Virtual world exploration + video editing?

whats your resolution? this way we can keep from under or over kill in terms of gpu power

whats your budget?

any other uses besides the video editing?

keep in mind the overclock depends mostly on the individual chip, yes cooling upgrades help but it is mainly the chip itself. think of it like this.... you bake a batch of cupcakes although the mold is identical each cupcake comes out differently. this is exactly the same for chips some overclock better the one laying right next to it or visa versa.

if your goign to purchase things outside of ds, they are not covered under warranty and you only have the manufacturer/ seller warranty. if you do that send the parts to ds so they can install them and test your computer. with out a hard drive your getting a blank system that was unable to be fully tested.

in terms of power supplies go with the corsair it is a much better quality psu it is more reliable and it has a better warranty. although we will you know exactly what psu you need after we know exactly what gpu you need, but first we need to know your budget.

you can also send them the copy of your mac os to them as well. this is a custom computer shop and they will do practically everything,if they don't have what you want they will order it or you can send it to them.

wait for real usb 3 and sata 3 to come out before you get it, right now it is fake usb sata 3. they nerfing your pcie slots for the boost to usb/sata 3. so in laymens terms your losing gpu power for usb/sata 3, in my mind not worth it.

Originally posted by Raif whats your resolution? this way we can keep from under or over kill in terms of gpu power whats your budget? any other uses besides the video editing?

@Raif Thanks for asking!

- My budget (not counting other things I'm going to add) is around $1,700 but I'm willing to be flexible if there's a phenomenally awesome "piece of the puzzle" that will help me in the long-term.

- Besides video editing, Second Life as stated. That's a big one. I'm not a heavy gamer but oh, I DO want to enjoy Deus Ex 3 to its fullest when that's out.

- I've read that about overclocking before, good analogy.

- To clarify, I'm not planning to Hackintosh this rig at all. I'm using this PC *alongside* a Mac Pro.

- Any other advocates for the 750W Corsair TX? I take it that the "Digital Storm Certified" one could be picked from a number of models?

@Dragoonseal I never heard of fake SATA III before! Thanks for the heads-up.

@Dragoonseal Thanks for the references. Always interesting when something is the "same" part, just has a different brand on it.

Also, another thought: I know while overclocking potential depends on the specific chip itself, I'd still like to optimize other elements to gain odds in my favor — for example, obviously, a better cooling system will generally allow more overclocking headroom than a mediocre one, right?

@Dragoonseal- I'll check out the HAF 932, do you know offhand if it has easy drive caddies or a way to swap drives that's more akin to the Mac Pro? That's important to me. UPDATE: Looks like HAF 932 and Sniper have similar 3.5" drive holders.

- Appreciate your cooling info, too, and I'll research that motherboard.

- I'm thinking to buy another Crucial CT128M225 (I got one for $225 on eBay awhile back for my Mac Pro) as I've had good results with it. I've seen great SandForce benchmarks in Maximum PC and others, so I'm still open to choices! My expansion HDD will likely be a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black.


Edited by Torley - 02 Aug 2010 at 11:45am

@Dragoonseal Fascinating. Can you please point me to the benchmark results re: those SSD speeds? The ones that influenced my buying decision earlier were from MacLife, which recommended the CT128M225 and noted that Mac OS X doesn't have TRIM (so this may have affected other things).

@Dragoonseal I typically google  for benchmarks but was curious if there was a particular source you found enlightening.

Any thoughts on why I might want to pick the HAF 932 over the HAF 922? I tend to prefer smaller cases, unless the extra space will help with cooling. I don't intend to expand a significant amount.

I'm thankful you've been so responsive throughout the day, Dragoonseal. I like Anandtech too but I owe it to myself to read more about their SSD info.

Well, I bit the bullet and made the order based on your recommendations! The only thing I changed was the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 to 480 — so I went a bit over but for long-term gains, I'm hopeful this'll be worth it.

I notice you have 3 x Intel X25-M G2 (80GB), but if there was a new 100-128GB SSD you'd get (from within the Intel and SandForce controller selection) on the value side, what would you specifically recommend?