Would like some insight on my system.

[Deleted]

Not that the rig will be used for general gaming, recording of video game footage and video editing.

Mobo: Asus Maximus IV Extreme B3 DDR3 Socket 1155 Intel® P67
CPU: Intel Core I7 2600K
CPU cooler: Scythe Rasetsu CPU Cooler
GPU: Sapphire HD6970 2048MB * 2 in CrossfireX
Memory: Kingston KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX Dual Channel DDR3 16GB 1600Mhz
PSU: Antec TPQ-1200 1200W Truepower Quattro
SSD: OCZ AGT3-25SAT3-120G 120GB Agility 3 S-ATA III
HDD: Western Digital WD2002FAEX 2000GB 64MB SATA600 7200RPM Caviar Black

Well, I'm a bit doubtful concerning my choice in GPU atm, from the reviews I read, a 6990 is basically two 6970s packed together, however, looking at tests, the 2 6970s come out as better performance wise. Nvidia is a little to expensive for my taste compared to the performance they provide in SLI.
Currently the P67 and the Z68 mobo only allow one PCI-e to run at x16, from the moment I start using two, they both will go down to x8/x8 (altho, that's what I have read), from my limited knowledge of computers, I'm wondering whether this will cause a notable decrease in performance if I went for two 6970s? Would it be better in that case to go with one 6990 instead, or won't it make a difference?

Also, since i'll be going from a laptop to a desktop, I'm in need of a decent monitor. If anyone has some suggestions for a 21-24inch monitor within the price range of 100-300 euros, please post them.

[ispano]

Just like the 5970s I use, the 6990 is 2 single GPUs thrown onto one card. But in doing so, it's downclocked due to power constraints. that's why the dual GPU card scores lower than two single GPU cards. Also x8/x8 is not likely to make a big enough difference. I would go for the 6990 if you want only want 2 slots occupied vs 4, or perhaps plan to do tri or quadfire later on.

[Deleted]

Actually, the plan was to either go for two 6970s or one 6990, So space isn't really an issue.

[llDemonll]

How many monitors are you going to be using and what resolution will they be?

8GB is enough RAM, unless you're doing very large renders, that extra RAM won't make a difference.

PSU I won't comment on until you figure out what card you're running

Motherboard I also won't comment on until you figure out what you're running

HDD two 1TB western digital drives in Raid0 would be better than the 2TB drive

[Deleted]

How many monitors are you going to be using and what resolution will they be?

8GB is enough RAM, unless you're doing very large renders, that extra RAM won't make a difference.

PSU I won't comment on until you figure out what card you're running

Motherboard I also won't comment on until you figure out what you're running

HDD two 1TB western digital drives in Raid0 would be better than the 2TB drive

Currently planning on either going with one or two monitors, mainly so I can have a decent sized video example whilst video editing. I guess the resolution would be 1920x1080 on each?

I made sure my PSU is big enough to support most setups and leaving space for future upgrades.

Generally, 8GB is enough, but as said, i'm planning to do some video editing on this system and I'm fairly interested in playing around a little bit in 3Dmax or Maya in the nearby future (since i'll be having loads of spare time in the coming 2 months), from my limited experience, those tend to be fairly large renders which is why I haven't delved into that quite yet (Render times on my laptop are just too high).

Also, having 2 HDDs in raid, true, that would be better, however, that is once again a little heavier on cash.

[Djinni]

Also, having 2 HDDs in raid, true, that would be better, however, that is once again a little heavier on cash.

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 64MB Cache Hard Disk Drive SATA 6 Gb/s 126MB/s <4.2ms 7200rpm - OEM

£54.15 ex vat
(£64.98 inc vat)

Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 64MB Cache Hard Disk Drive SATA 6 Gb/s 126MB/s <4.2ms 7200rpm - OEM

£95.82 ex vat
(£114.98 inc vat)




(not sure if those prices apply to where you live... but cirtainly, gives you a quantifiable variable...)

---------- Post added 2011-06-16 at 05:16 PM ----------

Generally, 8GB is enough, but as said, i'm planning to do some video editing on this system and I'm fairly interested in playing around a little bit in 3Dmax or Maya in the nearby future (since i'll be having loads of spare time in the coming 2 months), from my limited experience, those tend to be fairly large renders which is why I haven't delved into that quite yet (Render times on my laptop are just too high).

RAM will be pretty cheap to upgrade in the future, and unless you have serious concerns about not being about to get exactly the same brand, speed, size etc... it'll probably cost you less in the long run to upgrade it as and when you actually need it.

[Plasmon]

There is no significant difference between the performance from using x16/x16 vs. x8/x8, so you don't need to worry about getting a 16x/16x motherboard. There is a big performance decrease when going down to 16x/4x, but 8x/8x is all you actually need. Watch the Linus Tech Tips video testing the comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFMzRZqFh-w

As mentioned, you probably wont need more than 8 GB RAM for a while... well not just you don't "need" but you probably wouldn't see any measurable benefit either, even as a video editor. (Unless you have a use for a large RAMDisk.) If sometime in the future you find that you would benefit from more RAM you can buy it at that time and it will be cheaper than it is now.

I'll comment on your PSU... even if you are going to be using crossfire 6970s, 1200W is massively overkill. Not only are you wasting a lot of money on the excessive PSU itself, but when the rated max power exceeds the usage by so much, you are also losing money via your electricity bill. Power supplies tend to be most efficient around the middle of their range and when your computer is idle or in general desktop use you probably won't exceed 250W. My system under plain windows application / internet usage consumes around 100W for example. So at low loading a very high power PSU actually wastes more electricity than a lower rated one. Under heavy 3D loading and stress testing you probably won't exceed 650W. (There's a chart here showing total system power consumption at 596W for crossfire 6970's) I think you'd be better off with a PSU in the 900-1000W range, and even that is a bit excessive and leaves plenty of room for future graphics cards.

With the money saved here you can afford to go for 2x1TB HDD's for Raid0.

[llDemonll]

If you won't be going for a 3-monitor setup, stick to one 6970 for now, see how it goes, and if it performs under-par for what you want, get another. You really don't need two high-end cards for a single/dual monitor setup.

You may think that 16GB RAM is good, but you really won't use half of it. If you've never modeled before, you won't have complicated projects / assemblies / renders that need to utilize that full set of RAM. Most all of the engineers where I work run on 12GB systems and never have problems with RAM.

[Deleted]

Alright, thanks for the useful insight. I have some basic knowledge of computers, enough to assemble a system myself within a price range. I don't really have any experience with raid setups, so is it really that much faster than a single 2TB HDD and what additional work is involved?
Currently the only RAID controllers available from my retailer (the only place I actually trust and had some issues with international shipping before and preferably don't want to risk it with computer parts) are fairly expensive, the cheapest one is EMINENT EM2001 PCI 2 Port SATA Controller which is currently on for 39.99 euros, the rest are running for >350 euros. Sounds about right, I guess?

To be fairly honest, if I am not going with RAID, then i might as well just buy one 1TB WD Black for now and maybe get a 1TB WD Green intellipower HDD if I happen to run low on storage space (Since that's what they're primarily for, due their lower powerconsumption, but also lower performance, and they're quite cheap here).
And if I do that, I basically have more room in my budget to improve the CPU cooling to water cooling Corsair H100/H80. However, last time I read, Water cooling is quite noisy regardless whether the system is running at full load or idle, and since I'm planning to record audio (for future video projects), I guess that won't be the ideal cooling solution, but I can always add an additional fan or two.
And there are some people out there claiming that if you're running with liquid cooling, you might as well cool your whole system with it.

[Plasmon]

I don't have experience with raids, but I think most modern motherboards have no problem supporting a 2 disk RAID0 without needing an aftermarket raid controller. Anything higher than 2 probably requires the purchase of a raid controller I'm assuming.

If you just don't want to bother with the whole RAID thing, that's not a big deal because you are using a large (120GB) SSD, which is big enough to host all your programs. The RAID0 would benefit you for sequential reading and writing of your large uncompressed video files that are too big for the SSD, but it's certainly not essential. WD black drives are quite fast already.

[Fuzzykins]

For the record, I'd consider a different CPU cooler. H70, Nh-d14, Thermalright Silver Arrow...

[Deleted]

For the record, I'd consider a different CPU cooler. H70, Nh-d14, Thermalright Silver Arrow...

Any reason?

[Drunkenvalley]

Because the current one isn't really all that good last I heard? o.o