TIme to look at new system

[njg02]

ROA44. Could you give me an idea of the all up cost please? I'm starting to think beyond our current laptops to something dedicated to pics. I've been looking at all in ones but looking at what some of you guys are doing I may go diy.
Thanks
Neil

Well today's the day here's the list any thoughts Possibly Win 7 unless I can get it to run Apple.


1 - Thermaltake Case S41
1 - thermaltake P/Sup. 80+ Bronze 750w
1 - M/B M5A99FX PROr2.0
1 - AM3+ FX-8320, 8350?
1 - ssd h/d 256G
1 - G/Card2G GTX 660
1 - RAM 16g. 2400MHz kit

[ROA44]

Hi njg02, I will have to tally up the cost as I haven't done that yet, but is currently around the $1200 mark including another monitor.
For one of MSY's top gamer models assembled by them is $1800+. How much are you looking at spending?

Before and even now still consider Mac's and the only reason I went this way was that I would have wanted to spend around the $2000+ mark for a Mac.

However I would seriously consider your technical IT knowledge before tackling it. The only reason being is there is going to be some stuff I've never tried before Like over clocking. It's been a good number of years since assembling a system and the directions offered even with the power supply cables has been a challenge as you have to really look at everything to make sure you have it right.

Fitting components is easy enough but get the wiring wrong and there could be serious $'s damage and I'm not quite clear on a couple of things so need to research some things some more.

I'm going to get mine checked before powering up then have to learn overclocking as this system I have to do manually so for me this is unknown territory. . I will get back shortly with cost so far.

Case. 1 - Themaltake S41 ..................................................$138
P/supply. 1 - Thermaltake Smartpower 80 plus Bronze 750w........... $109
M/board. 1 - ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0....................................... $175
CPU 1 - AM3+ FX8320 ......................................................$180
RAM 1 - 16G Kit 2400 (8G X 2) G-Skill Trident........................$229
G/Card 1 - ASUS 2G GTX660..................................................$245
SSD H/Drive 1 - Samaung 840 EVO 256G.........................................$248
HDD 1 - WD 2TBGreen......................................................$95
Monitor 1 LG 23" IPS............................................................$185

Total ........................................................................................$1604

Almost should have gone Mac Mees thinks.

Only hope I don't have to add Liquid Cooling System

[njg02]

Thanks for that. I'll probably get someone to build me one like msy. Their prices seem fair for the gear they supply. I won't rush into it that for sure.
Neil

[arthurking83]

The difference between this one and a Mac: 16Gig ram(can be important!) and the lack of two distinct drives.

As another recommendation too: change the green WD drive for a Black one. So much faster in so many ways.

reasoning: I'm assuming that you will be using it for overall image storage(amongst other stuff you will store) As you go back through your images and update and refresh your archives, they eventually end up quite large archives. Read/write performance will make a huge difference in these situations.

(this is from experience too, as I have one of each of these drives, among the myriad of drives I have)

I get at the slowest rate 60-70Mb/s write rates on the black, whereas I only see about 30-ish on the Green. Of course it varies a lot depending on the types of files being written, but this is more so on the Green than it is on the Black drives.
Writing a 200-300G transfer is only a few minutes on the Black, whereas it may be closer to an hour or so on the Green.

If you had to save $60ish to get the Black over the Green drives .. I'd save it on the SSD. You don't really need 256G for an SSD which in reality is only for OS, Programs and temporary image storage(unless your a habitual software installer! .. which I am )
On my now 5yo system, I'm yet to reach over about 70-ish Gigs, and this is in having tried almost all software known to mankind! I have a 1tb mechanical drive .. and it seems such a waste ... I may one day update it to an SSD .. but I very rarely ever saw a REAL WORLD advantage in having run one before.
The price difference between a 256G SSD and 128G SSD should be about the same, or more than the difference between the Black and Green drives.

Also! if you value your images highly, have another backup drive, removable from the PC(ie. either USB or some other format).
This drive can be as slow as you like it, it's less important(which is where my Green drive ended up .. as secondary backup(actually tertiary backup )

The idea with this is to not keep images stored on the SSD other than any temporary images you recently captured .. image you would ideally remove(having been backed up) after a few months.
Your main images storage would be(in my scenario) on the Black drive, and backed up again on the Green drive. The Green drive would ideally be usually turned off.
(I much prefer a separate USB enclosure with a proper On/Off switch on the enclosure, where I my extra drives end up).

[ROA44]

Thank you Arthur your a gem. I have probably gone a little overboard (don't tell the wife) and wasn't sure re the SSD only reason for the green was I do want to set up an external storage setup and not that many critical images + other existing drives to install, so will look at other HDD's after I get the system runnuing which is my main aim at the moment but need to go and get some more images for my course which ends in two weeks and have some catch up to do.

Thanks for tips will catch you later cheers.

[ROA44]

Well finally my new system has been booted up my and with the help of my son in-law he's got the ram running a total 16368 MB at 2400MHz.

The CPU is at 3500 MHz and +44.0⁰C . and 1.356V, haven't looked at this yet? with the standard CPU fan so I will have to watch this as I haven't loaded on the OP system or anything else yet, that's tomorrow so fingers crossed.