Top-Notch System Configuration!

[Jsolanky]

Hey Guys,

I'm thinking of building a system for myself, been using a laptop lately and feel the need of using a desktop when home.

Price is not of concern therefore what's a top notch set-up I can put together? That being said, I would like to build the fastest system I can and would greatly appreciate your input as to which motherboard, cpu, power supply, video/audio card, memory to buy.

Look forward to all your suggestions.

Thank you kindly.
Leo

 

[deanx0r]

Well, you can spend as little as a few hundred bucks to 5,000+ on a computer system. So is money really not a concern? There is no point recommending you a quad-sli setup if you are just going to browse the web and watch movies, same as building it up a 12 core platform if you are just going to game.

Give us a budget and what you intend to do with your computer.

 

[Jsolanky]

Fair enough, it's mainly for personal use...! I would like to have the fastest CPU and also a good motherboard. I'm thinking around $1000, not necessarily has to be around $1000, it could be less or a bit more to build a good machine that will last few years.

Thank you

 

[Jsolanky]

My main intent is to surf the web, MUSIC...MUSIC...MUSIC ( A must is the best sound card/system setup ), Video as well (watching a lot of movies).

Thank you

 

[alyarb]

can you be even more specific than that? are we to assume you will never play high res 3D games, never run photoshop, never encode a blu-ray or DVD or run virtual machines?

you probably won't believe me but i'm going to tell you anyway. surfing the web and playing multimedia files are the most basic things computers do today, and you can build a machine for less than $500 that is just as "good" for this kind of duty as a 4.5 GHz gulftown with three 5870's. today's slowest platforms (ion, pinetrail) are still more than capable of delivering multimedia smoothly.

if you want to spend money, get a 60" LED TV and a nice receiver. build yourself a nice Athlon II X4 + 785G HTPC with an SSD. not that you'll do anything disk intensive, but just so you can impress yourself every time you have to start windows. get a blu ray burner if that sounds like something you might make use of. get 2TB samsung F3's while they're only $150 @ newegg. it's just that building anything faster than this CPU-wise would be a waste of money unless you can think of any compute-intensive things you might do. otherwise, invest in a good TV and receiver for your display and audio.

To be honest i'm not sure what the kids are buying these days in terms of discrete audio. unless for some reason you need superb analog performance, stick with the 785G HDMI output. decide on how you want to control the machine (dinovo edge, dinovo mini, MCE style remote, etc), get a handsome case with silent components. all basic stuff.

 

[edplayer]

sounds like you can you almost any current cheapo setup and be satisfied.

Just so you know, the Intel i7 980X is about $1000 alone, no motherboard nor other parts.

 

[adlep]

$1000.00 to spend on a great PC? I say go with AMD Quad Core setup + Cross Fire/ AM3/DDR3 based mobo

 

[Jsolanky]

I will be using Photoshop, the usual MS Suite, tons of downloading video/mp3s... Blue-Ray is also one of my top priority...

Like I said if a good set-up will cost 2 grand, I would certainly consider that as well.

Thanks

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

For the $1000, you could easily go with a Core i5 750 plus some pretty decent graphics, though I would probably advise you to go with AMD, simply because of upgradeability.

Fair enough, it's mainly for personal use...! I would like to have the fastest CPU and also a good motherboard. I'm thinking around $1000, not necessarily has to be around $1000, it could be less or a bit more to build a good machine that will last few years.

Dude...you probably have no concept of how much these sorts of components cost, but the best consumer CPU, the Core i7 980X, retails for roughly $1000.

you probably won't believe me but i'm going to tell you anyway. surfing the web and playing multimedia files are the most basic things computers do today, and you can build a machine for less than $500 that is just as "good" for this kind of duty as a 4.5 GHz gulftown with three 5870's. today's slowest platforms (ion, pinetrail) are still more than capable of delivering multimedia smoothly.

This. For non-gaming things, there is absolutely no difference in going from a Core i7 920 at 3GHz or more plus a 4870, to a laptop with a Core i3 330M processor with integrated graphics. Trust me. I have tried.

I will be using Photoshop, the usual MS Suite, tons of downloading video/mp3s... Blue-Ray is also one of my top priority...

Like I said if a good set-up will cost 2 grand, I would certainly consider that as well.

Thanks

How about a setup that costs about $4000+?

 

[Jsolanky]

How about this, what's the fastest Intel CPU? and what the best mobo to get?

I think a CPU and mobo are the first 2 components to really focus on! I have always been an Intel user... would Intel CPU be my best bet or AMD? My heart is set on Intel I must say...

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Fastest Intel CPU: Core i7 980X. From Newegg it's just over $1100. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115223

Best mobo: That's debatable. It's hard to test performance with motherboards, since they're all reasonably similar, and overclocking performance is so chip-oriented that whether you get a good mobo or not is completely swamped out by whether you got a good OC'ing chip or not. I'd probably go with something like an ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 or a GA-EX58A UD7.

 

[alyarb]

how much photoshop? enough to justify a dual core, or a hex core? if you're only using basic photoshop features you don't need a fast CPU. the point we're all trying to make is that a $1200 CPU like the 980X will not be noticeably faster unless you're doing heavy video encoding, modeling, virtualization or anything explicitly multithreaded. you haven't given us any indication that you need such a CPU so there's no need to pay the extra money for it. a 2.9 GHz propus for $120 will do all the things you're talking about nearly instantaneously, especially if you've got an SSD and 4+ gigs of RAM.

 

[Rhoxed]

oh boy.... i would suggest doing alot of research....

the fastest intel CPU is the i7 980X @ $1,000.... for what your using your computer for, its absolutely useless to get "the fastest" tech.

for what your asking for, your looking at a $3,000 system or more, that will be obsolete by the time you will do anything intensive enough to make use of that technology....

from what you have mentioned.... any one of my 3 signature systems would do exactly what you wanted faster then you would imagine for a fraction of the price of what your asking for..... hell 2 of my systems were cheaper then the i7 980X alone.

do some research, give us a price you think is reasonable for what your using your computer for (my opinion, no more than $1,200 for a beast you still might not utilize" ) and exactly what you plan on doing with this computer present, and future.

 

[Jsolanky]

Awesome... now we're talking.

I am definately up for i7 980x for my CPU. As for MOBO I would prefer Asus, haven't yet looked into what's the latest out there but I will most definately keep in mind about your suggestion.

That remains with PSU, Memory, Video card and sound card What's the best sound card set I can have?

You guys are great! Thanks

 

[Jsolanky]

$1,200 for a beast... what would the configuration look like? I'm tempted!

 

[alyarb]

this is going to be like paying NASA $3 billion to build a truck that can tow a bouquet of helium baloons around a circle track. it would be better to get a $20,000 truck that can do it just as fast because the computing load that you're talking about is lighter than helium as far as CPU towing capacities go.

 

[deanx0r]

I gotta say, no matter much you spend on the CPU or GPU, your system will be pretty much slow out of the box if you don't buy a SSD to pair it with.

Intel 160GB G2 SSD would be my recommendation.
OCZ Vertex series is good too, but I personally got burnt with their firmwares.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Dude...you probably have no concept of how much these sorts of components cost, but the best consumer CPU, the Core i7 980X, retails for roughly $1000.

Not to be Pedantic... but the tray price for 1k units is $999.

Retail is higher

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...n=980x&x=0&y=0

 

[Dark Shroud]

Awesome... now we're talking.

I am definately up for i7 980x for my CPU. As for MOBO I would prefer Asus, haven't yet looked into what's the latest out there but I will most definately keep in mind about your suggestion.

That remains with PSU, Memory, Video card and sound card What's the best sound card set I can have?

You guys are great! Thanks

I would make this suggestion, back down to the Core i7 930. It's roughly $300 and will let you update your CPU in a year to a new standard hexa-core CPU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115225

CPU Cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608014

Second, go with an Asus Rampage mobo. It comes with an Sound Blaster X-FI card built in.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131371
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131352

As for memory, a 12gig Corsair Dominator kit will handle this for you.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145271

Video card, an ATI HD 5850 will do fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102885
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131337

 

[bobross419]

Hell... this guy just seems to want to spend some money.

Pick up the 980x a quad-fire mobo with as much RAM as you can get. Find a PCI-E x16 SATA 3 RAID card and drop 4 SATA 3 SSD cards in RAID 0. Snatch up 3 or 4 ATI 5870s. Should be good to go. Better yet... give me the $4000 and I'll build you a sweet ass PC that you'll absolutely love!

Seriously man, listen to the recommendations. You don't need a 980x for what you intend. A quad 775 or AM3 (Preferably AM3 because 775 is now a dead socket) and you should be good to go, back it up with a large chunck of ram (8 GB or so) and an SSD and you'll be fine for what you described as your general usage.

 

[RussianSensation]

TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio cannot be bitstreamed on GTX470/480, as they can with AMD’s Radeon HD 5000-series and Intel’s Clarkdale-based Core i3/Core i5 CPUs. You can’t get lossless audio out of a GF100-based card. So if Blu-Ray movies and general movie watching on a TV is required, ATI is the way to go.

 

[Jsolanky]

Thanks guys, point well taken! Dark shroud I am in favor with your suggestion, I am sure I will have more than what I need at a nominal price.