New Computer Specs

Jeff_Smith wrote on 11/30/2009, 4:38 PM

My 3+ year old computers WD 500GB video drive just failed and I have been thinking about getting a new one anyway. I have a delta1010 audio interface that I got for cheap a long time ago, but I don't use all the I/Os, also it bugs me that there is no headphone jack. I really only need a few I/Os and and have Mackie studio monitors with 1/4" and xlr jacks. So I could use a suggestion for new audio interface, or I could just keep using the 1010. In addition to Vegas video I want to be able to have good performance with AutoCad Revit and Photoshop. I quickly grabbed these specs from EndPCNoise (I bought my last PC from them). Any suggestions/comments would be appreciated. I have tried a swappable hardrive tray and the fan is noisy, I hear fanless ones are not reliable?

Asus P6T i7 Motherboard
Intel i7 950 3.06GHz 8M 4.8 GT sec
6GB (three 2GB) Mushkin PC3 12800
No Modem
No Keyboard and Mouse
Western Digital Quiet 320GB 7200RPM 16MB SATA 2 Hard Drive
No Smart Drive installed for 1st Hard Drive
Nexus 850 Watt Inaudible 15dB 80 Plus PSU
Windows 7 Professional Edition DVD 64 Bit
Antec P183 BLACK Case
ATI Radeon HD 4350 By Asus 512MB (FANLESS) Video Card
LG (BLACK) 6X SATA Multi Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive
Noctua NH-U12P SE 1366 CPU Cooler
No Floppy Drive
External (Black) USB 2.0 All-in-1 Card Reader
No 2nd Optical Drive
Western Digital Quiet 1 TB 7200RPM 16MB SATA 2 Hard Drive
Install 2nd hard drive in Smart Drive Copper HDD Enclosure
No RAID
No Sound Card (use onboard sound)
No Speakers
Office Small Business 2007
Install Acoustipack Ultimate
No LCD Monitor
Norton Antivirus 2009 CD Installed
Standard Processing- Ship within 5-10 Business Days
One Year Parts & Labor Warranty
Restore Disk

Comments

xberk wrote on 11/30/2009, 8:29 PM

I think your spec is fine and should give you great performance with Vegas, PS and AutoCad. I just built an i5-750 using a Gigabtye P55 motherboard with 8 gigs of ram. I use Win7 64 bit. I'm very happy with it so if budget is a problem, the i5-750 chip is a value if not and you want max performance go with the i7 -- one thing I do like to do is to use a 10000 rpm main drive. I find that helps with performance. Fry's recently had some Western Digital Raptor's 74 gig for $49 !! .. It was a refrub drive so I got two for safety.

Jeff_Smith wrote on 12/1/2009, 10:48 AM

Does having a bigger OS drive slow things down, ie 160GB vs 320? (I saw John Meyer had 15k drives on his new machine a year ago.) I may get the i7 920 instead of the 950 depending on cost.

xberk wrote on 12/1/2009, 11:50 AM

Not sure the drive size matters but the speed does. 10000 or 15000 rpm will execute programs faster. No need for a large main drive as the best way is to limit your main drive (or boot drive) to JUST the OS and programs. Much easier to backup or image a small drive so system and all software can be rebuilt quickly if needed. I believe Vegas performs better too if data is on separate drive from program. I love my 74gig Raptor drive. Very smooth and boots fast.

I like the i7-860 as the value in the i7 group but many on forum use i7-920 and love it! i7-920 Chip runs hot so be sure to get ample cooling. Not sure i7-950 will gain that much in render or preview to justify cost. Depends on how large your renders get.

daryl wrote on 12/2/2009, 6:34 AM

I'm running the i7 950, it is SUPERB! It's a dell Studio XPS and has a pretty nice cooling system in it stock. I've had no problems at all, including heat. It definitely has more cooling gadgets in it than any machine I've ever run.

Jeff_Smith wrote on 12/2/2009, 7:35 PM

I am considering getting the 920 instead of the 950 to save a few bucks. Granted a few hundred bucks over the life of the computer is not much. Any fuzzy sense how much better the 950 would be for Vegas?
j

xberk wrote on 12/2/2009, 11:25 PM

Jeff - here's an excellent comparison chart where you can get an idea of performance on all the various CPU's .. I picked the i5-750 as the real value chip. I'm happy with it and doing smooth Vegas AVCHD work with it but, for sure, the i7-920 is faster!

Anandtech comparisons

Paul