My new beast opinions please

[mr gol]

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 932 FULL TOWER GAMING CASE (£120)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6T WS PROFESSIONAL: NEW ERA CORE i7 WORKSTATION
Memory (RAM)
12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (6 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID
RAID 0 (STRIPED VOLUME - 2 x same size & model HDD / SSD) (£9)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£89)
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO C240 A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£102)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series (£149)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Firewire & Video Editing
3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card (£9)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£148)
Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (Incl Disc & 1 License for 3 devices) (£89)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE already got
Monitor
IIYAMA T2250MTS 22" LCD MULTI TOUCHSCREEN, FULL HD 1920x1080 (£209)
DVI Cable
2 x 2 Metre DVI Cable (£10)
Home Installation
Technician Assisted Installation + Wireless + Family Surf Control + Data Transfer (£139)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Data Recovery
NONE
Delivery
DELIVERY BY 10 A.M WITHIN UK MAINLAND (MON - FRI) (£19)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Cost inc VAT
£2,262.00

My dream machine in my opinion and already ordered any opinions though

 

[misterdave]

Nice rig,

My personal opinion would be to drop RAID, as the on-board feature is not known for its stability especially with RAID 0 a small failure will render the system unusable.

Apart from that to system.

 

[Gishank]

First things first, what do you intend to use this PC for exactly because as far as I can tell it's fairly unbalanced spec wise.

Now some points on the build you could change, to save cash and get the best out of your system...

1) RAM - Although I do not specifically know what you intend to use your system for, I really would advise cutting down the RAM to 6GB and perhaps changing it to Samsung's 1333MHz. Mainly as 6GB is more than enough for the vast majority of tasks and the difference between 1333MHz and 1600MHz is barely noticable, on the plus side you'd save a tonne of £'s
2) Change the HDD's to Western Digital Cavier GREEN WD10EARS, they're cheapr and will perform identically. The 6GB/sec (SATA3) is designed primarily for SSD's, HDD's that are branded with support for SATA3 is more-or-less a marketing tactic.
3) Why a DVD-RW and a Blu-Ray RW? Unless you're planning to write to one disc and read from a blu-ray/dvd at the same time or directly write from one disc to another it's a waste of money.
4) Drop the processor cooling, the stock cooler will perform just fine. Unless you intend to overclock (which voids the warranty on the CPU unless you order an OC'd system from PCSpecialist) it is a pointless waste of cash.
5) Sound Card? Integrated sound card will perform just fine, it's only worth getting a standalone sound card if you intend to do intensive audio editing such as producing music. Just a note to add.
6) Change the warranty to SILVER, it's £5 but well worth it in my opinion.

With the money saved from alterations above invest it in to a superior GPU such as the GTX480 and/or perhaps an SSD (use the HDD's for data)? One final note is on RAID... RAID 0 (Basic Striping) offers a minimal performence increase at a far greater risk of data loss which just isn't worth it in my opinion, if you feel you need RAID I would advise investing in a third HDD with cash saved and requesting PCSpecialist RAID them in a RAID 5 configuration?

 

[Meds]

To follow on with the RAID comments, at the moment the RAID Controllers built into the Motherboards cannot support RAID with SATA III 6GB/s HDDs. So I'd leave RAID alone at the moment.

 

[Phoenix]

To follow on with the RAID comments, at the moment the RAID Controllers built into the Motherboards cannot support RAID with SATA III 6GB/s HDDs. So I'd leave RAID alone at the moment.

Why do you have it as an option then?

 

[mr gol]

Its meant to be fast, raid stripe is there for a reason, but will understand if your confused I have a third HDD already and another external drive hence my reasons. I want it to last me another ten years like my last PC. In a year this will be as good as my current and yes Im a DJ so high quality sound card is essential for more than one reason apart from saving my music I will be remixing it for my career. Why a DVD-RW and a Blu-Ray RW? one for burning CDs alone another for movies as not to clash. Ram will soon become important in a few years time as things get even more ram wanting. As for gold option warrranty I have done this in the best interest of myself

PS I may never use the Raid and have it off to begin with, but is there just incase

PS I use to build machines myself uptil 2000 when I got bored and went into my DJ career

 

[Sleinous]

RAM is a very easy thing to buy later as an upgrade, and you can usually get a very good deal on it if you watch carefully as to how prices react to changes in the markets worldwide, coupled with usual price decrease from cost cutting in the manufacturing process, RAM is somethjng you can save alot of money on if you buy it bit by bit, in sets of 3 if its tri-ddr and so on... Its the worst thing to buy all in one go just so you can max out your motherboard.

As for RAID, its just a suggestion, if a drive fails and you lose everything, that will be something youll have to deal with. Obviously all your other hdds will hopefully be used as backups too