Advice on putting together a new computer

[BlobVanDam]

I'm pricing a new computer right now, because I'm in desperate need of an upgrade.
It won't be the entire machine, just the main guts (CPU/MB/RAM/Graphics). I think I have the basics sorted out right now, but I'm still unsure about a lot, so any feedback is welcome. I don't really have a strict budget, although I don't want to spend anything ridiculous on this. My target is about $1200 - $1500.

Reusing-
-Current case (Antec, one year old)
-PSU (Antec 520W, which should accommodate anything I put together, unless told otherwise)
-HDDS (SATA 2.0 drives x 3)
-DVD burners (SATA x 2)

(if anyone's interested, the current machine is a Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM, GeForce 8600GT)

www.arc.com.au
I will be buying my parts from this store, so keep in mind I'm sticking to parts I can get from here. They're local, great to deal with when things go wrong, and good prices overall for over here.

Here's what I've got so far-

Intel i7 970 Core i7 CPU, SIX-CORE 3.20 GHz, 6.4 GT/sec QPI, 12MB Cache, Socket LGA1366
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R i7 LGA1366 DDR3 2000, PCIEx16, SATAII, SATA3, RAID
3 x Kingston DDR3 1333MHz 1x4GB Long Dimm (to give 12Gb of RAM)
That comes to about $1058 so far.

I want to make sure that RAM is fine to run triple channel to get the best speed out of the computer. I'm not sure if this RAM is ok for that, or if it's the most suitable speed, so help there would be appreciated. There are so many different types listed there, and I don't know what's what beyond the basic speed and Gb. Any advice on the rest would be good too. The 6 core CPU and increased RAM are the big reasons for this upgrade. With the work I do, all 6 cores will get a healthy workout on a daily basis.

I also still need to sort out graphics card, and sound card.

I don't do ANY gaming, so I don't want a beefy card sucking up power that takes up a lot of space, or requires additional power plugs, or has a giant heatsink boiling my computer's innards. I do a lot of 3D rendering work, but that doesn't require a high end gaming card, so I only need a moderate level card by today's standards. Just to give you an idea of my situation, my current card is a GeForce 8600GT 256Mb, and it is still fine, but I want something newer with at least 1gb of video memory. I don't know what the current lines of cards are for for nVidia and ATI. I've always had nVidia cards, so I have a slight preference towards them, but I have no problem at all with ATI cards, so whatever is the most suitable is fine. I'm not sure if this matters, but my monitor is still analog, as I don't know if any video cards are exclusively DVI-D. I've been using a DVI-VGA plug since my card only has DVI. I don't want to spend more money on a new monitor right now.

I'm also stuck on the soundcard. I do some audio recording, so I'm looking into what options I have to get a MIDI port for my keyboard to plug into. I also need good ASIO latency. My current card is garbage, and the source of many computer issues. This isn't an urgent part of the computer though, because onboard is fine for now. I just want to see what my options are on this, because it seems they're more and more limited.

I think that about covers it. If you actually bothered to read all of this, thank you! I've been out of the loop since I put together my old machine, so feel free to mention anything else relevant.

 

[backstept]

seems like you have everything well in hand

 

[sojourner]

Your choice in video card may be effected by the 3d rendering program you use. A lot of today's 3d design software does in fact make use of the GPU on the video card to speed up rendering. Check with the software provider to see if yours will benefit from a higher end card.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Yep, you're right. I do still want a good card for that reason, but it's not as much of a priority as a card would be for gaming. I just don't want a card that uses a lot of power and heats up my computer for the sake of a little more performance, because it's excessive for my needs.

 

[sojourner]

^Well, what I am trying to say is that depending on software, you might benefit more from a high end video card than from a high end CPU. Alot of the 3d software is moving to using the GPU to do the work because the gpu is better suited for it.

For example, read the fine print on hardware requirements for 3DS Max listed here:
http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/system-requirements/

 

[BlobVanDam]

If you can suggest a high end graphics card that doesn't use significantly more power, doesn't have a giant heatsink taking up slot space, and doesn't cost a lot, then sure I'll go for it. But I'd say $200 is my upper limit for a graphics card, so I'm not sure what that gets me.

But I will get a lot more from the CPU than from a graphics card, because If there is one application that benefits entirely from more cores, it's 3D rendering, which is what I do for a living. That alone will literally give me a 3-4x speed increase in rendering over my current setup. The CPU is the main reason for the upgrade.

Just an FYI, my 3D software version does not use the graphics card at all for rendering. The new version does if you use the specific renderer for it, but I haven't upgraded yet, and it's a tradeoff of quality. The speed increase with hardware is the fact it's using hardware, rather than raw GPU power, so a high end card won't give me a huge amount more than a mid range one. Gamer cards aren't specifically suited to the hardware renderers in 3D packages anyway, so there's probably little difference.
But this is a big upgrade, so I'm not going to skimp if I can get a better card within my price range. If you have any suggestions, I'll consider anything you suggest.

 

[Arrqh]

^Well, what I am trying to say is that depending on software, you might benefit more from a high end video card than from a high end CPU. Alot of the 3d software is moving to using the GPU to do the work because the gpu is better suited for it.

For example, read the fine print on hardware requirements for 3DS Max listed here:
http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/system-requirements/

The GPU requirements for 3DS are largely due to the viewport renderer which is used while you're working, this has been accelerated in all 3D apps for a very long time. For actual rendering, especially for production quality work, most of it is still being done in software on CPUs.

3DS does currently have a hardware based renderer called Quicksilver which is very fast at doing some types of rendering, but even Autodesk says if you want to use ray tracing to use a software renderer. For most people, hardware rendering is great for generating fast previews and being able to work with heavy detail or shaders in the viewport, but a high end card usually isn't worth it... midrange almost always is fine.

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/quicksilver_details_revealed

 

[John O.]

I didn't see anything in there about HD that you'll be installing on - with all the performance options in there, I'd strongly suggest you go with an SSD - either a top end one in solo or 2 lower end ones in raid. I went from 2 10k rpm WD SATA Raptors in RAID 0 to a single OCZ Agility 2 SSD and I love it. Probably cut my boot time in half or more, and I definitely notice faster application response.

Especially on a machine where you're putting a lot of money into a large amount of high performance RAM. You don't want to put all that money into RAM and then have it sitting around bottlenecked by slow response magnetic drives.

This is speculative at best, and largely an anecdotal claim without being more specific, but I would even argue that in general, you'd see faster performance on the application level with 6 GB of RAM and an SSD than you would with 12 and a standard SATAII HD. Just my .02. SSD's the way to go

As a side note, I'm never one to say "RAM isn't important" or anything of the kind, but I keep an AMD CPU/RAM usage utility open on my desktop at all times, and out of my 8 GB, I hardly ever see more than 2200 MB or so in use... at peak usage times I may not be paying attention, so let's say 3 or 4 GB get used at any given time, but it's something to consider if it comes down to a massive amount of RAM or a faster response HD, your PC my zip that data right along into the RAM but if it takes forever (comparatively) to retrieve it from the hard disk, if you're NEVER even remotely coming CLOSE to using up all that memory and your HD's slow, you're obviously going to see a performance bottleneck. Then again, for 3D video rendering purposes I can see you needing more than me, but the question of how much more is certainly nontrivial when $'s are involved.

PS: Just out of curiosity, are you able to order from Newegg or will they not ship to Australia? Assuming you're in Australia.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Thanks for a reply. I'd let this thread slip my mind entirely.

I don't plan to buy any new drives, as I'm currently have 2 quite new WD 1Tb drives inside my computer plus an older 320Gb I still store my main stuff on. While HDDs are one of the biggest bottlenecks in computing, for me it's not a big deal. The main point that the HDD slows me down is swap file, and reading large video files etc, neither of which are really suitable applications for an SSD due to the more limited read/writes. I looked into them, but I'm not really ready to take the leap with a newer technology yet.

And RAM is very important for my 3D work. If I didn't do 3D/video work, my current 4gb of RAM would still be plenty enough for most things. But lately I can't even render my scenes at all because it will just give me "out of memory" warnings. 3D graphics is one of those tasks that really chews a lot out of your system resources.

I've modified my parts list since my first post. Here's what I have now-

Intel CORE i7 2600
(I don't need the K)

B3 Asus P8P67 MB, Socket 1155, Intel P67 Chipset
OR
B3 Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3P
(haven't decided which yet, but they both look fine to me)

Gigabyte GV-N440D3-1GI GF GT 440 PCI-E 2.0 1GB DDR3
(I do zero gaming, I just need the VRAM)

16gb (4gb x 4) DDR3-1333Mhz RAM
(I haven't chosen any specifics for RAM, because to me it all looks the same)

And Newegg don't ship to Australia (or pretty much anywhere else outside of the US). I'd rather not be buying my parts online just to save a bit of money. Australia's computer prices are more expensive than the US, but not enough for me to worry. I like having a local store for when things go wrong. I've had a motherboard die in under a month, and had RAM dead out of the box, and I'd hate to deal with this kind of thing with the hassle and delays of shipping when I have a great computer store locally. Just my personal preference.

 

[John O.]

Are you talking about the limited # of read/writes on SSDs? Total myth - I mean, the idea that you'll ever run into it. Sure they exist but, it's something like 57,000 complete drive rewrites. I saw someone run the numbers, and it turned into something like, rewriting 500 GB a day for 2 straight years or something ridiculous. It's similar to the reason Intel's claim at processor lifetime of 10 years became useless - the industry and technology move so fast, you won't have an SSD long enough for it to fail due to read/write cap.

That's understandable about wanting someone local. My friend did the same in Japan, I think he could get Newegg there (idk how?) but he decided to go local in case something went wrong. Plus, even with Newegg's great CS, return freight would be a real cost.

The rest of the equipment looks fine to me, as far as what I know about it. I've been an AMD guy for ... well, the last Intel processor I had was a P3 450 mhz, so that should tell you. I don't think they're bad, I just like AMD, and I know and am comfortable with the technology so I don't know Intel gear as well.