2013 New PC Build

[EricX2]

I've been using my current system for a few years and want to upgrade and was going to buy all the parts with the exceptions: Case, monitor, input devices, and hard drives.

I use my system for video editing and rendering with some gaming but not high end and not online. I would like to keep it around $1500 USD and as of the writing of this, these come out to ~$1600 USD.

My current 'wishlist' is as follows:

Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K

Graphics: MSI N660Ti

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GBx2

Power Supply: CORSAIR HX Series HX750

SSD: SAMSUNG 840 Series 250GB

Optical: ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Z

CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X40

My main questions:

Am I wasting money with 32gb of RAM now?

Is the 3770k worth $100 more than the 3570k?

Should I get a single 250gb SSD or 2x120gb in RAID?

I'm not really sure if the sound card is required or will even help at all, but I do use a headphone so the headphone amp sounds like it would be a useful feature. Am I wrong? I haven't used a dedicated sound card since the X-FI was new.

I also want to get the braided extender cables to have a consistent look in my case, are there any really good ones?

My case is a Rosewill Thor V2 and I don't plan on replacing it. My hard drives are 2x WD Black 1tb drives and I'm planning on reusing those too. My monitor is a 26" 1920x1200 Asus and I use a single monitor and don't plan on doing multi-monitor. I plan on putting Windows 8 Pro x64.

Here is a link to this info on my Google drive

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Alhn1Sedt0pjdGhDc0MxdVZCcDBqcXBjZ0pDdmc1X3c&usp=sharing

[xeks]

My main questions:

Am I wasting money with 32gb of RAM now?

Is the 3770k worth $100 more than the 3570k?

Should I get a single 250gb SSD or 2x120gb in RAID?

I'm not really sure if the sound card is required or will even help at all, but I do use a headphone so the headphone amp sounds like it would be a useful feature. Am I wrong? I haven't used a dedicated sound card since the X-FI was new.

I also want to get the braided extender cables to have a consistent look in my case, are there any really good ones?

​I think if you're gunna go balls to the wall on a "professional" platform; which I'm basing it on because you're going to do more editing/rendering than gaming, then 32GB of RAM doesn't seem like a waste since you want to have enough give in case you need it.

Yes the 3770K is worth it because of the hyperthreading capabilities will help with your "professional" applications.

SSD-wise, are you going to be using it for your operating system or for applications? If for applications, I would go with RAID; and if you're not saving documents/projects on another HDD then I would suggest getting 2x250GB SSDs over 2x120GB. If not then the 120s would work.

Sound card won't really help you unless you're doing professional audio work so you can hear the sounds properly, but if you enjoy music/movies then I would say, "Why not, go for it." But if it means getting larger SSDs and you aren't doing professional audio applications, then skip it. Also I'd personally go for Xonar cards over Soundblaster ones.

Braided cables, I know nothing about, most of the cabling in my rig are tucked away behind the side panels. Hope that helped. Cheers.

[Guest]

What sort of gaming are we talking about? And in comparrison - how heavy do you edit ect? If it's you're building this for like heavy editing then it may be worth going for an nVidia Quadro card and running your gaming off the built in graphics on the CPU. However that depends on the gaming vs video editing.

Do you really need thunderbolt too?

What do you aim to achieve with the SSD? Purely a boot drive or will that be your editing drive too? If so, you'll want to look at something like the 840 Pro or OCZ's new drive (I think it's the Vector from memory). The reason being is that the standard 840 has relatively low write speeds which is fine for a boot disk where you're not writing a huge amount of data but if you're using it as your editing drive too then you'll benefit from a drive with higher write speeds.

And finally, If you really want a 3770K - just save up a little longer?

[EricX2]

I don't even know what video software I will be using. I'm not a pro or anything, I just like making videos for fun and want to have something that will last a few years. My current system is an i5 750 that I built in early 2010.

The price isn't really a big deal, I just wasn't sure if hyperthreading made much of a difference.

The thunderbolt wasn't a big deal right now but I was hoping to use the Virtu graphics virtualization and only the thunderbolt edition board supported it. Why? Who knows, probably just because I want to see if it's actually worth anything. So if anybody has advice on that let me know if that is actually worth having or not?

That is a good point on the SSD I should go with something with higher write speeds. I'm not really a pro on SSD, my only two build I used one in was last year and I used a Samsung 830 and I loved it but that was a silent HTPC and it was solely for read speeds. That system would cold boot in 5 seconds. The other is my work PC and that is, well, work stuff like Office and Excel stuff. It's a Mushkin Chronos drive.

For games I don't necessarily play the latest games. The last games I've bought were the Humble THQ bundle with stuff like Saints Row the 4th and Red Faction Armageddon. My current graphics card is a GTX460 which plays them fine but I don't want to have any huge bottle necks which I assume it would be with a 3770k.

Thanks for advice, I've got a habit of just going and buying them all without actually planning. It's how I ended up with my first HTPC back in 2008 being ordered without a motherboard. It was very sad to get that shipment delivered and not have a MB to put it together with. I want this to be a PC I'm really proud of.

[Guest]

1. If that 830 is in the build you're replacing - use it. They're a really good drive.

2. Based on that, a card like the GTX670 or 680 will suit you. If you're planning on using Adobe based products then even better.

3. The P8Z77-V Pro aswell I think as a few other Asus P8Z77 boards support LucidLogix Virtu MVP. If in the future you want to Asus also offers an upgrade option I believe for the V series P8Z77 boards that is like a PCI card with a lead that gives you Thunderbolt. Otherwise there is a Thunderbolt version of the board.

4. CPU - I'd be looking at either the 3570K or the 3770K or otherwise the AMD 8350 which has the advantage of more 'cores' than the 3570K and from memory is a fair bit cheaper than the 3770K.

[WaspishVyper]

For the braided cables if you want Black go look here at the NZXT cables, if you want a different colour look here at Bitfenix Alchemy Cables.