New System Build Advice

[Greg Clark]

In June of this year I built the following system:
Coolermaster HF932
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W
ASUS P6X58D-E MOB
I7 970 CPU
Corsair Dominator 24GB Ram (4X6)
Corsair H70 Cooler
Geforce GTX 480 SuperClocked 1536MB
Seagate Barracuda 2T 7200 X 3
Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit

NOW I need to build a second system but am not sure which way to go with Intel stopping production of the 1366 chip. Should I choose the 1155 or wait for the new 2011 chipset and try and keep the total build around $1500.

[Harm Millaard]

Adobe Forums: What PC to build? An update...

[Roger Keay]

Since you are building your own system, the chances are you are also the technical support guy. If this is the case, and you are satisfied with the machine you built in June, why not make a duplicate? Two systems with the same hardware, OS and software should simplify support. You can avoid some problems by doing all the routine updates and upgrades on one machine, then waiting a week or so to confirm everything is OK before you commit to upgrade the second.

Building a new machine with different components is always tempting because of the potential for better performance but if you want to spend more time editing and less time doing computer maintenance then a duplicate system might be the better choice.

[Panagiotis Raris]

I agree with Roger for some reasons, and wonder why you are building a new machine. Obviously a second machine means more work completed per labor hour, and the why dictates what build you should pursue.

I have one decent system, R-932 (Blue), as well as a legacy editing machine we use when needed, and allow others to use (friends, misc associates, people learning CS5 workflow etc). I am building a clone of R-932 Blue so parts are interchangeable, drivers/updates/issues are standardized, and costs are down versus building a new system. I have already acquired the 'hard to get' bits, namely a lightly used Galaxy Razor GTX 460 single slot 1GB graphics card (cost me $120), a used ARECA ARC-1222 RAID controller ($300), as well as a used Rampage III Gene motherboard ($175), a used Vertex 2 120GB SSD ($100), used i7 950 D0 revision, and Samsung MP4 laptop HD's (i lucked out and bought 18 of these in December of 2010, for R-932 Blue and the next machine as well), and i already have (several, thankfully given the hard drive shortage and current price gouging going on) Seagate 7200.11 1TB 'storage/backup drives sitting around. The only updated bits are the case (HAF 932 Blue Advanced vs original HAF 932 Blue Edition), cooling system (Corsair H80 in place of the H50 in R-932 Blue) and the RAM (24GB of updated Corsair RAM). Aside from that, i plan on basically cloning the 4.0 Ghz setting (ROCK SOLID overclock, by the by), because i know what works for those components (motherboard is slightly finicky with RAM voltages (1.652), and for some reason i have had fantastic luck with that motherboard and extremely low voltages on the i7 950 D0 revision processors (1.385@4.0 stable, on 2 different processors and 2 different motherboards) and 1.711-1.785 on CPU PLL at 4.0. Again, ROCK SOLID stable. I know what works, i know i have backup parts and cheap used alternatives if something goes amiss, and i can always salvage bits from one or the other.

Rogers' concept of testing stability by performing updates on only one machine is perfectly sound; in fact I had issues with the RAID card and motherboard at first, after i performed a BIOS update on the motherboard, in December. I was forced to use my standby machine (Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz 8GB RAM GTX 9800+, SSD Boot/Install, 4 disk Intel RAID 5, 1TB Storage) for 2 days until i narrowed it down to the updated AHCI driver being the culprit.

If you are looking to build a new system for a different level of performance, and you can afford the money and down time to build and tune it properly, by all means go for it, but otherwise, i would simply clone with gently used bits and save the rest for a future build.

$1500 for a whole new machine would be a waste using the Intel RAID engine IMO, based on what you listed. a 3 disk array on the processor dependent SATA ports will bottleneck on an i7 920, let alone the hexacore you have now (opinion and assumption here, i have always had 4+ disk RAID arrays, Intel ICH9R, ICH10R, or ARECA ARC-1222). RAM looks good, processor is great, cooling looks fine, graphics you could step back to a 1GB GTX 470 without a performance hit but save some dough. I like RAID cards; i have 2 now (the cables to the second ARC-1222 and all 8 Samsung laptop drives sit right next to my old editing rig because they do not fit in its chassis, but afford a safe, fast editing environment) because i can always transfer them into a newer machine; processors, RAM (possible, but who really will go from triple channel RAM to quad channel without mis-matching it?), and motherboards (X58/X79 etc) keep changing and prices drop; hard drives (aside from the fluke increases thanks to a hurricane), graphics cards (again, a GTX 470, ranked #6 on PPBM5, it is more than sufficient, and cheap), RAID controllers, and the misc (cases, accessories, card readers, DVD/Blu-Ray drives, monitors, etc) dont really drop in value much if one swaps from one system to the next versus the aforementioned ( I have the Galaxy Razor GTX 460 1GB Single Slot cards because i had originally build a m-ATX rig with a Rampage III Gene for a friend who couldnt pay it off, and decided to stick with what i know).

Either way, a $1500 build on 1156 or 2011 chipsets would be half-hearted when it could net you basically a clone system, and maybe some more HDD's, a proper RAID controller, and interchangeable parts. Personally, i am waiting out 1156 and initial 2011 offerings, for prices to drop and the true bargain performers to show up, i will likely rebuild my main system and clone system late in 2012.

For $1500, i would clone what you have, or try to pick up a used gaming rig (pretty much same needs as an editing rig) and it should be cheap.