Advice for Casual User

Budget:
$2,500-ish

Usage:
This will be my main workstation from my home office. I am going to be working remotely after a relocation for a firm that runs Windows Server 2008R2 terminal services. I'll be connecting to that server for access to all necessary work applications. I'll be using a dual monitor setup, so I'll need that to work as well. (Though I'm sure all this is easily accomplished with every setup here). I may also be using this machine with VMWare to load different environments in order to debug some things for work. The reason basically being for the convenience of leveraging my local resources instead of our servers.

I also casually play some games (no FPS, I get motion sickness when playing them ) Starcraft II, Fifa 12, and I want to be able to run Football Manager 2013, and Diablo III (yet to purchase either).

I want this machine to last me for at least 5 years running those types of games. (I'm not really worried about everyday applications). I just want something that will last and be able to grow with me. I don't want to have to worry about upgrading because in 5 years I'll be in a position to get a new one if I really want something hardcore.

What I was thinking:
The build I was looking into was the Level 4 Bolt. The reason I wanted the level 4 is the 16GB of RAM. I'd like to never have to worry about that side of things especially with the possibility of the multiple VM loads.

I wanted to upgrade the OS hard drive to the 480 GB Corsair SSD and keep the 1 TB 2nd hard drive.

At this point I wanted to bring the cost down. The easiest way for me to do that is in the Video Card. I just didn't want to throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak. I was thinking of downgrading from the GTX Titan to the GTX 670 4GB. Is this too big a step down to keep me happy? Should I just pony up the money and get the Titan? I had read that the 670 and 680 were close enough in performance that the cost savings on the 670 made sense.

Finally, I noticed on other builds, there was an option to upgrade the fans. Is this necessary? Also, it's not an option on the Bolt, but can it be if it will make the computer quieter or cooler?

Wow that was a mouthful. Thanks for the help with this. I'm looking forward to moving forward in building out my home office/man cave.

If time isn't a major concern, you might wait and see what the final prices are on the 770, which is due out very soon (I think reference cards for the 770 are supposed to come out May 30th, of course that doesn't necessarily mean DS will have them that quickly). From what I've read the 770 will even have a slight performance edge on the 680.

I tried my best:

Ticket Number: 830724 $2,727

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Digital Storm ODE V3
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K 3.50 GHz (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LX (Intel Z77 Chipset) (Does Not Support SLI)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 750W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold Rated (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (480GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Neutron GTX Series) (SATA 6Gbps)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital/Seagate (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (Includes PhysX)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (High Performance Cooler)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock CPU 4.0GHz to 4.4GHz
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty



Or

Price: 2,756.00
Ticket Number: 830728

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K 3.50 GHz (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LX (Intel Z77 Chipset) (Does Not Support SLI)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 750W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold Rated (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (480GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Neutron GTX Series) (SATA 6Gbps)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital/Seagate (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (Includes PhysX)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (High Performance Cooler)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock CPU 4.0GHz to 4.4GHz
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

Edited by ArkansasWoman777 - 23 May 2013 at 12:18pm

Sorry I meant RAID 0. (Whichever RAID setup that has the striping) I was thinking of using 2 3TB drives instead of 1 SSD and 1 3TB. The space will be useful for storing replicas of VMs locally. And the striping would increase the read/writes on the drives to make any simple games I'm playing quicker correct?

I spoke with Mike in sales.

He said that you can put hard drives in RAID modes if it is appropriate. So I was thinking 2 3 TB drives or possibly 2 SSDs in RAID 0. Apart from the obvious issues associated with any RAID configuration, he said it was possible to do it on the BOLT, you just have to note it in the special instructions text box on your order.

Good info !

Congrats.   That Bolt is alot of power in a small package.     

Congrats :[]

Dang, I came in here a little late.
You made a good choice. The extra memory will allow you to have plenty for the OS and the VM's
One thing to note is that VMware is very disk intensive and it is best to keep your VMs on a separate drive than the host operating system.
As such, I would kill the raid and use the second SSD for your VMS.
It would really help and make them run almost as fast as the host Operating system.

Congrats on your purchase
Post up when it arrives. It will be like christmas morning for a 4 year old
:D

Still waiting, but it is currently in transit. I'm soooooooooooo excited. It's been about a month since the purchase, and the Stage 7 passing email said that they were able to overclock the processor to 4.5Ghz. This is by far the nicest build I've ever had. I'm not sure that it's going to live up to my expectations, but that's probably because I'm imagining unicorns, rainbows and angels coming out of the box when I open it.

Thanks again all for all the help.