Pre-purchase advice and case guidance please

[pethar]

Hi

I'm on the brink of shelling out around £1k on a new PC base unit, as mine is 7 years old and dying fast.

I've put together a spec that I think is pretty well suited to my needs - photo and video editing primarily - and that will stand the test of time and last another 7 years.

I'd be grateful for any comments on the spec below, and also on cases. I've put the Storm Sniper case in the spec, but that's more on looks and the front connectors being at the top rather than necessarily being the best. Would one of the cheaper choices be as good?

COOLERMASTER CM STORM SNIPER - NEXT GEN GAMING CASE (£129)
Intel® Core™i7-870 Quad Core (2.93GHz, 8MB Cache) + Turbo Boost
ASUS® P7P55D-E: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ SUPPORT
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 2GB KIT)
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5770 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
TITAN FENRIR EXTREME DIRECT TOUCH COPPER CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE (£25)
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£108)
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)


I'll point out that I plan to add either a second 1TB HDD (Samsung Spinpoint F3) or possibly a Kingston 64GB SSD boot drive instead, after delivery as well as a dual TV tuner (as it's cheaper than getting it done by PC Specialist on build).

Thoughts appreciated.

Thanks


Peter

 

[Meds]

Hi Peter,

Welcome to the forums!

The specification as a whole looks great, however some will say that you would be better off with an nVidia Graphics Card for the editing work due to their CUDA Cores. An nVidia equivalent of the HD 5770 would be the GTS450 or 768MB GTX460.

In regards to case, the Sniper is good, the only other cases I would recommend that are cheaper than the Sniper are the HAF 922 & CM690 MKII Advanced. What is it in particular you need (front connections)?

 

[Sleinous]

Welcome!

I like the HDD config here, as for the Titan CPU cooler, if you need to make money before upgrading the GPU, consider lowering it to stock or to the £19 one

 

[pethar]

Thanks Meds

Advice taken on the GPU - will take a look at nVidia cards. I've only got experience of ATI cards, so naturally went for a DX11 mid range card from them first off!

My case requirements are pretty minimal, given that I'm not a gamer, the unit won't move once installed, and I'm not into OCing, so I don't envisage wanting to add lots more fans into the case.

I guess my actual requirements for a front panel would be a couple of USB for memory sticks, headphone, mic and possibly and e-SATA.

The Sniper looks good (but my wife would say it's too inductrial!), and has a good range of front connections, fan control etc though I'm not sure whether they'd all get utilised.... The CM690 MKII Advanced is probably a better blend, looks more 'normal' and has, if I read correctly, 3 case fans as standard?

Thanks

Peter

 

[Gorman]

My vote:

Change GPU for the 450
Change Case to the Sileo
Change Psu to 650w Corsair.

These will make for a long lived machine.