YYAYAYAYEEAAHHH!!! New PC time!!

So it's been a long time coming but i have finally decided to get myself a new pc... well to buy the parts to build one! I just had a question to ask the opinions of my esteemed members on here.
So far here is the spec, i pan on upgrading the GPU and ram in the future but for the moment it was what i had to hand to get started with:

NZXT Source 340
MSI Z97 Gaming 3
2x2gb OCZ OC3 Gold RAM
2x2gb OCZ OC3 Platinum RAM
VTX3D Radeon HD7700 1gb GDDR5
2x2tb WD Green
1x128gb Toshiba SSD
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX650G

The only thing missing is the processor. I'm having a tough time deciding if i want to go with a 4690k or a 4790k.
To be honest i think the 4690 would run things fine?

What do you run?

urbanfreestyle wrote in post #17574252
So it's been a long time coming but i have finally decided to get myself a new pc... well to buy the parts to build one! I just had a question to ask the opinions of my esteemed members on here.
So far here is the spec, i pan on upgrading the GPU and ram in the future but for the moment it was what i had to hand to get started with:

The only thing missing is the processor. I'm having a tough time deciding if i want to go with a 4690k or a 4790k.
To be honest i think the 4690 would run things fine?

What do you run?

What's your budget? And yes, a 4690K should be fine for most things.

NZXT Source 340 - it's a nice case, nothing more to say.

MSI Z97 Gaming 3 - $5-8 more will get you a Gaming 5 or Asus Z97-A

2x2gb OCZ OC3 Gold RAM
2x2gb OCZ OC3 Platinum RAM - why do you have two RAM kits listed, salvage from old PC? In any case, just pick the cheapest RAM, preferably in 8GB sticks

VTX3D Radeon HD7700 1gb GDDR5 - is this from your old PC? Get a 750ti, it should be more than enough for a photo editing rig.

2x2tb WD Green - Please no, these drives have terrible longevity, get something by Hitachi (HGST) instead... you didn't intend to put these in RAID I hope? variable speed drives like WD Greens will pretty much explode if you put them in RAID.

1x128gb Toshiba SSD - this is a $60-80 disk right? Nothing against Toshiba, but I'd probably get a Samsung 850 EVO 120GB or budget a teeny bit higher for 240~250GB Intel 730 or 850 EVO.

EVGA SuperNOVA NEX650G - very nice PSU

I suggest a CM Hyper 212 EVO since you didn't list a cooling unit.

Here is your $1000 system: http://pcpartpicker.co​m/p/Fy92GX

Thanks for the reply.

The gaming 3 is over £80 cheaper here than the 5
The two ram kits were bought cheap and i just fell in love with them. they are both compatible with eachother, just run at the slower speeds.
The 7700 is from a friend's PC for £20
The WD have served me well for over 2 years with no degradation, will upgrade when one dies. No they won't be Raided.
The Toshiba showed better speeds than the Samsung in both read and write (but also moving it from my mac to my pc so i don't need to buy one)
I am stock cooling for a little when i get my CPU and then going with something like the Kraken x31 AIO

I've added prices to my list to help explain how i'm keeping down costs
Anyways.. you think the i5 should be fine?

NZXT Source 340 £49.99
MSI Z97 Gaming 3 £79.94
2x2gb OCZ OC3 Gold RAM £25.00
2x2gb OCZ OC3 Platinum RAM £24.50
VTX3D Radeon HD7700 1gb GDDR5 £20
2x2tb WD Green £Free
1x128gb Toshiba SSD £Free
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX650G £69.99

Total Inc Shipping £269.42 or if you like $411.66

That's all fine I suppose, I'm not sure you can go any cheaper than that, but I'm not familiar with UK prices either.

sorry, i didn't mean to sound like i was having a go at you.

Matched RAM is a better idea, and best to choose something that's listed as compatible with your motherboard. If you go with something else run memtest x86 for 8 hours then HCI memtest for 12+ hours. I recently had faulty ram that resulted in data corruption, memtest didn't detect it at all, HCI memtest did but only at 350% (ie half way through the fourth test).

You don't need the K processor. Unless you already have the SSD go for the Samsung 850 SSD - pro version for super reliability, standard version is very good too though. WD Green drives are fine for external backup, but unless you run wdidle to change the firmware they spin down after 10 seconds or so. WD Black are fast and have a great warranty (expensive), their red are meant for NAS but are good, blue is general purpose but they don't come that big. I use HGST drives as they're rated as most reliable by BackBlaze. Seagate 4B and above are also pretty good, but the 3TB and smaller are unreliable.

You don't need a graphics card unless you're gaming. If you get one get a cheaper one, ideally nVidia as I think their Adobe compatibility is better. I tend to go for the lowest or second lowest model in the most recent generation of nVidia cards.

The Western Digital green drives are pretty much useless. They are designed for power saving only, and have a negative impact on performance.
Spend a few dollars extra and get a red drive, or a seagate barracuda.

Thanks for the replies, I already have the ssd and WD drives, so just repurposig them. The graphics card isn't actually for my photo editing its for cryptography but will come in handy for LR too.

tim wrote in post #17575084
You don't need a graphics card unless you're gaming. If you get one get a cheaper one, ideally nVidia as I think their Adobe compatibility is better. I tend to go for the lowest or second lowest model in the most recent generation of nVidia cards.

Or doing any video editing, 3D graphics, or applying filters with photo editing. For my needs (also generate 3D graphics), I always look at the Nvidia Quadro line. I've noticed Adobe is really well optimized for CUDA support: my mobile workstation will render a video a bit faster then my dual xeon desktop, because of it's newer Quadro card. Years ago, I also had problems with ATI...I never will consider them. I bought an ATI Fire: a card certified to run Maya. But it wound up corrupting shaders and my scene files! I was able to exchange it for a Quadro card, and they've always seemed to be fully OpenGL compliant. Adobe software utilizes OpenGL and can see speed increases with cards having a higher CUDA number. I also like that I can adjust OpenGL settings within the Nvidia control panel. Adobe's performance settings are pretty spartan.

The 4690 is a fine processor. I'm looking at a computer upgrade myself for later this summer, and I'm looking at the same CPU. I didnt see exactly what you wanted to do with your computer? Are you just going to surf the net, emails, social media stuff, or are you going to be editing video/photos, or all of the above?

I saw in your list that you have a gaming MB. If you are going to do any gaming then you might want to look at the 4690K which is the unlocked processor, allowing you to overclock you machine. You're WD Green drives wont like that. When you are ready to upgrade your drives look at WD Black. I have a couple of those drives and I would recommend them.

If you arent going to do any gaming then maybe you dont need the gaming MB.

Other than your Video card, will you need to use the other expansion slots? I find that you can never have enough USB ports.

I saw you had purchased your memory. Like the other I would have recommended all 4 be the same, and to have 12+GB. IMHO 8gb is the minimum amount. Also assuming you are going to be running a 64bit OS. Windows or Linux.

If you are trying to save some money. Look at AMD. I built computers for my kids and run AMD, because they offer good performance at a reasonable price. They gamed on them (WOW, Star Craft) as well at Social media things they seemed to run fine.

Good luck.

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply, I am to use it for photo editing as well as running virtual machines and cryptography.
I'm not really looking to OC so not worried about running a k series processor. Not doing gaming but it matches my color scheme
I should have enough USB sockets but may get a hub if i struggle.
Ram wise i will be changing over to 2x8gb sticks in the future.
Not a fan of AMD

What kind of Quadro card would be good? i notice they are significantly more expensive than the Geforce.

Why do you want a Quadro card? For offloading crypto stuff to the GPU? Is it any faster than a high end consumer card?

tim wrote in post #17577832
Why do you want a Quadro card? For offloading crypto stuff to the GPU? Is it any faster than a high end consumer card?

As far as I'm m aware, Quadro cards only offer the following over the regular counterparts:
- ECC RAM
- Usually more RAM
- ISV Certified for bug-free use in compliant applications
- Drivers optimized for performance in viewports in CAD and 3D modeling applications.
- Compatibility and synchronization for stereoscopic 3D and massive multi-panel screens
- Native 10-bit color output

Of all these benefits, only 10-bit color is the one that I could see being immediately useful for myself. ECC RAM sounds nice, but it is even less necessary on graphics for a workstation than ECC system RAM, maybe for HPC applications where you have 1000's of GPUs in a farm running a simulation.

They are actually not faster, but usually clocked lower and with more aggressive thermal control, since they are intended for 24/7 use. Usually a 5~10% reduction over the stock performance of an equivalent card.

As of late the difference between the regular cards and quadro line has been shrinking, for instance the M6000 is literally just the Titan X with ECC RAM.

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #17577865
They are actually not faster, but usually clocked lower and with more aggressive thermal control, since they are intended for 24/7 use. Usually a 5~10% reduction over the stock performance of an equivalent card.

It depends on application. For gaming, GeForces offer faster fps from clock rates. But Quadro cards have better support for graphics apps (Adobe software and 3D animation apps). They actually perform faster in Maya or Adobe Premiere because of larger buffers, full OpenGL compliance, and dual precision floating point calculation.

I would recommend the Quadro line for any video editing or 3D animation effects. For photo editing, the difference in performance is less destinct and may not be worth the extra cost then a GeForce.

davesrose wrote in post #17577923
It depends on application. For gaming, GeForces offer faster fps from clock rates. But Quadro cards have better support for graphics apps (Adobe software and 3D animation apps). They actually perform faster in Maya or Adobe Premiere because of larger buffers, full OpenGL compliance, and dual precision floating point calculation.

I already addressed this in point 4 - that the drivers are optimized for realtime performance in non-world space 3D rendering, but everywhere else it may be slower, including GPGPU applications.

Dual precision floating point depends on what you do, most things involving GPU acceleration don't utilize FP64 at all, including any kind of graphics rendering, video encoding, and other brute force calculations. Despite being the highest end card, the Quadro M6000 doesn't have any FP64 acceleration. If you do still want or need high DP acceleration, any Titan other than the Titan X is a good choice.

Chances are that if you're working in any of the fields that require these features you already know what you need, otherwise simply get the fastest consumer card that fits your budget - AMD for raw compute performance per dollar, or Nvidia for CUDA.

Unless you work for a company and they're buying, there is no reason to ever get a Quadro card for personal use.