First build since 2000... Yes, I'm OLD! :)

[NinjaLegolas]

Fellas,
I would appreciate it if you would take a look at the build listed below. This is my first build since 2000, so I'm sure some things have changed and I don't want to miss anything important. I haven't yet picked a PSU, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Also, any suggestions on alternate components are greatly appreciated!

I will be using this cpu for ANSYS CFD, FEA, and 3D CAD. I need a lot of processing power, a decent professional graphics card, and fast ram.

--------------------------------------------------
Samsung 840 PRO SSD
~$230

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Upgraded USB 3.0
$99.99

GIGABYTE GV-N660OC-2GD GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
$209.99

GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD5H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
$229.99

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+
$33.99

LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner, Bare Drive, 3D Play Back (WH14NS40) - OEM
$68.99

Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I74770K
+
G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX
$496.98

Subtotal: $1,369.93
------------------------------

Suggestions?

Thanks,
LEGO

 

[Red_Machine]

All seems pretty good to me.

 

[Cyclops]

There are a lot of better options than the Antec 900 at that 100 dollar price point. You might want to look at cases from Fractal Design, Corsair, or Cooler master for better alternatives.

If you can muster 40 bucks more for a GTX 760, You'll be increasing the Cuda performance of your system by upwards of 50%.

If you're tight on money, grab a cheaper motherboard. Are you planning on overclocking? If the answer is no then grab a B85 or H87 equipped motherboard. Those chipsets are still overclockable so you won't lose much.

Blu-ray drive is a personal thing as I have no use for one. Looks like that you do though.

Memory bandwidth isn't a bottleneck anymore so you don't HAVE to have 2400 MHz memory. A simple 1600 MHz kit would do just fine. Keep in mind that if you decide to overclock the processor, the memory might not be able to run at that high of a speed as Haswell's memory controller is all over the place and is not consistent.

For Power supply, a decent 80+ certified unit will be sufficient. Something like a Corsair CX500 will do the job perfectly fine.

Other than that, good luck .

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

if your actually buying the Antec 900 choose a better case for the love of god, if you already own it and are reusing it fine, by buying one now is just a waste

 

[NdMk2o1o]

if your actually buying the Antec 900 choose a better case for the love of god, if you already own it and are reusing it fine, by buying one now is just a waste

Yea the Antec 900 was good back in the day 2009 or so, but definately better options fromn Corsair and Fractal Design available at the same price point, I'd also try and go for a GTX 760 or at least the 660Ti, are you planning on overclocking? cause you have chosen a high end Gigabyte board (UD5) with mediocre cooling Hyper 212 Evo, UD3 should still yield a good overclock for most and you can get a better cooling along the lines of a Corsair h80i

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Get a cheaper Z87 board buy better cooling, cheap coolers are not gonna cut it with haswell, for sustained stress testing of an overclock. I know I have a test system here and that cooler.

2400 MHz isnt going to do anything for you when it comes to Auto CAD, more mundane 2133mhz or 1866mhz kits will cut price down performance might drop 1%

cheaper Z87 gives better budget for the GPU.

If your doing professional work then GeForce and Radeon GPUS are utterly worthless.
I did a review on the difference between professional and consumer GPUs awhile back

The Radeon HD 7970 at launch was $500, in professional apps it gets slaughtered by the W5000 which is the same price range and is roughly a 7770 in terms of consumer level, regardless it was on avg 80% faster in professional apps, In one instance it was 300% faster.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2070/3/

as for gaming better gpu = better performance self explanatory.

 

[drdeathx]

if your actually buying the Antec 900 choose a better case for the love of god, if you already own it and are reusing it fine, by buying one now is just a waste

Get a cheaper Z87 board buy better cooling, cheap coolers are not gonna cut it with haswell, for sustained stress testing of an overclock. I know I have a test system here and that cooler.

2400 MHz isnt going to do anything for you when it comes to Auto CAD, more mundane 2133mhz or 1866mhz kits will cut price down performance might drop 1%

cheaper Z87 gives better budget for the GPU.

If your doing professional work then GeForce and Radeon GPUS are utterly worthless.
I did a review on the difference between professional and consumer GPUs awhile back

The Radeon HD 7970 at launch was $500, in professional apps it gets slaughtered by the W5000 which is the same price range and is roughly a 7770 in terms of consumer level, regardless it was on avg 80% faster in professional apps, In one instance it was 300% faster.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2070/3/

as for gaming better gpu = better performance self explanatory.

Cases are preference as is board but I will say the 900 is dated. He isn't going overboard on the motherboard. It is a good choice BTW and Radeons are not worthless. bahahahahah

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

for professional apps actually yes they are, considering i doubt you do professional 3D work in the likes of Autodesk Maya, at least for AMD, they tend to break driver support on a regular basis, I had to put up with there shennanigans for nearly 1.5 years when they finally fixed the Open GL driver for those apps.

If you plan to do any serious professional work a Quadro or FirePro card is the way to go. If its a moon lighting situation where its once in awhile he does work in apps of that nature then GeForce is fine. I still wouldnt trust AMD in that regard as the 5000 / 6000 and 7000 series were broken in many of Autodesks products for a long long time.

Geforce cards work fairly well, they also have better support in many Autodesk products for various features. the 660 will be fine for general use but again if going further than that a Quadro or Firepro is a far better option.

4770K + Z87 UD5H combo swapping to a different board combo Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, L... saves $80
550D + 650HX
Corsair Neutron GTX 256gb
LG Blu-ray burner
EVGA GTX 760
Phanteks PH-TC12DX cooler
Gskill 16gb memory kit

CPU + Mobo Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, L...
Case + PSU Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, L...
SSD Corsair Neutron Series CSSD-N256GB3-BK 2.5" 256GB ...
Blu-Ray LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12...
CPU-Cooler Phanteks PH-TC12DX_BK 120mm PWM CPU Cooler - Neweg...
Ram G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SD... (10% off with promo GSKILLSAVE10)
GPU EVGA 02G-P4-2761-KR GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-bit GD...

Total cost = $1476

Total cost with cheaper mobo = $1400 included a PSU which you didnt list.

So going with the proper part selection its possible to get a GPU that is 20%+ faster in games and stay within the same budget while also getting a free game that could be sold off to gain a quick $30 dropping the optimized build down to $1370 or the UD5H option down to $1450

 

[NinjaLegolas]

Thank you for the input fellas! I'm working on coming up with alternates for your great suggestions.

I do plan to OC. I enjoy maximizing my systems. I don't want to go the route of water cooling. The PC will be in my man cave and it stays pretty cold down there even in the dead of summer.

The suggestions so far are:

* A different cpu case. - I'm looking for a case with great air cooling. I'm not to particular about the look of the case; although I wouldn't mind a sweet looking case with some blue LED's. I'm more interested in performance. Any specific suggestions? I'm looking at newer cases but I've been out of the game so long I don't know what options to look for... To be quite honest, this is a little overwhelming! Mad to you young guys that are up-to-date with everything. @ Everyone, I aged myself with that pick eh?

* Graphics card. - I will play a few games here and there, but the main purpose is for light SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor use. I won't go into the detail of using bolts/washers, ect, so assemblies will never get above ~75 - 100 parts at most. I should plan for the future, so lets say 200 parts max. ANSYS doesn't really need a great graphics card as I generally import .STEP files with simplistic geometry and work on them. @crazyeyesreaper, Thanks for the article! I'll check it out.

* Motherboard. - I really want to get a solid MB. I don't mind overkill here. If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears!

* Cooling. - I definitely want the best cpu heatsink/fan I can get that doesn't take up so much room that I can't use all of the ram slots. I'll check out the corsair h80i. thanks for the suggestion NdMk2o1o!

* PSU. - I'm truly clueless here. I'll check out the Corsair CX500. Thanks for the advice Cyclops!

* Memory. - I want decently fast memory for CFD and FEA purposes. @Cyclops - I thought that OC'ing the processor had nothing to do with OC'ing the ram. Is that not true?

 

[AlienIsGOD]

i had an Antec 900 and upgraded to a Antec P280 900 weighs over 9000 lbs, whereas the 280 is quite light for its size and can hold E ATX mobos. I also must say that with it fully fanned there isnt any temp issues whatsoever

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

The two options I linked are solid the G45 is fine for most builds and should handle a moderate overclock fairly well,

Regardless my build above includes everything you will need including the PSU which is a Corsair HX 650 modular unit and a solid case that is also quiet so quiet cool and a generally powerful system. As for The 3D work your doing the GeForce gpu should do alright for that long as its not seriously complex.

With Intel memory speed wont matter much the 1600 mhz kit I linked with the build will do fine at 1600 mhz you should still be above 20gb/s in bandwidth for comparison and older AMD Phenom II system would be 13gb/s.

So cheap options is MSI GD 45 Gaming series + 4770k the higher end board is the Gigabyte UD5H between the two is around $80 price difference real world performance difference 0.

memory wont give you a huge boost in anything you do, plenty of it will help for 3D and the like but speed is not going to matter that much.

 

[NinjaLegolas]

@crazyeyesreaper THANK YOU! I posted my questions before I got to read all of your suggestions. I like everything I see. Great picks! Thanks a million.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

Questions for you LEGO:
Noise: Does it matter to you how much noise the system makes? The H80i is not quiet.
Do you know that you can build a small powerful system today? mATX is not lame like it used to be.
Do you think you'll use this system as long as the last?
Do you also listen to music with your system?

 

[NinjaLegolas]

Questions for you LEGO:
Noise: Does it matter to you how much noise the system makes? The H80i is not quiet.
Do you know that you can build a small powerful system today? mATX is not lame like it used to be.
Do you think you'll use this system as long as the last?
Do you also listen to music with your system?

@thebluebumblebee: I would like a fairly quiet system. I'm not going to use the H80i, not interested in water cooling. I want to use a mid tower instead of mATX. I don't think the mATX has enough room for expansion. I'll probably use this system for the next 4-5 years unless I need something larger for work. I listen to music in the adjoining room of my man cave. Full 7.1 surround, but also plays music loud enough to wake the dead!

I thought Optimus prime was awesome. I would take some of his hi tech puke! Definitely better than anything else!!!

The case crazyeyesreaper picked is pretty sweet. Nice, simple, and elegant. Just my style.

Do you have some suggestions I should take a look at before pulling the trigger?

 

[shovenose]

For power supply, definitely go Seasonic. Nothing is better than a Seasonic

Check out SSR-360GP or SSR-450RM (both G series, one 360W, one 450W).

 

[thebluebumblebee]

The Corsair 550D, Antec P280 and Fractal Design Define R4 are good candidates for your build. The P280 is huge.
I don't really have anything to add to crazyeyesreaper's suggestions.

 

[NinjaLegolas]

Check out http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1332-page6.html

The chart shows that the Phanteks PH-TC12DX with stock fans performs worse than the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Its not really comparable temp wise to what you will get They use an Intel i7 965 thats a Nehalem CPU which is now 3 generations ago and was released in November 2008. thats 5 years old this fall. Due to the CPU design changes IHS changes difference between TIM vs Solder under the IHS things change essentially.

the Corsair 550D has sound dampening material which helps mitigate noise meaning inside the case you will never hear the cooler I also happen to own the that cooler as I myself reviewed it.

If you setup your overclock properly the PH-TC12DX will perform better and still be quiet due to the case selection. I didnt just toss those parts together I took there strengths and weakness into account.

The GTX 760 i picked is a reference card with overclocks the fans on most blower style coolers gets loud so sound dampened case helps mitigate that. The only thing missing in your build is a high capacity HDD for storage but you can grab that at any time and add it easily.

Keep in mind my noise testing is done on an OPEN test bench, on a system that is essentially passive so the only noise recorded is the Cooler and its fans etc.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Phanteks/PH-TC12DX/6.html

Now with all that said I do have a Hyper 212 EVO and I do have Haswell 4770K what I can tell you is I myself do not feel comfortable trusting the Hyper 212 EVO with anything more than a mild overclock.

If you have money to burn I would suggest the Noctua NH-U12S with a second fan but the Noctua cooler + another fan to match ends up near $80-90 range.

The cheapest cooler with decent cooling for me has been the Silverstone Argon AR03 which has proven to be fairly good for the price just the baby blue with white kinda kills it in the looks department.

 

[NinjaLegolas]

Ah, got it. Thank you again crazyeyesreaper! I'm going to pull the trigger on these parts tomorrow. I will probably stick with the faster ram and overpriced MOBO, but all other components are from your suggestions! Thank you for all of your help. I truly appreciate it!

 

[phanbuey]

just out of curiosity... what was the build in 2000?

 

[HammerON]

NinjaLegolas - please do not double post. Use the "Edit", "Multi-Quote" or "Quote" features.
I merged your last two posts.
Thanks

 

[NinjaLegolas]

If you have money to burn I would suggest the Noctua NH-U12S with a second fan but the Noctua cooler another fan to match ends up near $80-90 range.

Would the Noctua have better cooling capacity than the Phantech? The Phantech has a larger volumetric flow rate 68.5CFM than the Noctua 55CFM, but I'm not sure about the heatsink surface area of each. It would definitely be quieter, but as you stated, the sound suppressing foam in the 550D case takes care of a lot of noise.

1 more thing. I just saw an NVIDIA GTX 760 with 4Gb of ram vs 2Gb for $40 more. Think I'll go for the extra memory. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130937&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo

just out of curiosity... what was the build in 2000?

I'll have to look it up tomorrow. I can't remember everything. I remember I oc'd a pentium 4 from 2.4Ghz to 3Ghz stable on air, but that's about it. I should be able to find my old specs somewhere on my old HD. I'll post them as soon as I find it.

------------------
Final build: Thanks to all for the great advice! crazyeyesreaper

EVGA 04G-P4-2766-KR GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
$289.99

GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD5H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
$229.99

Phanteks PH-TC12DX_BK Dual 120mm PWM CPU Cooler
$49.99

LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner, Bare Drive, 3D Play Back (WH14NS40) - OEM
$68.99

Corsair Obsidian Series 550D Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
CORSAIR HX series HX650 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
$219.98

Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I74770K
G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX
$496.98

Samsung 840 Pro 256Gb
$230

Subtotal: $1,585

Pulling the trigger tomorrow. Any last minute suggestions before I ???

---------------
Thank you for helping with my double post HammerON. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

crazyeyesreaper, I don't understand your dislike of the Hyper 212's. I know of Folders using 212+'s on OC'd i7-860's running 24/7 without a problem and that generates more heat than will a Haswell. 212+'s on AMD G34 CPU's that are 125 watt processors w/o a problem. And the EVO is better than the 212+.

Another cooler to consider is the COOLER MASTER TPC 812 review

 

[DannibusX]

crazyeyesreaper, I don't understand your dislike of the Hyper 212's. I know of Folders using 212+'s on OC'd 17-860's running 24/7 without a problem and that generates more heat than will a Haswell. 212+'s on AMD G34 CPU's that are 125 watt processors w/o a problem. And the EVO is better than the 212+.

Another cooler to consider is the COOLER MASTER TPC 812 review

You only need to read the first 5 letters of his screenname to understand.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

Since you're getting a quiet build, why not a quieter graphics card? MSI GTX 760 TwinFrozr Gaming 2 GB review