Hi, need help and advice.

[Dave159]

Hello all,

I'm hoping to learn the possible options for quite a powerful system with the help and knowlege
from you guys.

My budget is around £1600 without a monitor and keyboard etc. I need a
very quiet system for music creation and the ability for certain software to make use of the cores
in the graphics card ( like Luxrender raytracing) . I'm also interested in Cuda programming.
And the occasional 3D game in the not too distant future.

Firstly I would be interested to know if pcspecialist will be installing the new
Ivy bridge processors in the coming weeks?

A friend recommended me to pcspecialist and I must say, to
be able select within reason the components I need for a system is fantastic.
I always purchased from Dell. But from now on its going to be
pcspecialist.

Thanks
Dave

 

[Music Guy123]

For your question about ivy bridge, I would say PCS would be one of the first places to stock them. For your system, if you were going to buy now, I would get something like this:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX***SPECIAL***
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB (Special Offer)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£159)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,492.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-sandy-bridge-pc/

The gpu is probably overkill but you may as well. Also, the PSU is serious overkill but I chose a modular to help with cable management. I also chose that size so that you could add another 580 later on.

 

[Dave159]

Music Guy123, thanks

thats a very good system. I don't mind waiting for the Ivy bridge and I think
Nvidia have some new cards coming.

Dave

 

[Music Guy123]

Yup, that is true, I know the first IVY Bridge CPUs are coming out on the 8th April. I don't know when nVidia 6xx series will be coming but they will be powerful! I'd say they will be before IVY Bridge but am not certain. I think the GPUs were supposed to come out around Christmas time but got delayed by some reason.

 

[JunkieXcel]

Ivybridge won't be dramatically different than current Sandybridge processors. It'll have a faster IGPU in quad core processors, will run cooler and consume less power, but it is unlikely to bring dramatic performance increases. Leaked Intel slides show that each IB CPU will run about 100 MHz or so faster than the equivalent Sandybridge CPUs and the architecture apparently will be about 7-10% faster per clock than Sandybridge. Perhaps the main draw may be for those who plan to overclock their systems. Sandybridge already overclockrs fairly well but IB should clock even higher.

IB will be interesting in the laptop space as it promises more performance with less power draw and will run cooler, but you are not going to miss out too much if you plum for and existing Sandybridge CPU.

As for graphics card you can't go wrong with the 560 ti 1.25gig or if your budget can stretch, the 7950. Nvidia will likely release an upper mid end card in a few months which may be close to the 7950 but anything more powerful is likely a while off.

Both Ivybridge and the new Nvidia cards are likely to be initially quite expensive when they first release.