I am currently in the process of selecting parts for a computer than can handle 3d design, rendering, and gaming very well. I dont game heavily but I do game some. (left 4 dead example). I have currently selected these main parts. Give me some feedback http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811215013 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145222 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189015 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143198 I have also heard sli does not help 3d design in nearly any way possible. If this is false though I would like to know more about it.
Case: Not a huge fan of that case; cases with the same or better cooling and more room can be gotten for under $40. Then again, you might like how it looks enough to justify the extra money. Mainboard:Overpriced, especialy since you can get a gigabyte with better build quality and the same features for $20 less: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362 Memory: Good stuff, but I would spend the extra $20 for this stuff: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145242 CPU: The best value I7 available...good choice. Power supply: Corsair makes a 850W that is more reliable and costs less: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009 Video: This card is much faster for a few dollars more: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150359 SLI & crossfire do very little to help CAD speed (even with in-card crossfire like the 4870x2). Of course, it is very likely that the next release from each software house will have some kind of SLI/Crossfire capability, as it is the biggest bottleneck that these programs currently face. Also, don't forget your heatsink grease and hard drive(s). BTW...if you can wait untill october, the 5870HD will be available, and it should be a much better card for 3D design (and everything else).
Case: 4/10 - poorly cooled, overpriced, low quality Board: 5/10 - triple SLI boards not recommended RAM: 9/10 - Great RAM, inadequate cooling for some systems CPU: 10/10 PSU: 5/10 - Low quality rebrand of other better units GPU: 4/10 - extremely expensive, quite slow Killerbug's modifications are much better and strongly recommended. CAD usually does not benefit from gaming dual graphics - if you seriously want 3D graphics acceleration for design, you need Quadro or FireGL cards in an array, which is thousands of dollars. You are missing a DVD drive and Hard drive. The CPU comes with a cooler. My recommendation for a better case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047
I wouldn't spring for the MB either. 3way sli is useless seeing as you can't even use much of the 3rd card because of the bus speeds. Just a waste of money plus the cards will cover up all the pci slots. I would just get one good card that you can overclock. Definately stick with the 2.66 ghz core i7 processor. You can overclock that to 4 ghz and have the same speeds as the more expensive i7s. You might as well get a power supply that is 1000w. It will only run you $20-30 more and you don't have to worry about if you can run any new devices that you might put in later. I have basically the same setup as the items you are looking at though. I learned to not get triple sli boards. Nvidia is doing an awesome thing to where if you buy a graphics card you can upgrade it in the next 90 days for just the difference of what you payed for your card and what the new one will cost. All you have to do is send in your old one after filling out some info. For the processor you don't need to buy any compound. The stuff that comes on it is just fine. It's fan is exposed though so you will have to watch how you run the wires. I prefer the full sized towers myself so you have room to run your wires if you have sli going. There won't be much room with two cards w/ fans in a mid size case. I like space as well. I also have a full sized xclio tower with two side fans instead of one big front one. The leds are blinding though. Pretty much just do what KillerBug said except get a higher wattage PSU
Yeah, currently SLI/Crossfire is useless for CAD...it might help for some 3D graphics generating apps...but does not seem to do anything for solidworks, and gives only about 1% extra in AutoDesk. It is the next logical evolution in these apps...GPUs are ideal for the kind of work that currently is handled all by the CPU. The board I listed is a 3-way sli board, but that is not why I picked it. It was more because the next release of these suites may very well have GPU acceleration. The third slot is only 8x, so it is no good for graphics anyway...that's more for RAID cards and such. If you have the budget for it, Tyan offers several boards with PCIE x16 slots and twin 1366 sockets. These need xeon chips, but you can greatly excede the performance of a $1000 I7 with a pair of $300 Xeons. The only downside is that these boards have no SLI or Crossfire...but you don't need either of these (at least at the moment). Such a system might include these bits... One of these: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB-S7002GR&c=pw Six of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145245 Two of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117213
Wow! That is really good advice, KillerBug. That seems like an amazing investment. I think if I build another computer I will try that. I have seen those before but always ignored them.
There is absolutely no need for a bigger PSU, 850W runs FOUR graphics cards (effectively) in my system with an overclocked quad core and three hard drives, and measuring the load, DC output still only works out around 700W. Big PSUs are for the most part a con.
Only in terms of price, and possibly in terms of space used. There realy is no such thing as too much power supply, as a system that uses 700W with a 750W power supply will use the same 700W with a 1200W power supply (assuming they have the same efficiency ratings). Personaly, I don't use anywhere near the 1200W that I have, but it is nice to know that I can do almost any upgrade without having to add the price of a power supply...this would be an even better thing if it was a corsair and I knew for a fact that it would last for many years (so far so good after over a year on my PSU...but it was a cheap unit when I bought it...then again, it is now a very expensive unit).
Actually, believe it or not, that's not quite true. Casting the negligible losses in efficiency and the likelihood of extra noise and space, and definitely extra cost, there is a substantial flaw with big power supplies at 1KW and over. They're almost all the same. Amazingly enough, most 1200W or even 1500W units you buy are identical inside to 1000W units, they just have different stickers, and occasionally modify the shutdown threshold to match what the sticker says. Simply put, A 1000W Corsair HX and 1500W Thermaltake Toughpower are basically identical, the Corsair is rated for less simply to avoid overstress, overheat and to ensure a reliable output. By buying "more" than 1000 Watts you aren't just throwing money away on something you won't use, you're throwing money away on something you never get in the first place. For the extreme system builder I have no qualms recommending 1000W PSUs provided they're good ones, i.e. either the Corsair HX1000W or ideally, the Zalman ZM1000-HP, the latter of which is an astonishing unit. If I were to keep my pair of X2s and get an i7 and overclock it like nuts, I should really have a 1000W PSU, my 850 would be pushing it - but look at the hardware that would be. 300W PCs like yours with 1200W PSUs are a classic example of taking 'just in case' to excess. Cheap at the time or not, your Coolmax 1200W unit, while a reasonably respectable PSU in its own right cost you the extra you could have spent on upgrading your terrible Mk I Phenom to, for example, a Phenom II X4 940. Putting it into perspective like that is usually what it takes to convince people. Even an 850W PSU for the vast majority of PCs isn't just overkill, it's frankly ridiculous.
