.

otherwise spec looks good, its pretty much the same base spec as mine (i7-2600k, P67 board, 16gb vengerance) and its certainly a flyer :D

oh what fans do you have in the case now? worth looking at akasa vipers. excellent fans, just filled my case with them on a fan controller and they shift some air and are pretty decent for noise.

ive not read anything particularly exciting on bulldozer either.
 
Last edited:
Thanks all for the comments and ideas. I'm not the biggest fan of waiting for the next best thing, if I was I would still be waiting for the d4!! Lol

I was going to replace all my fans and will look into which type and get a fan controller too.. the thing I love about my case is the size, its huge and you can take off all the sides/front and just be left with the ally housing so you can build without getting your fingers through little gaps etc.

Video editing wise , I use premiere and build the school leavers video every year, and the encoding/ rendering on that used to take ages!

I'm hoping this setup will be capable of playing the latest games (for now) I got fed up with controller based gaming and miss my keyboard and mouse!! Hehe
 
wind it up to 4.3ghz also, 2 min job :thumbs:

it should be great for video encoding. generally on mine a x264 recode of an uncompressed 20gb~ blu-ray rip will take about a couple of hours with all cores loaded.

id be interested to see what sort of temps the H60 gives you at load. im getting low to mid 60c on air, went up to 66c in that hot spell the other week.
 
neil_g said:
wind it up to 4.3ghz also, 2 min job :thumbs:

it should be great for video encoding. generally on mine a x264 recode of an uncompressed 20gb~ blu-ray rip will take about a couple of hours with all cores loaded.

id be interested to see what sort of temps the H60 gives you at load. im getting low to mid 60c on air, went up to 66c in that hot spell the other week.
Click to expand...

Not really played with overclocking after frying a pc years ago, so will step forward cautiously. Fingers crossed I will have at the start of half term, I've just started my essential re install list and have been copying my lightroom/ PhotoShop presets to an external drive
 
neil_g said:
dont need to raise voltages so nothing should get fried, just a case of setting the BCLK to 100 then the multiplier to 43 in the bios :thumbs:
Click to expand...
Yes, it really is that easy..... (BCLK is already at 100 so...)
 
they should all do much and much the same thing, just get one that supports the right amount of fans that looks nice :)

mines built into the case, just a small knob on the rear (ooh err) that supports 4 fans.
 
If you can budget in £60-70 for a new case with better airflow, It would probably benifit you greatly.
My coolermaster Cm690 II is a well built case with good airflow and is extremely spacious while still being mid sized.
 
John Mc said:
If you can budget in £60-70 for a new case with better airflow, It would probably benifit you greatly.
My coolermaster Cm690 II is a well built case with good airflow and is extremely spacious while still being mid sized.
Click to expand...

just read a few reviews on it and it looks like a cracking case. 10 Fans!! :) Would be sad to give up my thermal take case, but guess i could stick it on eBay and get a few quid towards the coolmaster.... hmm
 
Last edited:
well, that's another predicted £100 spent on the build :) A New Case, a Fan Controller and a fair few fans....
 
I have an Antec P182. Brilliant case. Unless I was building another server where number of disk drives was important, I'd buy another of these in an instant.

I use xilence fans - very cheap and quiet (not compared them against any others, but I must have 10 120mm in the 3 machines I have here and still the works laptop is noisier.

Fan controller is a £3 back panel controller from China with 3 variable outputs. Works just fine (although did take a couple of weeks to get here) :)
 
arad85 said:
That's pure poppycock ;) Lightroom 3/Photoshop 5 when running on an i7 will light up all 8 cores (4 real + 4 hyperthreads) when it's doing any image manipulation (well, nearly any - there are a couple of filters that aren't multithreaded). What is true is that the cores are so quick they don't spend much time processing so the 4 or 8 core usage is very spiky.

If you do any form of HD video encoding, you will see a big benefit. I use ffmpeg to recode off-air HD recordings and the second pass of that keeps the CPUs (real and virtual) almost fully loaded.

As to mobos and which version of the i5/i7: P67 and a K variant definitely. These things are so easy to overclock and the price differential is minimal. You'll need a good heatsink tho.

Bulldozer has had a very luke warm reception. See: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested for an example. 8 cores vs 4+4 - any difference is probably lost in the noise. They tend to either be full doing stuff or your waiting on I/O which means they're spending a significant proportion of time idle. Whether the core is real or virtual doesn't make any difference :)

As to Intels new cores, that's Ivy Bridge which is part of their tick/tock design strategy (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick_Tock). Essentially, they will be die shrunk versions of the Sandy Bridge chips so will be slightly faster/lower power, but there won't be any major architectural changes (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge#Ivy_Bridge for a quick overview). I wouldn't wait personally...
Click to expand...

However,it will lead to a price drop of the older i7's so would allow more money to go else where!
 
monkeytennis said:
However,it will lead to a price drop of the older i7's so would allow more money to go else where!
Click to expand...
Yes, but you will have spent 6-9 months with a slower computer. Is that worth £50? (or whatever the price drop actually is...)
 
I'd rather have a pc than wait! Lol, my old one is perfectly functional for what I need now (editing), but the nights are drawing in and I'm bored of miniclip.com! Lol..
 
PS. On ffmpeg at least, it's only the x264 encoder that will run on multiple cores. If you're encoding SD ,aterial to DivX avi files, you will probably see little difference between i5/i7 (but when you can encode a 2 pass SD encode at an average of 100fps, does it matter??)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top