Help in Building a PC (Step 5: Build Complete)

[tmlhalo]

Here's my problem. I need the Unit before March. Since my friend will be moving out soon. .(；д；）ﾉ

From reading your other posts if 3d modeling is only a hobby and you have a 1080p screen, I honestly think you can have an overkill rig for your tasks at about 1,500-1,600 Canadian. 

[stconquest]

Okay, I went over...  but this is not a recommended build... it is overkill:  Oops, I did it in USD...it's late I am sorry.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($657.98 @ DirectCanada)  <<<This is a 6-core with 40 PCI-E lanes, It will run 2 GTX 980's at X16 speed
CPU Cooler: Corsair H105 73.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($119.98 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme3 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  ($244.99 @ NCIX)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($264.74 @ NCIX)
Storage: Mushkin Chronos 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($129.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Canada Computers)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 4GB STRIX Video Card  ($662.48 @ DirectCanada)
Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case  ($179.99 @ NCIX)
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($161.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Total: $2532.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-07 00:31 EST-0500

 

There we go, much more expensive in Canada.  :angry:

[tmlhalo]

-snip-

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/

OP is on Canadian dollar.

[stconquest]

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/

OP is on Canadian dollar.

 

Yeah, holy crap $500+ difference between the currencies.

[Yakusoku]

Oh and dont misunderstand. I do it as a hobby (Some of it). But its Mainly work when I do 3D Moddeling.

[stconquest]

Oh and dont misunderstand. I do it as a hobby (Some of it). But its Mainly work when I do 3D Moddeling.

 

This is a great starting point:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($368.32 @ TigerDirect Canada)

CPU Cooler: Corsair H105 73.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($119.98 @ DirectCanada)

Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($126.98 @ Newegg Canada)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($163.45 @ DirectCanada)

Storage: Mushkin Chronos 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($129.99 @ Amazon Canada)

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($109.99 @ Canada Computers)

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 4GB STRIX Video Card  ($662.48 @ DirectCanada)

Case: Corsair 450D ATX Mid Tower Case  ($134.99 @ DirectCanada)  <<Case is big enough

Power Supply: XFX XTR 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($124.98 @ NCIX) <<These are made by Seasonic, the cover is XFX - great line of PSUs

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer  ($18.68 @ DirectCanada)

Total: $1959.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-07 00:41 EST-0500

[Yakusoku]

There we go, much more expensive in Canada.  :angry:

Yeah, it is. plus taxes here hurt alot. I would 100x prefer just buying these when I get back home in Japan. But the thing is I need a Computer soon, Waiting for be to go back would just end me up getting fired from my job.

[tmlhalo]

-snip-

Yeah, some of the brand name stuff seems to have a ridiculous mark up too. 400 dollars for the 512 GB 850 Pro...? I second your build or anything similar.

@Yakusoku I'd just toss in any 802.11 ...n/ac 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz adapter to the list. If you get it in the motherboard and it breaks or you upgrade to a new standard at least you can dispose / sell / use the old adapter on another machine if you get it separate. 

[stconquest]

@Yakusoku I never asked:  What are our thoughts on overclocking?  I always plan for it as it is always good to have the option. If you are dead set against it, you could save money by going with a Xeon (4 cores + Hyperthreading).  It is the same design as the i7, but it has a locked multiplier and is clocked at 3.5 GHz.

 

Actually it is not that much cheaper in Canada:  http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646e31246v3

[Yakusoku]

I've only heared, watched Overclocking being discussed by friends, online vidoes, articles etc. I have never done it, nor have I seen how the option helps boost the system first hand. So as much as I would love to give it a try, as I said I have no clue on most of these. I would probably build the PC first then think of overcloking then. So the answer would be yes, I would overclock.

[stconquest]

I've only heared, watched Overclocking being discussed by friends, online vidoes, articles etc. I have never done it, nor have I seen how the option helps boost the system first hand. So as much as I would love to give it a try, as I said I have no clue on most of these. I would probably build the PC first then think of overcloking then. So the answer would be yes, I would overclock.

 

I still have not overclocked after two years (i5 3570K), and I am comfortable with doing it and have the cooling to do it.  I only game on my PC though, it is not productivity oriented.

 

@Yakusoku Also, do you really need the BD writer, or do you just want to play BD movies?

[Yakusoku]

Yeah, some of the brand name stuff seems to have a ridiculous mark up too. 400 dollars for the 512 GB 850 Pro...? I second your build or anything similar.

@Yakusoku I'd just toss in any 802.11 ...n/ac 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz adapter to the list. If you get it in the motherboard and it breaks or you upgrade to a new standard at least you can dispose / sell / use the old adapter on another machine if you get it separate. 

 

That sounds like a good point. Ok at least Two parts of my Build is decided, (Will just got for a separate adapter for the Wifi and 16g's of RAM)

 

As for the Motherbord now, would Asus be nicer or Msi? Options for upgrading and the flexibility it has when I do. And of course the features would be great.

 

I remember my old old PC back in Pentum days, had a red Motherbord I don't remember the brand, could be MSI or Asus though,

[stconquest]

That sounds like a good point. Ok at least Two parts of my Build is decided, (Will just got for a separate adapter for the Wifi and 16g's of RAM)

 

As for the Motherbord now, would Asus be nicer or Msi? Options for upgrading and the flexibility it has when I do. And of course the features would be great.

 

I remember my old old PC back in Pentum days, had a red Motherbord I don't remember the brand, could be MSI or Asus though,

 

These boards perform the same whether you spend $200 or $125.  They are all well made, the only real differences are the feature sets.  Raw performance is the same.

[tmlhalo]

-snip-

Honestly motherboards are almost identical in most cases. There is only a couple of things to look for which is good onboard sound, good NIC, has the amount of PCIe electrical lanes you want (usually the lanes are the same but some extreme budget boards cut back even more), correct chipset for what you plan to do, and has good cooling on the VRMs. Some additional features which are nice but not needed is support for M.2 drives, extra SATA ports, an easy to use BIOS, and good warranty / customer support.  

So if you're stuck between a few motherboards which all have the stuff you need go with whatever matches your color scheme, or is cheaper. 

[Yakusoku]

Alright I will stick with Asus. Which would be the best version though? I need a board that at least gives SLI option for future needs. A good onboard sound, ports/features that I acctually need or will need. (Planning on getting a dual monitor though it connects to the GPU though right?)

[tmlhalo]

-snip-

That really depends on if you want to save some money and go with a I7 4790k or spend the extra on the I7 5930k. You see the I7 4790k is on socket LGA 1150 and the I7 5930k is on 2011-v3. Which narrows it down to the Z97 platform and X99 platform respectfully. There is only 2 major differences between these two worth mentioning. LGA 1150 maxes out with 4 core cpus and uses DDR3. LGA 2011-v3 can hold 4+ core cpus (the 5930k is a 6 core) and uses DDR4. Because LGA 2011-v3 X99 is already the high end option even the cheapest ($260 dollars American so not really cheap...) Asus X99-A has the Realtek 1150 onboard sound, high end NIC, up to 3 way SLI support, vrm heatsinks, m.2 support, etc.The LGA 1150 Z97 Asus SaberTooth Mark 2 is the first Z97 Asus board to have Realtek 1150 audio, good NIC, up to 2 way SLI, good vrm heatsinks, and etc. Though I'd honestly consider competing brands, I've tinkered with all of them but Biostar and as long as that particular board is good, the name doesn't matter. 

[stconquest]

You really need to find out about the programs you use in regards to how they are optimized for hardware, also take into account how you use these programs.  Are the four cores time-efficient enough for your workload?  Would have 6-cores really speed up your work?  Do you need a GTX 980?  I am going to bed right soon, but I can start a quick search into the programs you mentioned to see what I can dig up tomorrow.

[Yakusoku]

Sure, thank you so much for you help though. This will probably take a while but until then hope to see your help when needed. .~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)!

 

 

 

That really depends on if you want to save some money and go with a I7 4790k or spend the extra on the I7 5930k. You see the I7 4790k is on socket LGA 1150 and the I7 5930k is on 2011-v3. Which narrows it down to the Z97 platform and X99 platform respectfully. There is only 2 major differences between these two worth mentioning. LGA 1150 maxes out with 4 core cpus and uses DDR3. LGA 2011-v3 can hold 4+ core cpus (the 5930k is a 6 core) and uses DDR4. Because LGA 2011-v3 X99 is already the high end option even the cheapest ($260 dollars American so not really cheap...) Asus X99-A has the Realtek 1150 onboard sound, high end NIC, up to 3 way SLI support, vrm heatsinks, m.2 support, etc.The LGA 1150 Z97 Asus SaberTooth Mark 2 is the first Z97 Asus board to have Realtek 1150 audio, good NIC, up to 2 way SLI, good vrm heatsinks, and etc. Though I'd honestly consider competing brands, I've tinkered with all of them but Biostar and as long as that particular board is good, the name doesn't matter. 

 

I'll settle with the 4790k for now I think. the extra for the 5930k could be spent on extra ram or a software I'd need in the furutre. Though I of the Maximus VII Hero, is it a good Board?

[Weirdybeardyman]

I would recommend 16gb of RAM for a content production rig like that, its not necessary but iv'e found it really helps me because I never have to worry about RAM usage.

What monitor are you going to be using- I would recommend either a 21:9 or 2/3 1080p monitors because it is amazingly helpful for productivity. If you are only going to be gaming on 1 1080p or 1440p  monitor then it might be worth only getting one 980 because it will be plenty beefy enough and invest in a Quadro card for rendering purposes.

[stconquest]

Sure, thank you so much for you help though. This will probably take a while but until then hope to see your help when needed. .~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)!

 

I'll settle with the 4790k for now I think. the extra for the 5930k could be spent on extra ram or a software I'd need in the furutre. Though I of the Maximus VII Hero, is it a good Board?

 

This is the least expensive ASUS board that has everything you need:  http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97a

 

The Hero is $80 more and your performance will go up by this:  0% 

 

I helped a Candian with a build about a month ago, he got this board for $125 (half price):

 

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97prowifiac

 

If that deal was not found he would never have spent the $250 for it.  That deal lasted a total of 5-10 minutes I believe (Canada Computers).  His rig is up and running fine BTW:  http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/289849-about-to-push-the-button/  Skip to page 10.

 

These Super High-End boards look nicer, sure.  But for 99% of users, the benefit usually ends there.

 

The things I look for when picking a board for you are not numerous:  I look for the ability to SLI, and for an 8 phase VRM (in case you need the clean power for an overclock), that's it.

 

The MSI G55 SLI ($130) is just as good as the ASUS Z97 A ($164).  I would really recommend saving the money and putting it elsewhere.  If you were in the USA, I would not recommend more than the AsRock Extreme 3 ($110), or the MSI SLI Krait ($110).

 

Only go Super-high end boards if money is not a concern.

[tmlhalo]

I went ahead and found what I could about the productivity programs.

3d coat -               CUDA

Photoshop CS6 -  Either but no support for multi GPU scaling.
Maya-                   Either but drivers favor Quadro or FirePro, more on that here. http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/AutoDesk-Maya-2014-Professional-GPU-Acceleration-509/

Zbrush-                 CPU
Xnormal-               CUDA

[tmlhalo]

 

-snip-

Going to leave this here since I'll be away from the machine for a while.

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/gT7wK8

Still has the Hero at the moment unless they change their mind. Some good ram will actually help here since it is more than gaming. And the adapter will have to be any USB 3.0 one. USB 2.0 (480 Mb/s) bottlenecks 802.11 ac (900 Mb/s) and the SLI would eat all 16 electrical PCIe from a PCIe x1 adapter. I also posted what I found about the productivity programs above. It is certainly going to be CUDA.

 

 

[stconquest]

I have been researching hardware for over an hour now.  Extra cores are almost always some benefit, but GPUs... holy crap.

 

They are really screwing the GPU market for professionals.  It is mainly about supporting the hardware.  They want you to spend thousands of dollars for the workstation grade cards.  If you pick the 980, I am afraid it would affect the gaming side of this build way more than the rendering side... but I could be wrong...still reading.

 

http://furryball.aaa-studio.eu/products/benchmarks.html

[stconquest]

@Yakusoku What is the average polygon count of your projects?  Are you way in the billions?  16GB should be enough, but 32GB might be better... if it gets used.

[jixx]

You should check out this page

 

http://lifehacker.com/5828747/how-to-build-a-computer-from-scratch-the-complete-guide

 

This is what I used for my first PC build.

 

Also, If you like corsair coolers and you want better performance than the H100i you should keep in mind that the H110i is out now!

 

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181088&cm_re=H110i_GT-_-35-181-088-_-Product