# I am about to make this build What do you guys think



## Timer5 (Dec 13, 2009)

Ok so at work The manager asked me if I could build him a computer. He gave me a HUGE budget. He said he will be using it for the following.
1 Basic work and such
2 Gaming
3 Coding games (He graduated from college and wants to create games on it so the full 3D cad style stuff and massive coding)
4 Video editing he wants to make HUGE HD videos of the games he plans on making so he wants to make sure it can do it all well
5 Photo editing he needs to be able to create textures and edit them etc so he needs power. 

So This is the build I came up with. I think it might be overkill but the main thing comes down to he will be using it for overkill. Now he is an AMD fanboy and he does not want anything BUT AMD so that is why I did not go intel. Also he ONLY wanted top of the line parts because he plans on having this be his workhorse and does not want it to fail. SO here it goes. To wan you I did go all out. 

CPU 
AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX - Newegg.com

I know 8 cores is much but I know for Cad and Coding the game he will be able to use all 8 cores. Normally I would go quad but this time 8 should work.

PSU
XFX P1-750X-XXB9 750W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

Considering he wants this to last I put in a 750W and went Modular to make sure there would be good Ventilation. It should be MORE then enough.

Video Card 
XFX FX-795A-TNFC Radeon HD 7950 Core Edition 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Newegg.com

I am an XFX man my self so I went XFX I have owned a line of them and they have never given me any trouble. I went with a Beefy card because he wants to eventually use Eyefinity you know the 3 Monitors thing and also because he has BIG plans with gaming. Also because he is going to do 3D modeling for the games he is going to make. He wants to ensure the lag is very little. 

MOBO
ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support and UEFI BIOS - Newegg.com

I put in the top of the line mobo because I want to make sure it will last and because it will offer more than enough room for upgrades in the future. 

HDD
Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.com

So I put in a WD Black because he wants pure performance and the 1TB because he wants to ensure he can put the game he is coding and all the parts into it and not run out of room.

RAM
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-16GXM - Newegg.com

I know normally 8GB is enough but considering he will be using programs that use more than 8 I got him 16GB and made sure he could upgrade some day. 

Case
NZXT LEXA S LEXS - 001BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

It is the same case I have it looks good gives a good deal of Room and has more than enough ventilation. 

And I put in a generic DVD drive I have no real reason to post that.

But what do you guys think? I know it is REALLY powerful and a bit too powerful for gaming but considering he will be using it for Coding and 3D design I figured he really needs the power.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

650W would be more than plenty for a 7950 but the 650W Modular XFX is only $10 cheaper.
I seriously doubt the need for a $279 Mobo. 4 GPU Slots ????
I would also recommend Sapphire or Asus for the GPU for quality, reliability and support.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

All of the parts are fine and are top quality.

You could save up to $400 if you wish cut the RAM (8GB G.Skill or Corsair), HDD(500GB WD or Seagate), and PSU(650W will do XFX or Seasonic).

You can also use a different motherboard (Gigabyte or Asus).

But if your friend is willing to spend the extra money then its fine.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Just noticed the case. 
Has a door- easily broken and non-repairable.
Window- scratch easily and become very unsightly in a short time.
Side fan- basically useless and can disrupt the desired front to rear airflow.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Tyree said:


> Just noticed the case.
> Has a door- easily broken and non-repairable.
> Window- scratch easily and become very unsightly in a short time.
> Side fan- basically useless and can disrupt the desired front to rear airflow.


I have nothing against these reasons , 

But considering the cost of the parts going into it , the case is very low quality and looks very flimsy and cheap. Look into an upper end antec, silverstone , lian-li , ect...


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

Despite your claim that you have a huge budget, the parts on your list don't scream high-end to me.

Let's get the first touchy subject out of the way: the AMD FX-8350 is AMD's current flagship but only barely reaches Intel's mid-range i5. If money is no object a six-core i7 will serve you better. However the AMD does approach the i7 when it comes to maximally threaded applications. For CAD their performance might well be equal and it's a huge saving. Just be aware that you're not getting the best product you can buy.

Continuing on, the motherboard is massive overkill for these parts. Motherboards are not very futureproof. As for the GPU it's not the best but okay for the price and is only a factor in games as everything else you've listed will use the CPU. As for the PSU, 650 should be more than enough. Assuming you know what you're doing and have a fair amount of room to work with in the case, modularity is an extravagance.

Regarding the HDD, if the budget permits it I'd recommend a 250GB SSD (128 minimum) coupled with a cheaper 1 to 2TB mechanical drive. CAD and game programming require oodles of space and depending on how smart the 16GB of RAM are used you'll encounter a lot of swapping. Also ask your boss if he has a backup strategy in place, he'll thank you if he ever encounters data loss.

And you'll definitely want to get your boss' approval on the case first. Most of today's cases share the spacey "gamer" look which most sensible people find absurd. I'd look to the Silverstone Fortress, the Fractal Design R4 or similar cases with a classy and subdued look.

Finally, what about the monitor?


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Cases are a personal choice but choosing one that avoids obvious issues will help to insure a longer and more pleasing experience.
Bling is nice for a short time but quality/functionality wins out over time. :smile:


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## Timer5 (Dec 13, 2009)

Ok so I will start from the top. 

The main reason I went with a 750W is because I took a 7950 and I figured a nice Wattage headroom would be good. I mean considering it is one of the 8 cores it does eat up a good deal of the wattage. Now as for the board he requested the Asus Formula 5 IDK why I told him the sabertooth is cheaper and offers "Top of the line" aspect he is looking for but he insisted on formula 5.

Now with the RAM amount I know normally that 8GB is more than enough that is why I only have 8GB in my personal rig. But He will be using more than 8 for sure. He has video editing plans, HD photo edition, Game design etc I mean he actually needs more power. I put in the 1TB because he also has Gaming plans. I mean it is quite easy to fill up 500GB especially since he will have a game he is Coding and all the parts of it on this thing. 

Now as the for the case I sent him off onto newegg in the case section and that is the case he picked directly. he said it looked cool and he wanted it. Personally I wold have gone with the Corsair Obsidian considering the build but he chose that one. 

Now I would have gone Intel I mean Intel would give him far MORE power but he is like me a big AMD man. I mean I have a Phenom II X6 and those other 2 cores really pay off when I am editing Videos. Also I know the steamroller's are not as Good as an i7 but considering he will be using programs that demand all cores I figure since Cores are Faster than Threads it should be able to beat out or Level out with the i7 Series. Now with the SSD I am somewhat against that. The reason is with a normal HDD you can tell when it is going bad but with an SSD it just goes bad one day. I don't trust SSD tech just yet. There are too many flaws in it. 

Now for the Monitor I figured this one would work for him.
Acer G276HLDbd Black 27" 6ms (GTG) Widescreen LED Monitor 300 cd/m2 ACM 100,000,000:1 (3000:1) - Newegg.com

I know that Acer does not makes the best Computers but from what I have seen they make some Really good Monitors. Heck I have an Acer monitor and it works like a champ for me.


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

Timer5 said:


> The main reason I went with a 750W is because I took a 7950 and I figured a nice Wattage headroom would be good. I mean considering it is one of the 8 cores it does eat up a good deal of the wattage. Now as for the board he requested the Asus Formula 5 IDK why I told him the sabertooth is cheaper and offers "Top of the line" aspect he is looking for but he insisted on formula 5.


It might help if we knew what your actual budget is. If your boss makes specific requests like this it will only eat into your budget if it's not large enough to get parts that can actually use it. Though I suppose this motherboard is overkill even with a nigh unlimited budget, unless he plans to mine bitcoins and needs 4 GPUs. 



Timer5 said:


> Now with the RAM amount I know normally that 8GB is more than enough that is why I only have 8GB in my personal rig. But He will be using more than 8 for sure. He has video editing plans, HD photo edition, Game design etc I mean he actually needs more power.


Keep the RAM. Even if he'll only really use it if he deals with absurdly large CAD drawings, it should help with caching.



Timer5 said:


> Now as the for the case I sent him off onto newegg in the case section and that is the case he picked directly. he said it looked cool and he wanted it. Personally I wold have gone with the Corsair Obsidian considering the build but he chose that one.


The easiest way to keep him happy is to stick with that case then. :wink:



Timer5 said:


> Now I would have gone Intel I mean Intel would give him far MORE power but he is like me a big AMD man. I mean I have a Phenom II X6 and those other 2 cores really pay off when I am editing Videos. Also I know the steamroller's are not as Good as an i7 but considering he will be using programs that demand all cores I figure since Cores are Faster than Threads it should be able to beat out or Level out with the i7 Series.


I highly advise you to read this benchmark in its entirety. To summarise it, the FX-8350 does indeed draw close to the i7 3770K with full multi-threading but still doesn't quite reach it. The less cores the system is able to use, the worse the AMD fares. You say that cores are faster than threads which I suppose is correct. Unfortunately, AMD's cores are so much weaker per clock that even with full multi-threading Intel will come out on top. Newegg has the i7 for 100$ more. For nearly thrice the price of the FX-8350 you can upgrade from LG 1155 to LGA 2011 for the six-core i7 which should blow the FX out of the water. Of course you start to encounter diminishing returns the higher you get.




Timer5 said:


> Now with the SSD I am somewhat against that. The reason is with a normal HDD you can tell when it is going bad but with an SSD it just goes bad one day. I don't trust SSD tech just yet. There are too many flaws in it.


Mechanical hard drives can fail just as suddenly as an SSD. Neither platform can do without a solid backup plan. I always assume that your OS disk can get fried and keep my data on at least two dedicated disks.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Samsung-Acer-Asus are all good quality monitors but I would look for one with a 5ms Response, particularly for the intended use.
For the case, he's the one that has to live it it. :smile:


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## hardboil (Nov 29, 2011)

Timer5 said:


> Ok so I will start from the top.
> 
> The main reason I went with a 750W is because I took a 7950 and I figured a nice Wattage headroom would be good. I mean considering it is one of the 8 cores it does eat up a good deal of the wattage. Now as for the board he requested the Asus Formula 5 IDK why I told him the sabertooth is cheaper and offers "Top of the line" aspect he is looking for but he insisted on formula 5.
> 
> ...


Did you explain to him that he can save a ton of time with a real high end desktop(i7-37xx 128GB+ SSD) which is 50-100% faster than the AMD FX since HD encoding relies on raw cpu power for good results.

For monitors, try to get the Monoprice IPS(A-) monitor for under $400. Dell and Apple(A+) sell close to the same monitor for $900-1500 each. For only $385.02 each when QTY 50+ purchased - 27" IPS LED CrystalPro Monitor WQHD 2560x1440


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

No brand name or specs listed for that monitor. I would be more than reluctant to spend almost $400 on a monitor that I knew nothing about.


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## hardboil (Nov 29, 2011)

Tyree said:


> No brand name or specs listed for that monitor. I would be more than reluctant to spend almost $400 on a monitor that I knew nothing about.


The brand name is Monoprice(Based in SoCal) and (A-)LCD panel comes from LG. 
It only supports Dual Link Digital DVI-D input to save on cost. Monoprice is very good with returns and customer support. I've done transactions with them for 5+ years with a very low 5% product returns. The RMA process is very fast and reasonable. They carry mostly HQ products for the price.

Contact Monoprice for details about monitor warranty and dead pixel policy.
I believe they have a standard 30 day return policy.

This is a low risk purchase from a largely trusted retailer. There are good reviews for similar IPS monitor on gaming website that I will link shortly.


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

hardboil said:


> Did you explain to him that he can save a ton of time with a real high end desktop(i7-37xx 128GB+ SSD) which is 50-100% faster than the AMD FX since HD encoding relies on raw cpu power for good results.


With properly configured encoding software the FX-8350 comes close to the 3770k. You'll only see the increase you mention if you go for the LG 1120 and the six-core i7.

Speaking of, what software will your boss even be using? Handbrake will scale properly as long as he's not using single-threaded filters. AutoCAD will do the same when it comes to rendering but last I checked is not yet fully parallel. But if he wants to speed up FRAPS and Windows Movie Maker or some other such nonsense then he should spend his money on decent software first.


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## Timer5 (Dec 13, 2009)

I actually do not know the software. he went to College for Game design and wants to pick up the same stuff he used there. As for the recording it will most likely be FRAPS but for editing Knowing him it will be an Adobe based software.


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## Tomshawk (Jan 23, 2013)

Just my 2 cents.

The HD is nice but everything else in the PC is built for speed but you are only doing a 7200 RPM drive. It's only $99.00

Spend the money and go 10,000 RPM
Granted they don't have a 1TB but if he gave you a big budget, get 2
Western Digital WD VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.com


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

If he plans to record a lot with FRAPS, the VelociRaptor is a good investment. You need to record onto a separate drive (at least 7200) to prevent those nasty stutters. A 7200 system/application/storage drive and a 10k dedicated FRAPS drive wouldbe an ideal setup.


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

toothman said:


> If he plans to record a lot with FRAPS, the VelociRaptor is a good investment. You need to record onto a separate drive (at least 7200) to prevent those nasty stutters. A 7200 system/application/storage drive and a 10k dedicated FRAPS drive wouldbe an ideal setup.


For the same price as a the velociraptor linked above you can get a Samsung 840 250GB with double the write speed. The more expensive pro version will nearly quintuple it. Depending on how much he wants to record he could get away with a 64 or 128 GB SSD.

I cannot think of any reason why I would ever recommend a velociraptor over an SSD. If performance is important, go with SSD. If capacity is important, go with +2TB mechanical drives.

Better and cheaper would be setting up a RAM drive with the 8 GB of RAM he won't be using during games, though I admit that I haven't looked into how convenient such a setup actually is and if it can be released at will.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

As above ^
A SSD would be my choice over a Raptor.


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

I've looked into the RAM drive concept some more as I may be using it myself. There's quite a number of tools available, several of them fairly expensive. Best free contender so far seems to be SoftPerfect's Ramdisk which is freeware for personal use. The best open-source alternative is imDisk which is digitally signed but a lot less convenient to use.

My only concern is whether these drives can be brought online at runtime when needed and if it can then also be brought offline to release the RAM. Given that they're running in userland that should be possible.

An alternative would be FancyCache, which is in a time-limited beta. It intercepts IO operations and caches them in RAM, allowing FRAPS to run at full speed without stuttering while FC is slowly writing the cache to disk. If you can make your cache large enough you should be able to save captures to a 5400RPM disk without encountering slow down.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Or just buy an SSD. :smile:


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

Tyree said:


> Or just buy an SSD. :smile:


True, but as a free alternative to getting FRAPs running smoothly I'd call that a good way to save 150$. If you're getting an extra SSD purely for FRAPS you clearly have money to burn and might as well go with 2 SSDs and one HDD so you get an OS/App/Data setup.


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

Well if cost is not an issue, get an SSD or two. Problem with FRAPS is that you will literally run out of room on a 256gb drive in one gaming session. The Velociraptors are fast enough to avoid stuttering without needing a RAID setup.


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## Tomshawk (Jan 23, 2013)

toothman said:


> Well if cost is not an issue, get an SSD or two. Problem with FRAPS is that you will literally run out of room on a 256gb drive in one gaming session. The Velociraptors are fast enough to avoid stuttering without needing a RAID setup.


What he said,

I used to do alot of streaming for DiabloIII

Here is my computer

Intel Core i7 Processor i7-2600K 3.4GHz 8MB LGA1155 CPU BOX
Asus P8P67 DELUXE LGA1155/ Intel P67/ DDR3
2x Corsair Performance Pro CSSD-P128GBP-BK 2.5" 128GB SATA III striped
2x Raptor 15,000 RPM 500 GB drives in a striped set for data
4x Super Talent DDR3-1600 4GB/256x8 CL9 Memory
2x EVGA nVidia GeForce GTX580 3GB DDR5 2DVI/EVBot PCI-E
Antec Truepower Quattro TPQ-1000W Power Supply
Antec VSK-2000 Black ATX Mid Tower Case
2x Vantec Chassis Fan 92mm Double Ball Bearing Extra Quiet, ATX

Games scream and fraps as well as xsplit work great, never a hickup


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

Tomshawk said:


> What he said,
> 
> I used to do alot of streaming for DiabloIII
> 
> ...


Very nice setup! A bit of overkill for Diablo 3, of course :rofl: that's one game where an SSD is genuinely helpful.


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## Tomshawk (Jan 23, 2013)

Yeah, overkill for Diablo III
That's not all I play but the main one I play when streaming.


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## Vadigor (Apr 19, 2009)

toothman said:


> Well if cost is not an issue, get an SSD or two. Problem with FRAPS is that you will literally run out of room on a 256gb drive in one gaming session. The Velociraptors are fast enough to avoid stuttering without needing a RAID setup.


Hmm, I guess I underestimated the size of uncompressed 1080p captures. If you must record entire hours of gameplay I suppose the raptor fills a niche role at least. And if you're reserving the entire disk for nothing but FRAPS perhaps it would make sense to get the most capacity at the minimum required level of performance. 200-500 MBps throughput might be overkill in that case.

Of course the ideal solution would be using half the cores that aren't doing anything anyway to compress each finished segment of the raw capture and write it to the data disk. But configuring such a setup would likely be above the level of much of FRAPS' target audience. 

What was this thread about again? :wink:


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## toothman (Jul 13, 2008)

Vadigor said:


> Of course the ideal solution would be using half the cores that aren't doing anything anyway to compress each finished segment of the raw capture and write it to the data disk. But configuring such a setup would likely be above the level of much of FRAPS' target audience.
> 
> What was this thread about again? :wink:


With the 8350, CPU performance is a non-issue.


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