Hello folks! To kick things off, my 5year old intel pentium D died on me a week ago. Now I am looking for a stable, fast and high class motherboard with a good chip specifically for graphic designing(photoshop use) and HD video editing. Here's what I have in mind: motherboard: gigabyte X58A-UD3R with i7 chip. Can someone tell me if that's a good combination? If you guys have any suggestion, please don't hesitate and tell me what other options I should consider. I am not a heavy gamer btw, if that helps. My budget is around $500. *Main use: -Photoshop -HD video editing -Good for multi-tasking BTW what I have from my previous computer that I'm intending to use: -graphic card: NVIDIA GTS 250 -Power Supply: CORSAIR 550watts (do you guys think this is underpowered?) -Memory: CORSAIR 4gb DDR2 (but since I'm planing on getting a DDR3 motherboard, this won't be compatible right?)
Just built a rig with that board, with a i7 950 and that combo is $500 by itself. you will still need power, RAM, video, CD/DVD-Reader, a case to put it all in... Just seen your edit, power should be fine, video nothing special but workable, yes on the RAM and remember the i7 is triple channel so buy in sets of 3...
Correct, sadly you can't use your old RAM. I assume you already have a case, hard disk and CD/DVD drive? Those are other parts you will also need. [well CD drive is optional, but you'll need some method of installing windows to the new system] If so, all you need to buy is: i7 950 CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211 X58A-UD3R M/B: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423 6GB XMS3 RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145286 That is the board I would recommend anyway, I'm not just using it as you mentioned it As you can see this is $630 just for these three parts, a bit above your initial budget. You could save a few dollars by going with lower-spec RAM but it's probaly not worth the skimp. If this comes out a bit too much, you should consider changing to a P55 based i7. They are mostly just as powerful, just without the triple channel memory that makes the i7s excel at particular programs. Here's an idea of what I'd use for this: i7 870 CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115213 P55A-UD3 M/B: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128412 4GB XMS3 RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260 This is $475, but with a $20 mail-in rebate to reduce that to $455. If you think 4GB of RAM might be on the small side, you could change to: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145325 This, however raises the initial price to $590 and removes half of the rebates, so you wouldn't be saving much on the full i7 build.
I was thinking that the i7 950 is too much for me. Perhaps the lower version of i7 will do (maybe the 2.6ghz is enough)? And what are the other good combination for a motherboard + i7 chip? All I know is that I am going to get the i7 chip for sure but I really have no idea what is a good motherboard. And yes, I am still planning to use my old CD/DVD ROM but I figured it might not be compatible with a newer motherboard since it's already 5 years old??? But just in case, what would you recommend me for the CD/DVD rom? I want it fast and smooth coz I will be burning a lot of movies as well. And oh, I'm curious. How much does a good rig costs? Not the gamers rig please. I just prefer like a decent one that has a a lot of room space to work on. My old one is so compact and tight that it literally gave me a headache when upgrading. But yea, I really appreciate all the input you guys showed so far! *@deadrun33: my NVIDIA is nothing special? But it is decent enough to use for HD videos right? Maybe just not for gaming??? Edit: ooppss, one more thing. Since I cannot use my Corsair DDR2 ram, I'm intending to sell it. I just bought it recently (May of 2010) and is still in mint condition. I was wondering if you guys know an online site where I could sell it? I know this may not be appropriate to post here but if anyone is interested just PM me. Thanks a bunch!
sammorris, since I'm not a heavy gamer,and will mainly be doing photoshop and HD editing, do you think this package is good enough? And how much of difference is the P55A-UD3 from the X58A-UD3R M/B??? Can you give me the pros & cons between the two M/B EDIT: What about ASUS Sabertooth X58 M/B compared to gigabyte's X58? Coz I'm considering this M/B too.
Asus stuff is crap. It's extremely unreliable and it's badly designed. The Sabertooth is also poorly featured compared to the Gigabyte boards. Functionally there's not a huge amount to separate the P55A-UD3 from the X58A-UD3R, if there's any differences you're going to notice, read through the specification lists to compare them. Old IDE DVD drives work fine with new boards, as long as you have at most, two of them. How much a PC costs depends entirely on its purpose, I can't just state an arbitrary price. The GTS250 is an OK card, but it is now quite old, so it will not have the capability to run all current games at high settings fluidly.
Oh I see. Funny though. Coz one of my closest friend said the opposite thing. He said that Gigabyte is not a trustworthy name and that Asus is a good one. Totally contradicts to what you said, but I guess each has their own opinion. But yea, I might end up buying the x58-UDR3 just because it's the newest one. And the fact that it has two separate ports for the mouse and keyboard (I'm intending to keep my own keyboard and mouse as well). I really appreciate your help sammorris! So my next thing is to buy a good computer rig. I know this might sound a little bit rubbish but I want a rig where it has usb ports, SD cards, etc in front of it. And of course, a medium size one. Any recommendation guys?
It's not really a matter of opinion, it's a matter of evidence. The simple fact is, not just myself, but several other of the major posters here at afterdawn all have the same dismal story to tell about Asus products. I personally have owned five Asus products. Not one of them has lasted more than 18 months before failure, and the average of them is a pathetic 8 months average lifetime. In addition to that, with one exception I didn't even use some of Asus' products that carry a reputation for being bad. Some of them, like the Striker series motherboards have a typical lifespan of less than 10 weeks. A clue to the problems with Asus products are also evident in their design. Take a look at the design of various Asus boards and you will notice the design varies wildly between very similar products. They cannot keep to a strict design formula, they try different things for the sake of being different, and it does not pay off. How Asus survive producing such poor quality products is simply a matter of reputation. The moderate number of products they produce that last long enough to be upgraded carry their previous immaculate reputation sufficiently well that people are stil under the mistaken belief Asus products are what they used to be. 5+ years ago Asus products were rock solid, highly recommended. Then, in a move for increased profit, they cut corners to cut costs, and kept prices high as before, due to their reputation for high quality, in much the same way as Sony and Mercedes-Benz have. The difference is, the latter two cut corners to the extent that their long-term reliability after the warranties have expired is put into question. Asus cut corners so much that it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that any of their products will fail before the warranty is even up. Sure, you don't technically lose money by replacing a motherboard every few months but it's a real waste of time, especially given the downtime while you wait for the replacement to be sent out. The reason why people are wary of Gigabyte as they have appeared relatively out of nowhere, producing relatively cheap, mediocre boards about 6 years ago, and all of a sudden have taken a huge share of the market. The reason for Gigabyte's success is much like the reason Asus used to be at the forefront, decent quality products with good design. As it stands now, Gigabyte still produce decent quality well-designed products. To say that Gigabyte boards never go wrong would be a lie, but comparatively speaking, they are vastly superior. You still use a PS/2 mouse and keyboard? Unusual, but even so, you can get USB to PS/2 adapters for keyboards and mice, for almost nothing. The term "rig" is usually applied to a system as a whole. It's not a term I use as it's too easily confused with the other meanings of the word, but it certainly does not apply to the case, as I think you've assumed here. As for case, it's a question of cost versus preference. You could spend a moderate amount on a compact case with adequate cooling and basic appearance, or you could spend a lot on a large case that looks better and has better cooling [though cases are very subjective, cases I love other people think are hideous]. The cases I typically spec for people, in rough order of cost: Antec Two Hundred / NZXT Alpha Antec Three Hundred Coolermaster Storm Scout / HAF 912 NZXT Tempest Evo / Coolermaster HAF 922 NZXT Phantom / Coolermaster HAF 932
you mean this? It fits inside the floppy bay but is all-in-one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=floppy_drive_usb-_-20-816-002-_-Product
Yeah you're very unlikely to find a case with a built-in card reader, you will need to get a 3.5" bay one of those. Audio ports, USB, Firewire and eSATA are fairly standard fare on the front of any modern case, I believe all those I listed have such functionality. Front audio is only ever stereo however, and for that reason I never use it. [You may wonder why not just use it for headphones. However, the audio quality provided by plugging decent headphones into the headphone socket on good speakers is far superior to that out of the jack in the PC, as headphone sockets on speakers are usually amplified.
Think about buying a professional graphics card instead of that nvidia if your using this mainly for work Code: http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_family.html
Unfortunately, yes. I still do have PS/2 mouse and keyboard coz like I said, I haven't upgraded my computer since I last purchased it 5 years ago.
There is no point buying a QuadroFX card unless you're going to use a program that can actually make use of one.
btw, I'm planning on getting this case http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197&Tpk=Cooler Master HAF 922 - Mid Tower Do you think there is enough room for my insanely huge NVIDIA GTS 250? I mean I know it will fit (since it fitted with my old HP pavillion case, hella tight though) but would there be enough comforting room to work with?
With regard to the quadros, variable depending on their level of performance, but they cost a lot more than their desktop counterparts. You can buy Quadro cards for under $150, but they're very weak GPUs underneath, the $130 FX380 is actually an underclocked 9400GT, and even the quite expensive FX1800 is an 8800GS underneath. The top of the line Quadro cards are a fortune, the GTX260-based FX4800 costing $1550, the GTX285-based FX5800 costing $3100 [albeit with 4GB of memory vs the usual 1] and the flagship 6GB Quadro 6000 is $4000, a lot to pay for what is basically a GTX470. As for the GTS250, insanely large really isn't appropriate. The GTS250 is a large card but it is not full-sized, so it will fit in pretty much any case. Here is a picture of the high-end cards in the Radeon HD5 series. The largest GTS250s [they differed in size] are the same size as the HD5850, the second card in this lineup of four. Clearly the HD5870 and HD5970 on the right are substantially larger. Cards up to the HD5870 [third picture] will fit in basically any case. The HD5970 on the right does not fit in all cases, but even that fits in HAF cases with absolute ease.
