Opinions for new computer

Hey all,

After 5 long years it's time for me to get a new computer! If anyone can let me know what they think of the specs I've chosen, or perhaps recommend something, please reply. Please read the notes after the specs as they contain useful info as to some of the choices.

Specs are:
Motherboard - ASUS Z87-C
CPU - Core i7 4770K (is it worth it over the 4770? as a gamer yes, but for a dev no. in terms of price, $AU42)
GPU - GTX 660 Ti
RAM - 16GB , Kingston HyperX 1600MHz (oddly is cheaper than the regular 1333MHz)
SSD - OCZ Vector 256G
HDD - 2x Western Digital Black Caviar 2TB
PSU - 800W, likely Antec. Unknown as of yet.

Misc:
OS - 7 Pro
Keyboard/Mouse - Logitech.. MK710?
Blu-Ray Combo - LG with DVD/CD burner/reader so I'll get 12x BR, 16x DVD and 48x CD which is great.
Case - Thought of getting the Antec 900 again.
Screen - ? 23 or something dunno.
Speakers - ? wireless would be nice, but probably 5.1 min though it should be noted I currently have headphones but I still want speakers.


Notes:
- Z87-Pro gets 2 more USBs, and allows multiple GPUs which I don't need
- I'm not going to get GTX 670 or 7XX series as next year I'm planning to get the 800 Series, so this GPU is short-lived. Am I correct I won't need a new motherboard just for such upgrade?
- SSD is peculiar. I might get two of them, one for Win7 OS, the other for Win XP but XP doesn't have TRIM support by default. Alternatively, only one for both OS.
- I did some research into the various companies and products and found the best around are Samsung 840 PRO, OCZ Vector / Vertex 450 and then the rest. OCZ Vector has a gurantee of 20GB write per day for 5 years, or 36.5 TBs. Because the plan is for OS and antivirus only atm, it seems like a great solution. Should I add Marble Blast / SVN to it or better off with the HDD (as of current thought).
- Power failure apparently can instantly kill your SSD. Is that still worth it?
- Now thinking of it, perhaps 1TB and 2TB mix? 2TB would be great for backup, speedruns and all, whereas 1TB can also be used for those and more programs and stuff. Suggestions?
- PSU is interesting. I thought of getting a 1000W (double the price of 800W though) and learned that 850/750W are now not being manufactured as much.
- For OS, I chose the Pro because of the compability mode.
- Zero idea for my keyboard/mouse combo. Logitech probably would be nice. Maybe what I have now? Dunno, any recommendations?
- Any recommendations for cases? Red LED lights would be a massive plus.


Thanks for help

I really like the specs you've chosen. I think the wireless speakers are a good idea! I didn't even know they had those

I think that Dell Model: L2OU keybords are really durable and nice though, I've had mine for a long time and no problems with it since.

I asked a friend who's quite knowledgeable about computers and here's what he had to say (paraphrased):

1. What are your current computer's specs?
2. What do you do with your current computer?
3. What do you want to do with your new computer?

since it's hard to say if those specs are right for you otherwise. Also don't be overambitious on what you want to do on a computer or on the specs you want (that's a general reminder since without answers to (2) and (3) we can't tell if you are).


Jun 16, 2013, 8:08am, admin wrote:- Power failure apparently can instantly kill your SSD. Is that still worth it?
Power failure won't kill any modern SSD, but it might cause some data loss.
Some SSDs use volatile DRAM to quickly cache writes and then slowly write them to NAND. If the volatile DRAM loses power before the write cache is written to NAND, then the data is lost.
DRAM-sporting SSDs marketed to professionals often have capacitors that can provide the SSD with enough power to empty the DRAM cache into NAND when power is lost.
But if you're worried about that, just buy a UPS [as Perishingflames says]. They are a good purchase just for piece of mind unrelated to SSDs. (Square brackets are my notes.)

And from me:

If the 800 series ends up on 28 nm rather than 20 nm, then depending on their price, power, and performance, it may be better to wait for 20 nm. In that case you may be waiting 1-1.5 years to upgrade from the 660 Ti. If that's an option you think you might take, then it's a good idea to make sure you are fine with having the 660 Ti (or another GPU if you change your mind) for that long.


Jun 16, 2013, 8:08am, admin wrote:- Zero idea for my keyboard/mouse combo. Logitech probably would be nice. Maybe what I have now? Dunno, any recommendations?Are there any reasons not to keep your existing keyboard and mouse?

About the SSD, I think getting one is a good choice. If power failure is a concern, you can always invest in a UPS (good to have even if you went the HDD route). I really don't like OCZ though, maybe their drives' reliability has gotten better but I had nothing but problems with mine. Pretty shitty customer service (mine was having problems and they were trying to get me to dissemble my laptop do all these tests blah blah just ship me a new one..), their drives are fast but not worth it for the reliability. Intel drives have write protection for power losses I believe, look into that.

Jun 16, 2013, 10:38am, imacmatician wrote:
Jun 16, 2013, 8:08am, admin wrote:- Zero idea for my keyboard/mouse combo. Logitech probably would be nice. Maybe what I have now? Dunno, any recommendations?Are there any reasons not to keep your existing keyboard and mouse?
What about the current PC? It has to do something



Jun 16, 2013, 10:38am, imacmatician wrote:
1. What are your current computer's specs?
2. What do you do with your current computer?
3. What do you want to do with your new computer?

1)
Core 2 Duo, Nvidia 8800 GTS, 4GB RAM
I read multiple reviews and they said if my specs start with 'Core 2' then yes to upgrade, otherwise not to bother on upgrading.
In addition, my upgrade cycle is once every 3-5 years (more towards the 5) so I need a really strong computer that is supposed to remain strong for the next 3 years.

2)
Besides Marble Blast there are very very few games I play. It's unlikely I'd play anything like Arma 3, Battlefield, Crysis, Bioshock etc because I don't like to play such games. I do however want to be able to run smoothly the higher-end items (such as UnrealEngine, Cryengine etc).
The current computer also runs FRAPS with Marble Blast just fine but a stronger comp would do a much better job.
I'm also involved in a LOT of video editing. I produce a lot of MB videos so the CPU is important, plus I'm encoding my own speedruns. I'm looking at encoding a 4 hour speedrun in a single pass using very demanding programs (of 2GBs or more RAM, tons of CPU).
I'm using QuArK, Blender and looking at additional software. I also use 7zip quite a fair bit.

3)
All of the above and:
In addition if everything is powerful enough for Handbrake to encode super fast, it'll be great. I would like to be able to encode DVDs in under 5 minutes (work laptop does 5 minutes, 4.5 minutes was its best).

Therefore high-end CPU and lots of RAM is required. In addition the HDD is for recording (FRAPS), encoding, storing speedruns (AGDQ marathons) and backup stuff. Oh, and MB can be very demanding on my current system, esp. PQ.

I hope this explains the specs chosen.


Jun 16, 2013, 11:36am, perishingflames wrote:I really don't like OCZ though, maybe their drives' reliability has gotten better but I had nothing but problems with mine.
...
Intel drives have write protection for power losses I believe, look into that.
I did check on the Intels but comapred to the latest line of SSDs they aren't as powerful for read/write.
The guy at the shop said he uses OCZ personally, so that's how I heard about them.
After doing more research into OCZ it seems since Vertex 4 OCZ became a lot more reputable and reliable.

I still think of Samsung 840 Pro or Sandisk Extreme 2 but people seem to recommend Samsung 840 Pro more? It gets confusing on favs after reading 20+ sites lol.
That said, because of the stuff above, what should I install on the SSD besides OS and A/V ? video editing?

About power failures you are right. I did think about UPS. I only experienced one super random one (while my computer wasn't doing anything but browsing internet) so I'm not sure if I should worry, but ofc, just in case since this is the OS.



Jun 16, 2013, 10:38am, imacmatician wrote:And from me:

If the 800 series ends up on 28 nm rather than 20 nm, then depending on their price, power, and performance, it may be better to wait for 20 nm. In that case you may be waiting 1-1.5 years to upgrade from the 660 Ti. If that's an option you think you might take, then it's a good idea to make sure you are fine with having the 660 Ti (or another GPU if you change your mind) for that long..
Absolutely fine with that.

SSD:

definitely go SSD, I use a UPS and once you have one you will never want to go back. Love the speed.

CPU:

You really need that much? i5 is sufficient...no need for hyper-threading unless your PC is designed for a government program . My i5 at 3.00 GHz is amazing, then again I don't game...

At least your not going AMD, as I'm like completely biased against them. Yay for NVidia too And I ain't discouraging the I7 series, just saying is it necessary to have that much? Big deal if it takes 9 seconds or 10 seconds to load the PC. get my point

I came to the realization there is an actual possibility of me having my current computer and the new one right next to each other and operating, each one on its own screen. Two comp screens, two completely different computers, lol.

Jeff:
SSD - Yeah I keep hearing that. Probably will lol.
CPU - Big yes. i7 is a must for video processing and hardcore gaming and I'm in the first group (sort of) so it's a requirement for me. Imagine going from 30 minutes of exporting to just minutes. Huge.
I'm not against AMD except they're more for mainstream (cost/efficiency is great).
GPU - 700 series is pretty good, but the reason I want 800 (or will have to wait for 900) is due to the new architecture which has some great features, better power usage and much better speeds.

Quote:CPU - Big yes. i7 is a must for video processing and hardcore gaming and I'm in the first group (sort of) so it's a requirement for me. Imagine going from 30 minutes of exporting to just minutes. Huge.

Oops, forgot about that when writing the post that you do a lot of video stuff. My bad.

Jun 16, 2013, 9:36pm, admin wrote:I came to the realization there is an actual possibility of me having my current computer and the new one right next to each other and operating, each one on its own screen. Two comp screens, two completely different computers, lol.

Jeff:
SSD - Yeah I keep hearing that. Probably will lol.
CPU - Big yes. i7 is a must for video processing and hardcore gaming and I'm in the first group (sort of) so it's a requirement for me. Imagine going from 30 minutes of exporting to just minutes. Huge.
I'm not against AMD except they're more for mainstream (cost/efficiency is great).
GPU - 700 series is pretty good, but the reason I want 800 (or will have to wait for 900) is due to the new architecture which has some great features, better power usage and much better speeds.

Get whatever GPU architecture is the newest when you have the money to buy the computer. There will always be a new architecture with better speeds within a year or two of any GPU purchase anyway, and waiting for the new best will just result in you always waiting.

Sir, 800 series and 900 series will be on the same architecture. The current series has been on the market for almost 2 years and will be 3 by the time the 700 comes out. By the time 1000 series (and even newer architecture) you're looking at another 3-4 years, or 2017 at the very least.

If by UPS you mean backup battery, I find that they tend to go after a while, as in capacity being lost so much it can't even do a normal boot, and will auto-shutdown. But if getting one after several months or years isn't a problem, I'd think it's okay. They probably last a decent amount of time anyway. If you value your data, I think you can set up some disks as a RAID set, but I'm not too certain how those work exactly. Good luck on making your new computer. Intel graphics chipsets suck.

UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply)
n. device which supplies electricity to the system during power failures

Not to be confused with

UPS (United Parcel Service)
American company that delivers letters and parcels worldwide

Also, I want to avoid RAID in all costs.

Jun 17, 2013, 3:30am, admin wrote:Sir, 800 series and 900 series will be on the same architecture. The current series has been on the market for almost 2 years and will be 3 by the time the 700 comes out. By the time 1000 series (and even newer architecture) you're looking at another 3-4 years, or 2017 at the very least.

And the 900 series will be significantly faster than the 800 series. Each architecture update is just a step, it's going to get faster between each series whether they change the architecture or not. Sort of like how the 780 is much much faster than the 680 even though they are both running very similar chips.

Jun 16, 2013, 8:53pm, admin wrote:What about the current PC? It has to do something
Okay, you're not going to retire your old PC. That makes sense.


Jun 16, 2013, 8:53pm, admin wrote:I hope this explains the specs chosen.
Yeah, that'll definitely help. I'll see what my friend has to say about them.


Jun 16, 2013, 9:36pm, admin wrote:I'm not against AMD except they're more for mainstream (cost/efficiency is great).
Tahiti (HD 7900) is quite good, especially when overclocked, and is a worthy competitor to GK104 (660 Ti - 680, 770) GPUs.

On graphics architectures:

NVIDIA for the past few generations has alternated between new architectures and refreshes. New architectures have been released at the rate of one every two years, and that is also their roadmap for the future.

2008: Tesla [GT200], 65 nm, 200 series
2009: Tesla refresh, 55 nm, 205 series
2010: Fermi, 40 nm, 400 series
Late 2010, 2011: Fermi refresh, 40 nm, 500 series
2012: Kepler, 28 nm, 600 series
2013: More Kepler including GK110, 28 nm, Titan and 700 series
(I am ignoring low-end chips.)

The new architectures generally give significant performance increases (taking into account die sizes and TDPs) in part because they are also on new processes. Refreshes generally give only small performance increases since there is no large architectural change, the process is the same or similar, and the chips themselves are not changed a lot. Refreshes are not necessarily bad as they could give good performance/price and/or have chips and parts that fill gaps in the original series.

As for Maxwell and 20 nm, there are two options that have been rumored, which one will actually happen most likely won't be certain until at least early next year [NVIDIA has almost certainly decided as of now, it's just that we don't know yet]:

Option 1: one big step
2014: Maxwell, 20 nm

Option 2: two smaller steps
Presumably earlier in 2014: Maxwell, 28 nm
Probably later in 2014: Maxwell, 20 nm

If option 1 happens, then that would be a good time to upgrade (unless performance/price is terrible). If option 2 happens, then Matan will have to decide whether to get the new architecture earlier or wait for a process shrink for potential additional performance and perf/W improvements.

Kepler has only been out for 15 months.

The GTX 680 and GTX 780 are significantly different since the 680 uses the GK104 chip and the 780 uses the GK110 chip. The 680 and 770 use the same chip and the latter has only a small performance increase over the former. The GK110 is one of the gap fillers, to fill the hole above the GK104 that the GF100/GF110 left behind. Except for the already released low-end GK208 (that sits right below the GK107), there may not be any more of those until Maxwell.

Quote:...between new architectures and refreshes.

Quote:The GTX 680 and GTX 780 are significantly different since the 680 uses the GK104 chip and the 780 uses the GK110 chip. The 680 and 770 use the same chip and the latter has only a small performance increase over the former.
And that's what Trace didn't research about when he made his post.
The 900 series is a refresh of the 800, therefore it is of no interest to me.

There is no point to get the 780 since I knew the Kepler will be obsolete next year, whereas with the 800 series I have a good chip to last all the way to series 1000, or 3 years at least. With the exception of 970-990 a 860/870 should be more than enough as their 900s equivalents will only give a small boost.

It will be the 20nm however that will give a more noticeable boost in the 800s series and I may wait for that one. However, based on logic it is likely the 900s series will have the 20nm chips, because otherwise the 900s series has nothing new and shiny to offer.
It's like Intel where until the next series of dies on a lower scale (14nm). I suspect 10-20% performance increase over the current 4770K with their 5770K.

So… according to my friend your planned system is wasteful for gaming, but that's not the main reason you've specced it as high as you did. It should be good for video work and you'll have a great time with it.


Jun 17, 2013, 8:37pm, admin wrote:It will be the 20nm however that will give a more noticeable boost in the 800s series and I may wait for that one. However, based on logic it is likely the 900s series will have the 20nm chips, because otherwise the 900s series has nothing new and shiny to offer.Nobody said a new series needs anything new and shiny… NVIDIA likes rebranding existing chips (mostly low-end though) to new series names with few or no changes. I doubt they'll intentionally fab chips on 28 nm if it is also possible at that time to make corresponding 20 nm chips in quantity, at good prices, and with good yields.

I can guess why he thinks it's wasteful (probably needs SLI, better motherboard, OC the CPU [which I won't do] and probably go SSDs only), but gaming is not the priority with it, no, but it should be sufficient to run of the latest titles in moderate speeds.

Thanks for letting me know what your friend thinks

But for unforeseeable changes, this is the final list of computer parts:
Asus Z87-C
Core i7 4770K
GTX 660Ti 2GB
WD Caviar Black 2TB x2
OCZ Vector 120GB
Kingston HyperX 16GB
Corsair 800W
Lite-On Blu-Ray Burner

Additional stuff:
Win7 64-bit
Office 2013 Home & Student
Logitech MK710
Asus VX238H 23 Full HD 1ms LED w/SPK 2HDMI

All wrapped in a sexy Antec 900 V3 tower (I have one atm, original though, not V3). Gonna grab red LEDs coz current tower is purple/blue-ish so it's gonna complement it awesomely.

Bought new comp, will update when received. With IMAGES

Edit: just checked the screen on reviews and stuff. Apparently very recommended as it's very cheap for the specs it offers.

Should do unboxing but probably too late

Matan! What is the need for an SSD AND and HDD?

What would be the difference if you were to just use an HDD or JUST an SSD?

^^ I explained it to you yesterday ;_;

I thought you explained the differences

I know SSD is all digital and faster, but why do people need both SSD and HDD?

HDDs have more capacity and more capacity/$.

digital?????

He wants extra space, that's why. You don't want to blow up all of your money for just storage space. the SSD is for speed and some space, but for most things that are getting backed up, why bog down your SSD, just use a HDD for it.

edit: Ninja'D ;_;

I'm not doing unboxing, it comes unboxed
I did however ask them to build it to the point that BIOS is ready, but no OS installed so I'll pick it from there.

Tut the main problem for SSD is that it costs ~$1 per GB, which is why I hinged on it at first before going why not. HDD costs ~0.01-0.02 CENTS per GB, so getting TBs is so easy.

SSD + HDD combo because:
SSD hosts the operating system, anti virus, and favorite game. Let's be honest, getting the OS to run super quick is the main reason. A/V would definitely benefit on running on faster speeds, as well as your favorite game. I've been on YT several demons of a game loading on a normal HDD and on SSD and the differences were a world apart. I might put Office 2013 on it as well
However the SSD does have some lifetime. The one I chose has a gurantee of 20GB write per day for 5 years (~36.5TB? can't remember but somewhere there) which is great. Mind you, the READ isn't important here for lifetime.
SSD also don't tell you when they're about to die. They just die. Taking down the OS, A/V and whatever little stuff you have on it with it. Better backup

The HDD I'll dump everything else on, including videos, etc. For example, recording and encoding software don't benefit from SSD, as they don't rely on the boost of read/write. Rather, CPU/GPU/RAM are crucial. Sure, some stuff might be slower, but I don't wanna kill my SSD

I probably did 10+ hours research into SSDs and HDDs before making my choice. SSDs are probably what I spent the most on, reading the most reviews etc. You have to understand, the way that SSD operates is completely different to HDD and until you delve into them heavily you wouldn't really know why.

Great explanation, answered my question perfectly. So when going all out on a PC build, it's be a plus if I were to get both an SSD and HDD correct? If I want that extra speed or performance from the OS or my favorite program?

Wow sorry did not see your reply. Yes, SSD + HDD is the best combo imo, SSD gives you that extra speed for OS and fav program/game.

Anyway I got the computer. I actually bought NEW FANS with red LEDs because RED so I got a few spare fans. The PSU they upgraded for free which is awesome (to Corsair 850W-TX which is the bronze line). Updates of images of boxes and stuff later today with the full setup once it's done. I'll have it all installed tomorrow so even more images tomorrow. No videos, sorry.

HYPE.

Sounds absolutely amazing. Can't wait to see what it looks like! And congrats!

Won't get to install/initialize it until Sunday at least because I probably will want to get a UPS...

Anyway, PICTURES!! The left screen + left comp are the new one, the one on the right + right screen is current comp. Expecting to get electrical overload (?) so I'll probably UPS it...

I might get a screenshot of how it looks inside. IT'S A MONSTER of AWESOME inside

looks freaken' awesome DDDDD