Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Cortexian]

However it's the lowest frequency memory that we stock for the Dominator Platinum series. It does give slightly better performace, not a lot, and probably not worth it, but I don't really give a fuck. The Dominator Platinum memory is awesome looking and I'm going for a very sleek looking system considering the amount of money I plan on spending on it.

I'd say the X79-UP4 is probably of better value than the 3930k TBH.

[Warsaw]

Low Profile Vengeance 1600 MHz. Cheaper, sleeker.

As for value, I was merely talking from a performance standpoint. Your motherboard is going to affect your performance rather insignificantly in comparison.

[Cortexian]

I'm going water cooling so I don't care about the LP memory, and the heatsinks on the normal Vengeance and Dominator memory DO actually dissipate slightly more heat than the LP modules. I'm not going to water cool the memory so the nice heatsinks on the memory are handy. They also look great when you have a bank of Platinum modules installed.

The lightbars on the Dominator memory are hot as well.

[leorimolo]

My friend gave me a challenge to build him a computer to use professionally with MAYA photoshop etc. Seeing as how most of you use these on the regular bases I wanted to see what you thought of the build.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks


CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 74.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($69.98 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($116.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Extreme 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card ($260.00 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (White) Mini ITX Tower Case ($79.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-98 DVD/CD Writer ($22.29 @ Outlet PC)
Monitor: Asus VS239H-P 23.0" Monitor ($144.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VS239H-P 23.0" Monitor ($144.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1492.17
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-01 18:39 EDT-0400)

So yeah I went with 3770K and 660 TI. I'm wondering tho if for Maya PS and video editing a server class CPU would be more useful than having the 660ti.

Also, this setup is also meant to be a hackintosh.

[Btcc22]

Low Profile Vengeance 1600 MHz. Cheaper, sleeker..

Agreed. The Vengeance's heatsinks reminded me of a cockatoo's crest. That and massive heatsinks on RAM are nothing more than gimmicks.

[Warsaw]

PCPartPicker? Never heard of it. I do all of my research the old fashioned way, by digging through Google search results. Though for actual purchase, I normally jump straight to NewEgg and call it a day; less hassle. Good choice on Nvidia for the GPU though, better support from appropriate content-production software. I would probably ditch the Seagate for a Samsung Spinpoint or a WD Caviar Black. SanDisk thus far seems to have a decent track record with SSDs, but I'd personally go with Crucial M4, Samsung 830/840, or Plextor M5.

I'm going water cooling so I don't care about the LP memory, and the heatsinks on the normal Vengeance and Dominator memory DO actually dissipate slightly more heat than the LP modules. I'm not going to water cool the memory so the nice heatsinks on the memory are handy. They also look great when you have a bank of Platinum modules installed.

The lightbars on the Dominator memory are hot as well.

I have water cooling. Sure, it's closed loop, but I chose the LP Vengeance entirely on its looks, since for the price there wasn't anything better performance-wise. If your RAM is actually overheating at all, then you either have an airflow problem in your build or you've pushed the overclocking too far, as RAM doesn't generally get that hot.

I just don't see how you can justify the price jump for Dominators given the lack of any appreciable benefit. If you were building an AMD rig (lol, Freelancer not using Intel/Nvidia...rich), sure.

[leorimolo]

PCPartPicker? Never heard of it. I do all of my research the old fashioned way, by digging through Google search results.

Its not a noob tool to make 1337 gaming pc's. General idea is to build the entire system and it automatically finds the cheapest way to build it, and at the same time depending on specs it can give you expected benchmarks of your setup.

Also please you people that use Maya, more CPU and less GPU or more GPU?

[Warsaw]

I was being sincere, I had honestly not ever heard of it until this thread.

[Amit]

PCPartPicker is popular with the Reddit community. Their /r/BuildAPC subreddit is highly useful for discussion on these things and PCPartPicker's mardown export option makes it easy to display your components in your thread on Reddit. If you want a source outside of Modacity, you could use Reddit and the PCPartPicker community itself. I always find some cool new insights from both.

Lifehacker put it perfectly:

Next, we've decided to use PCPartPicker to put together our builds. We love it, and think you should use it too—it gives you more flexibility in your part buying, helps you eliminate possibly incompatible components, and makes sure you get he best prices for the items you plan to buy, even if it means you have to buy them from different retailers.

[Cortexian]

Yeah PCPartPicker is awesome, we actually had someone at work contact us about /r/BuildAPC wanting to know if we could help them out with some discounts in exhange for some publicity on Reddit.

Speaking of which, I'm not paying retail for any of this. The Dominator memory has some crazy markup on it, so don't worry I'm not paying retail price!