Opinions on new build

[irse]

I want to upgrade from XP to Win 7 and if I'm going to reinstall all of my programs, I thought I might as well upgrade my computer. I do some HD video editing (not a lot), photo editing and general computing. No gaming. I do want some quality parts so the video editing goes more quickly and smoothly.

Parts I have
Case: Lancool PC-K60
CPU cooler: Corsair H50
Power: SeaSonic X650 Gold 650W
2 DVD RW drives
All the HDs I need
All the case fans I need

Parts I'm considering
CPU: i7 860

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128402
Reason: It has 10 sata ports which I want and two PCI-E x1 although I would like 3.

Videocard: XFX GT240XZHFC GeForce GT 240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150472

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231303
Would get 8 GB of memory

Do those parts look okay for what I want to do? Any changes recommended? Thanks

 

[klocwerk]

I want to upgrade from XP to Win 7 and if I'm going to reinstall all of my programs, I thought I might as well upgrade my computer. I do some HD video editing (not a lot), photo editing and general computing. No gaming. I do want some quality parts so the video editing goes more quickly and smoothly.

Parts I have
Case: Lancool PC-K60
CPU cooler: Corsair H50
Power: SeaSonic X650 Gold 650W
2 DVD RW drives
All the HDs I need
All the case fans I need

Parts I'm considering
CPU: i7 860

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128402
Reason: It has 10 sata ports which I want and two PCI-E x1 although I would like 3.

Videocard: XFX GT240XZHFC GeForce GT 240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150472

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231303
Would get 8 GB of memory

Do those parts look okay for what I want to do? Any changes recommended? Thanks

8gb of RAM will be good, 12gb might be better if you really do a lot of HD Video.

I'd strongly suggest that if you have the budget you pick up a SSD to do your production work on. Just copy across your working data set, point your scratch file at the SSD and work off of fast storage instead of magnetic disk. Copy it back to magnetic when you're done the project for storage. (Of course if your data sets are really big they won't fit, but you'd still benefit from using SSD for your scratch disk.)

What's your current vid card? If you're not gaming it's very likely you can bring that across to your new rig with no issues.

 

[StrangerGuy]

If I were you, I would rather spend less to get the i7-920 and the Asrock X58 board. In case you are wondering, 8GB dual-channel mode works perfectly fine on the triple-channel LGA1366 board.

 

[klocwerk]

If I were you, I would rather spend less to get the i7-920 and the Asrock X58 board. In case you are wondering, 8GB dual-channel mode works perfectly fine on the triple-channel LGA1366 board.

Not if he/she wants 10+ SATA ports.

 

[irse]

How much better is the i7-920 over the i7-860? The boards with 8-10 SATA ports are comparable with the 1156 socket boards and the 920 is only $9 more on Amazon. I wouldn't mind 12 GB of RAM.

 

[klocwerk]

How much better is the i7-920 over the i7-860? The boards with 8-10 SATA ports are comparable with the 1156 socket boards and the 920 is only $9 more on Amazon. I wouldn't mind 12 GB of RAM.

It's not really any better, in fact they trade wins in most comparisons I've seen. (I think the 920 OC's better FWIW.)
The 1366 platform is more robust than the 1156 though. Fatter pipes all around for shoveling data. Also will likely get better new processors for upgrades than LGA1156 will.

If you're just going to buy once, run it at stock speeds, then replace the whole thing in a couple years, it likely won't make a huge difference.

If you wanna tweak with OCing, plan on swapping out the processor in a year or two, etc., go i7-920.

 

[klocwerk]

How much better is the i7-920 over the i7-860? The boards with 8-10 SATA ports are comparable with the 1156 socket boards and the 920 is only $9 more on Amazon. I wouldn't mind 12 GB of RAM.

Oh, and see if you have a microcenter near you. WAY better prices on processors.

 

[irse]

No Microcenters near me. I probably won't overclock much and would like to keep it three years. Should I look for a better CPU cooler?

 

[klocwerk]

No Microcenters near me. I probably won't overclock much and would like to keep it three years. Should I look for a better CPU cooler?

Depends. The stock one will work, but it's not quiet and not the best if you're really stressing the CPU.
Given that you seem to do a lot of CPU intensive work, I'd suggest an aftermarket cooler.

 

[irse]

Depends. The stock one will work, but it's not quiet and not the best if you're really stressing the CPU.
Given that you seem to do a lot of CPU intensive work, I'd suggest an aftermarket cooler.

Sorry, I mean better than the H50.

 

[klocwerk]

Sorry, I mean better than the H50.

The H50 hangs with the other top tier coolers in every test I've found, you won't be sad with its performance.

 

[Daleon]

The H50 is great. Nice and quiet, very easy to mount, and does a solid job.

Going 12GB will cost you about $100 more than 8GB. If you use that much memory then to me it would be worth it, also just saying "Yeah I got 12gigs of ram" is just pretty cool.

If you want 12GB, definitely go with the i7 920\Asrock combo. I know many people have gotten the $118 open box board and been very happy with it having gotten what appears to be a completely new board. It has 6 rear USB and 2 USB headers so if your case has front USB slots there ya go. Or get some kind of break out panel to plug into the mb headers.

2nd getting SSD. You won't get insane write speeds with Intel Mainstream SSD's though. Maybe raided? But might loose Trim in raid. The newer drives with really nice write speeds (180+) are pretty expensive. One of the OCZ LE 100GB SSD's would be pretty nice if that was big enough for your work.

I would also consider going with something like a ATI/AMD 5670. Should use less power, run cooler, perform as well or better, and give DX11 support.

 

[osman3]

I hope you will find.