25 replies to this topic

[Catman]

Guys, please stop. There is no need for this.

I went to Tiger Direct and found out some information that will lead me to have a final decision on some parts.

I will explain later tomorrow since I am heading out for a cousin's wedding.

Thanks,

Catman

[Catman]

To clear things up:

Oddball - you asked me if I was doing any editing or something like that. Well, I am installing AutoCAD since I am an architecture student. Not sure if this is relevent.

Anyways, after researching and exploring, this is what I came up with:

I used newegg.ca site but some of them are avialable at Tiger Direct. Some I will purchase online.

Video Card:
http://www.newegg.co...16814130787#top - I have a question: is there a difference between this card and this one ? (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130810) It is 100 dollars difference, why I am asking.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813157265 - Creamzor - the one you suggested to me was nice, but it only had one 3.0 PCI slot, this motherboard allows me to put two compatible graphics cards on the motherboard and the option of dual graphics cards. That way I can upgrade in the future. Is this a bad idea or?

PSU:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817139010 - I brought this already. Too nice to walk outta Tiger Direct without it.

CPU:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115095 - Ten extra dollars for an additional .1 GHz; does it not matter?

Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822136533 - This is 1TB, am I overreacting or it 500 MB nuff?

Cooling:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835181017 - The person at Tiger Direct recommonded this so that I can overclock. Not sure what this means and I think I heard him correctly.

Case:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119260 - I was kinda lost on this part. Suggestions would be nice.

Anyways, that is what I came up with so far and is considered my list #2. My list #3 will likely be my final decision and my very fist custom build.

So, any suggestions and tips? Am I missing anything that I need? I am all ears and as I mentioned above, the posts did help me.

Thanks!

Catman

[Wolf68k]

The reason he asked was because that would determined how much RAM you should have. AutoCAD is a 3D model type program, correct? If so then it's going to eat up RAM so you'll want a lot of it, 12+GB. If this is just for gaming then 4-8GB should be fine; I believe you mentioned BF3 so I would suggest 8GB.

[thee_oddball]

To clear things up:

Oddball - you asked me if I was doing any editing or something like that. Well, I am installing AutoCAD since I am an architecture student. Not sure if this is relevent.

I asked because there are programs that will benefit from hyper threading as for autoCAD it appears that it does not

AutoCAD is not multithreaded and won't use more than one core much less use hyperthreading. It will however make use of the fastest single core that you can get for it, and a fast disk system. In my experience with autocad I think an SSD is a good improvement for a system. It is very unusual to find drawings that AutoCAD won't run in 4GB of ram so more ram and 64bit OS is wasted on it. Also there might be AutoCAD add-ons that require 32bit to run, just depends on his particular industry. We have those things in our industry and our cad technicians that have 64 bit machines just can't use them. Also with the 64 bit OS he will likely have trouble getting drivers for that gaming video card that will work with autocad. He can go on Autodesk's website and check to see if that particular card is recommended or not. We could not get them to work on our 64-bit machines and had to go with ATI FireGL and Nvidia Quadro cards. There might be other programs used in his industry that can benefit from a 64-bit OS, there are in our industry and that is why some of our guys run 64-bit machines. There is this mystery that 3D drawings require more power but they don't because all drawings in autocad actually store 3D information but just view it in a 2D fashion. There is also frequent discussion here about rendering but that actually requires less horsepower than other autocad tasks and isn't a defining factor. Having enough speed to open the files is the big thing. We get data files from our clients upwards of 4MB and they sometimes take a minute or more to open on our overclocked Intel machines. Once opened they can be manipulated pretty quickly, but waiting for them to open really kills our productivity.

you will want to double check this with the CAD folks, have to go to work will continue this later

[DerRaucher]

You still know only the third generation of the Intel cpu's are supporting PCI e3.0?
And after reading your posts, it looks like you are not a pro in pc's, catman. But you have some parts in your list for overclocking. Cpu, Board and cooler. That are surely now 100dollar more as you need.
You could spend the money for a SSD.

[thee_oddball]

To clear things up:

Oddball - you asked me if I was doing any editing or something like that. Well, I am installing AutoCAD since I am an architecture student. Not sure if this is relevent.

Anyways, after researching and exploring, this is what I came up with:

I used newegg.ca site but some of them are avialable at Tiger Direct. Some I will purchase online.

Video Card:
http://www.newegg.co...16814130787#top - I have a question: is there a difference between this card and this one ? (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130810) It is 100 dollars difference, why I am asking.
this should help you make up your mind http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/8

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813157265 - Creamzor - the one you suggested to me was nice, but it only had one 3.0 PCI slot, this motherboard allows me to put two compatible graphics cards on the motherboard and the option of dual graphics cards. That way I can upgrade in the future. Is this a bad idea or?

pci 3.0 is great if your running 3-4 GPU'S as for the board you selected it is one card at PCI 3.0 x16 and 2 @ x8 which is the same as 2x16 in pci 2,0

Ultimately what is clear is that 8GB/sec of bandwidth, either in the form of PCIe 2 x16 or PCIe 3 x8, will be necessary to completely feed the 7970. 16GB/sec (PCIe 3 x16) appears to be overkill for a single card at this time, and 4GB/sec or 2GB/sec will bottleneck the 7970 depending on the game. The good news is that even at 2GB/sec the bottlenecking is rather limited, and based on our selection of benchmarks it looks like a handful of games will be bottlenecked. Still, there’s a good argument here that 7970CF owners are going to want a PCIe 3 system to avoid bottlenecking their cards – in fact this may be the greatest benefit of PCIe 3 right now, as it should provide enough bandwidth to make an x8/x8 configuration every bit as fast as an x16/x16 configuration, allowing for maximum GPU performance with Intel’s mainstream CPUs.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7970-reprise-pcie-bandwidth-overclocking-and-msaa

PSU:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817139010 - I brought this already. Too nice to walk outta Tiger Direct without it.

CPU:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115095 - Ten extra dollars for an additional .1 GHz; does it not matter?

100MHz do you have a list of software you will be using? make it will need or benefit from a cpu with HT if not the 2500K is still the best choice BFB

Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822136533 - This is 1TB, am I overreacting or it 500 MB nuff?

NO 500MB is not enough I would stick with the 500GB and get another 1TB or 500gb usb 3.0 external just for the sake of portability.

Cooling:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835181017 - The person at Tiger Direct recommonded this so that I can overclock. Not sure what this means and I think I heard him correctly.

new ro OC? then you have ALOT of reading todo! what ever CPU you decide on I would goto to http://www.overclock.../overclock_faq/
and first try with stock equipment and then move up to WC when you are more comfortable.

Case:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119260 - I was kinda lost on this part. Suggestions would be nice.

air flow is always important especially if you are OCing or plan to , here is a case with nice airflow and USB 3.0/Audio and e-sata front ports http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119197

Anyways, that is what I came up with so far and is considered my list #2. My list #3 will likely be my final decision and my very fist custom build.

So, any suggestions and tips? Am I missing anything that I need? I am all ears and as I mentioned above, the posts did help me.

Thanks!

Catman