Building My First PC: One Part Every Two Weeks :D

[TheFantasticG]

This is what I'm planning on building:

ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD
Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support and UEFI BIOS
Newegg.com - ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support and UEFI BIOS

CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 /
EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular
Active PFC Power Supply
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full
Tower Computer Case
Newegg.com - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower Computer Case

(QTY: 2) G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2

COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 compatible
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 compatible

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache
6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT90ZFBGRBOX
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT90ZFBGRBOX

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Operating Systems

Corsair Performance 3 Series CSSD-P3128GB2-BRKT 2.5" 128GB SATA III
MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Newegg.com - Corsair Performance 3 Series CSSD-P3128GB2-BRKT 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
Newegg.com - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - Thermal Compound / Grease

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI
Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with
Eyefinity
Newegg.com - MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

(QTY: -- to replace all the 120mm fans and put an extra in the front of the case) NZXT FN-140RB 140mm Case Fan
Newegg.com - NZXT FN-140RB 140mm Case Fan


Thoughts?

Mostly building it for photo editing, some game playing (like Duke Nukem Forever), and maybe some Sims 3. I think this setup is way more than I need to do any of that, but thats fine by me. The other thing is that I only get to spend $250 every four weeks on it. Buying piece by piece.

[Rson]

Solid except for the case.


Look at a Armour MX or Antec 900

[TheFantasticG]

What exactly do you see those cases have over the Phantom NZXT? I like how much space is in the Phantom.

[Rson]

Are you going to water cool or air....that is the difference.

[Rson]

only one 128 gb harddrive?

[TheFantasticG]

Air. The SSD is just for the OS and programs. I'll have three 2TB SATA drives for everything else... maybe later add in a Drobo S setup.

[Rson]

The case you listed is more geared towards water cooling and the ones I recommended have excellent air cooling.

[TheFantasticG]

Interesting. I see there's seven places for fans in the NZXT Phantom. Would that provide enough air flow?

[Rson]

Newegg.com - Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Unbeatable Gaming Case



Front to back.

Also I HATE the plastic trays for harddrives. I am old school and like bolting them down.

[stephenpinn]

Being an Intel guy I would make 1 major recommendation :)

[aksthem1]

You could save more money by getting a midrange motherboard, lower wattage PSU, G.skill Ripjaws X, and a Hyper 212 Plus or Xigmatek S1283. Cheaper and perform around the same.

You could comfortably run that PC, stock, on a quality 500W. No point in getting lower voltage RAM if you don't overclock and need the head room. Also you may want to take into consideration that AMD's Bulldozer is coming out within the next two months. It may be worth the wait.

[Village Idiot]

Originally Posted by stephenpinn

Being an Intel guy I would make 1 major recommendation :)

I was going to mention the same thing. I've seen benchmarks where a 3 year old OC'ed 920 is faster than the 1090t listed. The new i7 2600 will be more expensive, but you can OC it and have a beast.

CPU power is important for photo editing.

[Rson]

Wrong, a well balanced system is more important to editing.

Since the i7 920's VERY first release was Nov 2008, I doubt it was a 3 year old system. Since you bring in overclocking, the AMD x4 BE version has been OC'd to 5.6GHz.

[looking for my nana-bobo emoticon]

[TheFantasticG]

Well, I'm confident that this setup will do everything I need it to do with while inducing no frustration on me. I"m sure it'll be better than the Asus ePC I'm using now that's pimping a AMD Athlon II Duo w/6GB DDR2...

[stephenpinn]

Although I agree with Rson on a well balanced system I do believe that a 2600K (personal disclosures available) would be a better system for the requirements that Garret specified. You will find the 2600k better balanced for highly threaded apps and has significant performance enhancements for less polished applications.

Let's leave overclocking out of this because it can move to the extreme very quickly I doubt that Garret would want to use nitrogen cooling. The 2600K has significant internal "clocking" capabilities to change clock speeds while monitoring thermal envelopes, it does this without user intervention.

In the past I have agreed with Rson recommendations 100% but on this one I think Garret can build himself a system with significantly more performance headroom. When AMD introduces there new offerings perhaps this will change but for right now it would be hard to beat a stock i72600k in any Photoshop benchmarks.

The other aspect of this is that companies like NIK are optimizing their plug-in application on Intel platforms.

Regards