A_Reed048

Hello, I'm relatively new here (second post) and I would like some input on my build goals, haven't built my own computer in about a decade. It should be fun. I graduated college as of last May and quickly figured out my finances (car, rent, student loan repayment, savings, etc.) and found I still have a "disposable income" left over. So for about the past nine months I've been squirreling away cash in an effort to build a pretty beefy PC. I plan on using this rig for both graphic intensive gaming and CAD/Solid Modeling (Inventor/Solidworks), I am a mentor for a local STEM robotics program on the side so I will also be doing some video editing for tutorials and lessons in said topic. With this in mind I am shooting for a build based around Intel's Enthusiast class processor, 2x SLI Nvidia GPUs (Price:Performance compared to 3x and 4x) and a boatload of RAM (CAD is a RAM hog). So I've got another three months worth of saving up, with some cushion to being able to afford this type of system. Is it wise to wait for Haswell E, GTX 880s (Maxwell) and DDR4 RAM (X99 Chipset), or should I go with current tech? Are my assumptions correct that the enthusiast processor's multi-core support will aid in my CAD software and Video editing needs? I'm I a fool for picking team green for these tasks, can stream do more for me in my needs than cuda? I've learned so much about computers from the YouTube channel over the past year and I am looking forward to learning much more on these forums.

I’m planning out a PC build for the near future and while I am building up a bank roll I am trying to educate myself of all the ins and outs of more modern builds ( I haven’t built my own computer in about a decade). I have an idea of what I am shooting for with the rest of the components but I am confused with all of the options available with storage. I was thinking about having anywhere between 4-8 drives in my system, possible combination of SSD and HDD. I want some kind of data redundancy built in regardless of what I do so I was going to shoot for RAID 5,6 or 10. I guess the question here is what combination is going to give me a good balance of performance, reliability and capacity? Do SSDs make sense in these standard RAID configurations? I’ve heard about smart caching to SSD but what does that entail in setup, do I RAID the mass storage together and have the system cache to the SSD(s) or what? I know that if I build around a RAID 5/6 type setup the more drives the merrier as far as capacity efficiency is concerned but this setup also ventures into the realm of needing a dedicated RAID card, something I’m not 100% on buying at this time. I’ve also heard these configurations are only as fast as the slowest drive in them; wouldn’t putting an SSD in the array be a waste? If I build around a RAID 10 I lose half my capacity but keep a much simpler RAID structure that probably won’t require a dedicated card. Again do SSDs have a benefit here either? It is in my nature to find an optimal solution but I’m stuck when I don’t know how the entire system works.