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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Want to review the hw for my new PC? Advice accepted.
Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 6:25 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> Ok this is what I am planning to build next week. Looking for any blaring issues or any pitfalls that any of you may see. Any and all advise is accepted. My BIGGEST issue has been deciding on the OS. I KNOW that by years end I will upgrade to Win7 when it comes out. The initial reviews are just too good to not believe that the final release will be gold code for a while. So know that it is killing me to dump Vista 64 on this install but it's either that or XP 64.
Intel i7 920
EVGA X58 SLI 1366 ATX Motherboard
OCZ Technology Gold XTC 6GB DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800)
Cooler Master HAF932 High Air Flow Full Tower
Cooler Master Real Power Pro 750 Watt ATX Power Supply
Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10,000RPM Serial ATA-300 Hard Drive *** OS and programs ONLY ***
(3) Western Digital 2GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration for data storage.
EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 Superclocked Edition 896MB GDDR3 PCIe 2.0 Graphics Card
Microsoft OEM Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit with SP1 System Builder Version
Next month when the DroboPro's are out I've already decided that we'll be adding one on as well so the RAID on this box will only deal with the current work in progress.
No gaming is EVER played on my machines...ok maybe solitaire, but that's it. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Office are the core apps. Has anyone had any issues running an Epson 4xxx/7xxx on the 64 bit drivers? |
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Paul W Gillespie, Photographer
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Annapolis | MD | USA | Posted: 6:47 PM on 04.21.09 |
| ->> Sounds good to me. Did you mean "(3) Western Digital 2GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration for data storage" That sounds kind of small. If you don't mind me asking, did you price out this rig and if so what will it cost? I am looking into building a new system soon. I built my last one about 6-7 years ago and it may be time for a new one. |
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Kirby Yau, Photographer, Assistant
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 7:47 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> Sounds like a great system.
Never had an issue with Vista, so I'm inclined to suggest Vista.
Also follow the advice from Data Robotics and buy hard drives from different manufacturing lot numbers. This will reduce the chances of having all your drives go kaput, if there was a manufacturing defect in that group. Might be a good suggestion with the Three 2 TB WDs, especially since they are NEW and haven't really gone through trials.
Have fun putting it together. |
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Felix Marquez, Photographer
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Bethesda | MD | USA | Posted: 8:13 PM on 04.21.09 |
| ->> I second Paul on the "(3) Western Digital 2G drives" I think you meant 2TB... each. That makes more sense in this day or larger CF cards, and larger camera files... F |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 9:45 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> Paul you caught my typo. Yep 2TB drives. The system WITHOUT the (3) 2TB Western Digitals prices at $1575-ish. Here's the skinny, Micro Center has the absolute BEST price on the i7 920 ($229), they will also price match retailers AND Newegg.com.
So I'm going to buy the i7 retail at Micro Center and have them price match the rest of the parts against Newegg's which knocks another $109 off of Micro Center's prices.
I had planned to use a solid state drive for the OS but I've been reading that they aren't stable on anything short of Win7.
I already have the 2TB drives and will pickup a few more when the Drobo gets here.
Kirby I hadn't read that. In the "Old" days we'd buy 'matched' drives for RAIDs. It's been a VERY long time since I built a box. I've been very lazy and let Dell and Sony build them for me. So I'm really soft on the subject. I wonder if they 'mix' drive lots when you by a Drobo with a compliment of drives. |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 9:56 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> Has anyone had any issues running an Epson 4xxx/7xxx on the 64 bit drivers?
I briefly set up my system on Vista and ran my 9800 under Vista Ultimate x64 without any problems. Switched away from Vista for other reasons (one of my apps wouldn't run under vista). You should be good there.
Does the mobo have a built-in RAID controller? If not, which controller do you plan on using? |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 10:22 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> David yes the mobo has an on board RAID controller with support for 0, 1, 1+0 and 5. There are 9 SATA connectors on the the interal board and one on the backplane for eSATA use.
The fact that the motherboard has dual gigabit eithernet ports as well as on-board firewire (1394a), sound and tons of usb ports I can't think of anything that I would need to add. So there is a chance that I could end up playing with triple SLI video to play with. Reports are that I can use the 3 PCI ports in a 16/8/8 configuration.
I run 3 monitors now and would like to put up a 4th, SIX would be as the kids I shoot would say SICK.
I have done TONS and TONS and TONS of homework on RAID controllers. For me the best bang for the buck is the Areca 1130ML. I also liked the 1110 and 1120 depending on the size of the volume that you want to build. Also check the Areca site to be sure that you mobo is supported. |
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Joe Winn, Photographer
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Lutz | Fl | USA | Posted: 10:35 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> Honestly, I'd get an Asus motherboard. That's all I ever use and they are top notch for quality, ease of building and features.
Get a Rampage II or one of the P6 boards depending on your needs. |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 10:39 PM on 04.21.09 |
| ->> Also...forgot to mention. I'm currently running XP x64 and I'm not a fan. If you think getting vista drivers is tough, try getting some for x64. A lot of multimedia stuff won't work on it (MIDI interfaces, a couple of microphone preamp units, etc). I'll probably end up going back to Vista Ultimate since I'm done with the contract that forced me to use the previously mentioned incompatible application. Ultimate worked fine for me previously. |
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Joe Winn, Photographer
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Lutz | Fl | USA | Posted: 10:42 PM on 04.21.09 |
| ->> I bought XP64 about a year ago thinking it was the bees knees due to the Server architecture and bigger memory handling. It was crap...getting anything to work with it just plain sucked. I went with Vista Ultimate 64 and have been happy ever since. |
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Daniel Putz, Photographer
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Jefferson | MD | USA | Posted: 11:15 PM on 04.21.09 |
->> If you don't plan on gaming, drop down to the vanilla GTX 260...you'd save some $20 or so in doing so while using less power and exhausting less heat.
You'll love the i7 920/DDR3 pairing...it's ridiculously fast, and photoshop LOVES it. I run a similar system and you will absolutely love how well it runs. Nice. :) |
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Daniel Putz, Photographer
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Jefferson | MD | USA | Posted: 11:17 PM on 04.21.09 |
| ->> And for the record, I have a P6T Deluxe V2. It's extremely nice. P6T6 is also very nice...and has plenty of expansion slots for RAID cards. |
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Scott Serio, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Colora | MD | USA | Posted: 11:40 PM on 04.21.09 |
| ->> I just want to make sure...photographers talking about building PCs. Hmm. Build yourself a Mac Pro and save yourself the headache. More expensive, but they run so much cleaner. |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 12:59 AM on 04.22.09 |
->> Its a very well spec'd system overall but I think your paying a pretty big premium for whats not going to be a huge increase in performance over a system with something like a Q9550.
I don't know the exact prices today but I'd wager your spending maybe $300-400 more for the i7 system overall. The Qxxxx stuff has dropped in price a great deal in recent months and theres a lot more mobo support as well.
I've been building systems for about 10 years now and have always found that the latest and greatest is never close to giving you most bang for the buck. If you can get about 90% of the performance for about 50% of the cost I think its a bit silly to buy anything more unless you simply like being able to have the latest and greatest.
I've still one system at home with just a Q6600 and it can handle anything and everything I throw at it without breaking a sweat really. Thats a system that I put together for just a few hundred dollars, serious bang for the buck.
Computers, cars, guitars, racing bikes, stereo systems, photo gear etc. Always a very huge premium to pay for every little extra 1/10th of performance you hope to squeeze out of it. Nothing wrong with going for the best, and more power to anyone who can afford it and enjoys it, but the law of diminishing returns is always a reality. |
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Joe Winn, Photographer
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Lutz | Fl | USA | Posted: 1:29 AM on 04.22.09 |
->> +1
I've been building for around 10 years myself. I NEVER buy the latest greatest.
I have two puters in my home now that I use for work and play. One is a Q9300 based Intel system and the other is a AMD X4 II 940 system. Both blow through Photoshop, Lightroom and some of today's games like butta.
But I build for performance value/bang for the buck...not for ultimate badassness ;) |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 8:32 AM on 04.22.09 |
->> Jeff the pricing diff between an i7 and a q6600 is about $15. The socket 1366 mother board and a comparable socket 775 makers for about $100 diff. Memory prices were within $50 between the DDR2 and DDR3 for the same amount of RAM.
The case,ps,Raptor, and OS are none variables in the equation so that only leaves the video card and who knows maybe next week someone actually writes a game that I really would want to play.
I know what you're saying about getting the top of the line, and if I were building a box around one of the $1000 extreme processors I'd agree with you. It's not like I'm building Tom's $6000 beast of the beasts machine. I set a reasonable budget for IT purchases this year and had planned on building myself a new box and an external fileserver/raid box. Drobo came out with a product that will save me the hassle of #2 and the $1600 on my machine is well below what I had originally budgeted for.
Joe If I were building for 'badassness' I would have gone with an i7 extreme, water cooling, triple SLI video, 15K SAS drives. Oh I would have dyed the water red and used a diaphragm pump so that the coolant/machine blood would look like a heartbeat. Maybe the next one ;)
I'm happy to see that the aren't (m)any issues with Vista and the apps that most of us run. |
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Rich Gabrielson, Photographer
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Rapid City | SD | USA | Posted: 3:39 PM on 04.22.09 |
->> Eric,
Sounds like you have been doing your research. I like the case choice. It is nice to have something that ‘breathes’ and it looks like everything is nicely accessible. I had a machine that would overheat when put under stress, and changing to a well ventilated case with some good fans like you have chosen helped immensely.
I like the motherboard especially with all of the SATA connections. I would maybe consider going RAID 0+1 (mirrored plus striped) since you have that option, but that would mean you would have to buy a 4th data drive – you have the case for it. I ran a striped (striped only) set for awhile and really liked the speed until a drive failed one day, and I was SOL, but that was striped only - with 0+1 you would also have the redundancy.
I also like that the MB has eSATA. Not sure about the 1394a, is that 400 only?
Anyway, when I am about to undertake something like you are, I build a spreadsheet to list out and play with the options/prices. Then go through the stages of
a. This is fun!
b. This sucks, I’m never doing this again – what was I thinking!
c. And hopefully - Cool! It Works!
I also think like you and others have said that buying the latest and greatest is expensive, but by getting the ‘pretty late and pretty great’ stuff, you can build a machine that will have a longer useful life, and if you consider the time you put into building the machine, loading the OS and Software, transferring data, etc. I think that tradeoff is worth consideration.
Let us know how it works out!
Rich |
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Joe Winn, Photographer
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Lutz | Fl | USA | Posted: 3:57 PM on 04.22.09 |
->> I would like to SUGGEST the Antec 900 case.
Truely badass case, extreme cooling and lots of free bays.
I can give you one really good reason to not run a RAID 0 or any combination of striping if you use the onboard RAID controller...which you are not, but still...throwing it out there ;)
I use a couple of WD 160 drives in a RAID 0 on my computer that I use in our "Mobile Photo Shop"...this computer serves 8 others in our trailer where we show photos immediately after the games end. ANYWAY...the USB header failed on the Motherboard. This makes the mobo toast because it will no longer boot...it will post, it won't let you into bios and will not boot. This happened on site 2 saturdays ago while our trailer was full of people! You can not recover data from a RAID 0 unless you plug it into the exact same RAID controller (mine was ICH9R). So...our pictures from Fri and Sat were lost until the warranty replacement came in Wednesday! Needless to say it killed us for on site sales.
But if I used a plug in RAID controller I could have just taken the card out and put it in another computer and retreived the photos. Learned a lesson that day. |
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Rich Gabrielson, Photographer
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Rapid City | SD | USA | Posted: 4:22 PM on 04.22.09 |
->> Joe,
The Antec case you suggested is the one that worked for me. I now have two of them:)
RAID 0 is fun while it lasts, but a failed drive makes for a bad day(s) as you have said. 0+1 is the cadillac with like pricetag.
The point you bring up makes me wonder what would happen to a RAID 5 moved to a different controller card. A mirrored set would have all data on both drives, but RAID 5 also distributes data between the drives and can recover from a single failed drive, but I have never tried moving a RAID 5 from one type of controller to another. If you set up a RAID 5 and the MB fails (MB RAID)OR the controller card fails, you may have the same problem.
Guessing you are mirroring now?
Rich |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 4:26 PM on 04.22.09 |
->> i7 stuff must have gone down a good deal recently. Last time I priced them they were around $350ish for a 920. Crazy how quickly pc prices drop every passing month. If only Nikon lenses could follow suit instead of getting more expensive lol
I might caution against the EVGA video cards though, I went though a couple of them and the fans on the heatsink kept dying and also couldnt dynamically control the speed when they did work. I dont know if thats a fair thing to judge them on but it sort of made me swear off that brand.
Given I'm just using CS3 I'm actually using one of the ASUS silent pc vid cards, rather outdated 9500 I think it is, but it works fine for me limited needs and as its passively cooled, totally silent. I do have a low RPM 120cm fan on the case though which does provide about an extra 5 degree C cooling.
Modern video card fans just drive me crazy these days as they are always the loudest part of a pc, running about 40+ db like a little hairdryer. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 4:37 PM on 04.22.09 |
->> Joe good to know. This machine will not be going on the road. My travel machine doesn't use any RAID, I keep it very simple with a 250gb for the OS/CS2/Event program and a 1.5 TB for the files as they are dumped. For redundancy the cards are ingested into a laptop that has the ability to go live as the event server while we (shudder) repair the server.
The boot drive has mirror that is stored in my Oh-Sh1t computer repair tackle box. While I've only done it in testing I can tear out a bum boot drive and replace it with my backup drive and be back in business in under 15 minutes. Worst case if the data drive craps out I can throw a spare in the box and pull the laptop hd and throw it on a ide to usb adapter cable. The system will see the laptop drive and allow me to copy the raw files back to the event server.
In case you are wondering, the oh-sh1t case contains...... a spare boot HD with all of the software that we use, an empty/formatted 500gb drive, 2 sticks of memory for the server and 3 sticks for the viewing stations 3 replacement fans, an adapter cable that will allow either standard or 2.5 ide drives to plug into a USB port and a spare keyboard (the silicone kind that rolls up) as well as a ps2 mouse. There's also the requisite tool kit canned air and tidbits that have been leftover from other machine mods.
I feel for you on that blown motherboard. I would have been going nuts |
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Joe Winn, Photographer
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Lutz | Fl | USA | Posted: 5:27 PM on 04.22.09 |
->> Any RAID set up that uses striping will need to use the same controller it was created on.
Keep a spare card or mobo ;) |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 12:24 AM on 04.24.09 |
->> And so the adventure begins...... Been building and installing since 5pm. After putting in 7 hours all I can think is..... WHY? Just had my first Vista 64 hissy fit. Dreamweaver CS3 does NOT like Vista 64. But after playing a hunch I've got that working. CS2 on the other hand installed just fine.
Will someone explain why anyone would package a power supply in a VELVET sack. I mean it isn't a bottle of Crown Royal, it's a POWER SUPPLY!!! Seem to me that someone should yank Corsair's 'green' rating. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 12:34 AM on 04.24.09 |
->> Oh for those keeping score I upgraded the ps to a Corsair 850w otherwise went as spec'ed above. pre-tax retail $1449.35 plus there is $65 in rebates coming back so that puts the build at $1384.35 without the 3 2tb drives. I'm still planning on buying those as a bulk deal when the Drobo Pros start shipping.
All in all I'm very happy with the price point.
The video card came in at $110.99 after rebate !!! I should have bought 2 at that price. Got the memory for $74.92 after rebate. Micro Center has the i7 920's selling at $229 retail boxed w/ cooler. |
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Joe Winn, Photographer
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Lutz | Fl | USA | Posted: 12:39 AM on 04.24.09 |
->> I use Corsair modular power supplies in both my PCs. They work great.
I was going to mention that but I forgot ;) |
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Jim Pierce, Photographer
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Waltham | MA | usa | Posted: 10:13 PM on 05.01.09 |
->> Eric,
Just curious as if this has been worth your time/effort and possible frustration? I am looking at a new PC(s) and am leaning towards having it built as I spec. With Little League/HS/College sports in full swing and the senior banquets/days coming up not sure it would be worth my time/effort vs paying someone who does it for a living a few bucks.
Jim |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | US | Posted: 12:17 AM on 05.02.09 |
| ->> $1400 plus labor and headache? |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 2:23 AM on 05.02.09 |
->> Jim, have you ever done anything like installed a new modem or hard drive into your pc ? Basically if you were able to do that you can build a pc quite easily. It really only takes maybe 15-20 minutes to actually assemble the parts all together.
Put the power supply into the case if you didnt buy a case that already has a PS. Attach the processor to the mainboard and the heatsink to the processor, apply a thermal compound between them. Attach mainboard to case. Insert RAM chips into motherboard. Attach video card. Install hardrive(s) into case, along with optical drives. connect drives to motherboard, along with power supply cables and power button, front panel USB ports, case fan etc. Your done with the actual build part. Maybe 30 minutes tops. Then boot it up, install your OS of choice and then the correct drivers and your off and running.
There can be some kinks as far as drivers and stuff go, such as if your trying to install Win XP which doesn't have a SATA driver but they can all be pretty easily worked around and Vista works fine if thats your choice.
Certainly nothing wrong with paying someone to do it but someone who does it for a living is going to charge you far more than a few bucks, more like several hours labor at $75/hr and up.
DIY and you can save at least 50% over the price of custom built turnkey systems on average and you'll usually end up with better hardware as well since you usually dont have much choice in terms of MB's, RAM brand etc with turnkey systems |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 11:45 AM on 05.02.09 |
->> Jim, Jeff is right, assembly is a 30 minute process. It has been the configuration and hunting down of drivers that has caused me rashes. You can pay one of the techs at Micro Center to build and install the OS for you. From my experience though that was the EASY part. Moving up to the 64 bit platform has meant finding AND LEARNING TO USE new drivers for some of my hardware.
The Epson 64bit driver looks and acts NOTHING like the 32 bit version that I was used to. I wasn't able to figure out how to move some of the paper setups that I have custom tweaked over time so I've had to recreate those along the way too. This is the part that no one you pay will be able to do for you. Unless you have them come to you and spend time going through your processes to make sure that there aren't any surprises waiting for you. There is no 64bit driver for the laser printer that I used to print shipping labels, so I'm sol there too.
I kept the 'old' machine intact opting to not pull anything out of it. So while I have transitioned to the new beast I have had the old and trusty mare plodding along. As time permitted I migrated to the new box. The migration took 4 days to get done and I'm still finding odds and ends that need to be replicated. Again nothing that a paid tech would have been able to do (IMO).
The new machine processes images for posting in LESS than 1/4 of the time that the old machine would take to size the same folder. All my programs load instantly, in some cases the speed difference is just plain jaw dropping. I was able to re-index 250,000 files in just a few minutes, something that the old machine would take 45-60 minutes to do, assuming that NOTHING else was running.
Yes the new box it worth it, just keep the old machine online and migrate to the new computer in stages.
For the record I went back and bought a 2nd video card (same one). At $110 after rebate I just couldn't resist.
Delane I'm not TRULY happy unless there is a headache or nightmare looming. I'm just one of those idiots that waits until April 15th at 5pm to start filing my taxes ;) |
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