Need help/advice/feedback on my specs...

[shhibby]

Hi there,

Thanks for taking the time to look at my post. I basically need the computer to be a lsightly high end, effective and efficient one. I dont game, but do video editing and and photo editing as well.
I dont want something that will 'just' do the job.. I need something so that if i ever want to do something, i never have to think about having lack of computer power to do it....

Thanks again, and look forward to your advice.

S.


Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-875K Quad Core (2.93GHz, 8MB Cache) + Turbo Boost
Motherboard
ASUS® P7P55D-E: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£90)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£78)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Gamer (£59)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
TV Card
HAUPPAUGE HI-DEF SATELITTE DVB-S2 TV RECIEVER (WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£147)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,459.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Sleinous]

First things first, The K series processors are for overclockers, do you plan on overlocking?

With this particular CPU teh 870 is an idenatical chip, just the K series has an unlocked multiplier that enables much much easier overclocking.

Next up, onboard sound is more than ample for gaming and listening to music, I cant see anything that you said teh comp may be used for that would warrant the soundcard, but I may be wrong

Another thing, any reason you chose the PCI-E wireless adapter as opposed to teh PCI? They are identical, same speed and performance, just two different standards, as a rule of thumb id try and fill up your older standard (i.e. PCI) first before filling up the newer standard, PCI-E (because there are far more cards out there that will slot into PCIe x16/x8/x4/x1 lane sthan teh standard older PCI lane).

The rest of teh spec looks perfect, but do you really need Win7 Ultimate? You may want to check the differences again just to be sure.

Finally, here is a spec that would outperform the current spec by a long-shot and cost about the same:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 DELUXE: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ / SLI SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£90)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W PRO SERIES (HX750) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£119)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
TV Card
HAUPPAUGE HI-DEF SATELITTE DVB-S2 TV RECIEVER (WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£147)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,416.00 including VAT and delivery.

You may have noticed that my spec uses a PCI-E WLAN card, this is because I can not spec this with a PCI card SHOULD you wish to add a second GTX 460 in SLI, due to teh TV Receiver already taking up one PCI slot, and GTX 460 cards take up two widths, so you wouldnt be able to fit the PCI WLAN card in because the second GTX 460 would be covering the second PCI slot. (hence teh Power Supply Unit). Speaking of which, I chose teh HX750W over the TX750W as its a modular PSU, much nicer to work with later on if you need to move cables as most of them are plugged into sockets on the PSU rather than hard-wired into it.

Do bear in mind that if you dont have any intention whatsoever, to SLI two GTX 460s later on for a bit of gaming or something, then, you can ditch teh PSU and go for a TX650W, and you can ditch teh PCI-E WLAN card and go for the PCI WLAN card.

 

[bg92]

Do think that you would be overclocking you pc at some point?
Do you really need the soundcard? Usally there isn't much difference between the onboard sound.
Do plan on gmaing at some point or a you sure that you will not be playing any games?

 

[Freeley]

Nice.
You might want to consider the new sandy bridge cpu's though - you would get more performance with the i7-2600 (k version if you wanted to overclock) or probably even the i5 2500 (k). I was pleasantly surprised by the price as well.
Also consider upping your PSU just in case you want to sli your graphics cards in the future (it doesn't cost much more to get an 850W).
The graphics card is a pretty good one, i had one in my first spec but eventually changed it to a 570 for a bit more future proofness.
Going by your needs i wouldn't have thought you'd need the sound card, the onboard is plenty good enough - i plan on doing a fair bit of gaming but the onboard is still fine for this.

Edit: took too long to write this, been beaten to it!

 

[shhibby]

First things first, The K series processors are for overclockers, do you plan on overlocking?

With this particular CPU teh 870 is an idenatical chip, just the K series has an unlocked multiplier that enables much much easier overclocking.

Next up, onboard sound is more than ample for gaming and listening to music, I cant see anything that you said teh comp may be used for that would warrant the soundcard, but I may be wrong

Another thing, any reason you chose the PCI-E wireless adapter as opposed to teh PCI? They are identical, same speed and performance, just two different standards, as a rule of thumb id try and fill up your older standard (i.e. PCI) first before filling up the newer standard, PCI-E (because there are far more cards out there that will slot into PCIe x16/x8/x4/x1 lane sthan teh standard older PCI lane).

The rest of teh spec looks perfect, but do you really need Win7 Ultimate? You may want to check the differences again just to be sure.

Finally, here is a spec that would outperform the current spec by a long-shot and cost about the same:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 DELUXE: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ / SLI SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£90)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W PRO SERIES (HX750) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£119)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
TV Card
HAUPPAUGE HI-DEF SATELITTE DVB-S2 TV RECIEVER (WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£147)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,416.00 including VAT and delivery.

You may have noticed that my spec uses a PCI-E WLAN card, this is because I can not spec this with a PCI card SHOULD you wish to add a second GTX 460 in SLI, due to teh TV Receiver already taking up one PCI slot, and GTX 460 cards take up two widths, so you wouldnt be able to fit the PCI WLAN card in because the second GTX 460 would be covering the second PCI slot. (hence teh Power Supply Unit). Speaking of which, I chose teh HX750W over the TX750W as its a modular PSU, much nicer to work with later on if you need to move cables as most of them are plugged into sockets on the PSU rather than hard-wired into it.

Do bear in mind that if you dont have any intention whatsoever, to SLI two GTX 460s later on for a bit of gaming or something, then, you can ditch teh PSU and go for a TX650W, and you can ditch teh PCI-E WLAN card and go for the PCI WLAN card.

Hi there!!
Thanks so much for your indepth feedback. Really appreciate you guys taking the time out to go in depth with this..

1st.
Half of what you said, is gonna take many more reads and googles to actually make sense to me, as i am quite the beginner, I'm quite use to Dell made pcs where all i do is check the basics and order it in, hence the gold warranty, also a perk with Dells..

2nd.
my brother just got an Imac.. with all the new features including 8gb ram, and an i7 processor(i think), that was pretty much the only reason i was going for the same so i could debate the Pro-Pc argument a little better.
Windows Ultimate? Just to try it out, im sure i wont use half the features, but gotta try it anyways...

3rd
Used the PCI-e adapter for wireless for the same reason i think u did, which is that the script did not allow me to proceed as i had used up all my PCI slots...

4th.
this 4th one im going to write as a general post, cause i'd be so interested to hear everyones views:

 

[shhibby]

First of all, thank you to all of you for your feedback, I will consider it all, and let you know the final out come...

However, I had a question:

I want to attach a tv card to my PC, and have a satellite, or sky input to it, and than output it to a tv. The Tv would work as a 2nd monitor, but normally just play tv as normal, even if its through my pc. in this way I intend on using my PC as a recorder and manager, and media player, also lessening the clutter that will be associated. plus, im lazy and would rather just sit on one chair and control everything.

Would the given ram, of 4gb be enough? and is such a structure even possible? Can u suggest some hardware for this?

thank you all in advance, i look forward to the replys.

S.

 

[Sleinous]

yeah, teh first half may be a little confusing but just remember this, the 2600K and teh 2600 (just an example) are identical chips, just the K series has an unlocked 'multiplier' which u dont needta know about if you wont overclock at all. But for your info it just helps with overclocking basically.

 

[shhibby]

yeah, teh first half may be a little confusing but just remember this, the 2600K and teh 2600 (just an example) are identical chips, just the K series has an unlocked 'multiplier' which u dont needta know about if you wont overclock at all. But for your info it just helps with overclocking basically.

Nice... thanks...

any thoughts on my post after that?

 

[Sleinous]

As for your second post, im pretty sure that that is what the Hauppage bit is about. The fact that a TV will be connected is relatively irrelevant It willact as a secondary display that you can switch over to with a few keyboard strokes. The complicated bit is, DOES the hauppage act as a satellite receiver or just a regular aerial receiver? This is what you need to find out Yes 4GB RAM will still be ample.

 

[PCS]

I can confirm that 4GB of RAM will be more than sufficient for your requirements, and the TV card will carry out the processing of the signal and output to your TV.