Newbie to site, with first build

[BlueHornet]

Hello all...

Great site--I've been reading in earnest for a few days now. I have been studying the specs from the CustoMac build page, and specifically the high-end Pro build. I am looking to build a machine to run both Lion and a Linux OS...probably Ubuntu, but possibly Debian. I have quite a bit of experience with Mac OS X and (more so) with Linux. I plan to use this machine for audio/video multimedia editing and processing with Pro Tools, FC, Apple Shake, etc. I currently use Sony Vegas and Pro Tools on a self-built Win7 machine, with a i7 Sandy Bridge CPU. And although I am not the most experienced computer hardware tech, I do have a degree in Computer Science--but the emphasis has been on the software development side (another reason to perform this build).

In studying the CustoMac systems, I reviewed the components with a Windows system builder who I have previously used as a consultant for the Win machine components. He suggested a change from the Corsair RAM because they've been seeing quite a few bad sticks in the Corsair line of late. He also recommended the OCZ ssd drives, and the newer Seagate hard drive.

In any event, I believe I am about ready to order the components, but thought it might not be a bad idea to ask for any "last-minute advice" on the choice of parts. Thanks in advance for any advice offered...

Case: Corsair Graphite Series 600T CC600TM Mid-Tower Case
PSU: Corsair HX Pro Series 750-watt
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 mobo
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X series 16GB DDR3 SDRAM
Video: Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 video card
Lion HD: 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD for Mac OS X
Linux HD: 90GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD for Linux OS
Data: Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 3.5" drive
Optical: Sony 24X AD-7280-0B DVD+/-RW optical drive
NIC: Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro PCIe Card
FW: Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a (2B1A) Card, TI Chipset

These components come in at just over $1500 from Newegg.com, although I could probably knock off a few bucks by buying some of it from Amazon. There are some nice instant rebates on several of the Newegg.com components right now, so I don't think I'd do that much better.

Thanks again for the help.

TB

EDIT: The order has been placed. I changed the case, and edited it into the list above. The NIC and FW cards were ordered from Amazon.com, but other than that I ordered everything from Newegg.com. They have some awesome deals this weekend--and on top of some "instant rebates," there will be $100 worth of mail-in rebates on all this stuff. Sweet!

 

[ChiefWizard]

Everything looks good though just a heads up, some high capacity Seagate drives are 4k sectors and (I found this out the hard way) don't support 512 emulation. In short that means you will have some extra command line work with the boot1h file in order to get your system to boot unassisted (ie without unibeast usb or rboot cd). So do a bit of research on that drive.

 

[BlueHornet]

Interesting... I appreciate the post.

Would going with the "stock" 7200.12 Seagate drive negate the need for that--or would it be better to go with a different brand altogether?

Thanks.

TB

EDIT: I almost forgot--I saw the 5GHz clock speed in your signature. WOW! I'll bet that thing flies!

 

[jester969]

You don't have to buy the NIC since onboard Ethernet should work.

Everything else is good to go!

If you have a MicroCenter close by you can shave a few hundred dollars off. In addition, NewEgg has a sale on this weekend.

 

[BlueHornet]

Actually, about the NIC... I've been reading about the recommendations from someone on this site, to *not* rely on the on-board NIC. Newegg.com is where I'll be buying the components, unless I can find something significantly less on Amazon--especially given their free shipping. But I have never seen a MicroCenter around Green Bay (Wisconsin) where I live.

EDIT: Here is the thread, by powerpcg5
http://tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=48091

Also, in looking at my list again, I didn't list a third-party CPU cooler. My Win7 machine has a Cooler Master unit, as recommended by the consultant I used. Since I am doing most audio/video rendering, he advised me to strongly consider upgrading from the stock cooler. I did, and have never had any sort of an issue--even with 1-2 hour renders using Vegas Pro 10. So I was thinking of going that route again here, as $35 is pretty cheap insurance.

Thanks for the post.

TB

 

[jester969]

You can take a look at the Hyper212+.

 

[ubermick]

Your cooler is going to depend on what you do to your processor. If you don't overclock, the stock cooler should be okay in a well-ventilated case. If you do overclock (and you'd be crazy not to - that's the point of these chips!) then it depends on how far you take it.

Tons of folks have raved about the Hyper212+, and should be plenty fine for overclocks up to around 4.0ghz? The higher you go, the more cooling you'll need. I went with a Noctua NH-D14, which is an absolute monster of a cooler, but it's keeping all cores of my CPU (overclocked to 4.3ghz) below 70 degrees under full load in Prime95.

That Noctua's not cheap, at $82.95 from Amazon, and it also can cause fit issues with graphics cards, memory, and cases (the Ripjaws won't fit under it, for example - I went with low profile memory since those DIMM fins are unnecessary IMHO), but it's nice not worrying at ALL about temps. Other folks use the Corsair H100 which is a hydro setup, and costs a little more.

 

[BlueHornet]

I was looking at the Hyper212+ Evo. Newegg.com has it for the $35 price I mentioned above. I might overclock a little bit, but I am not a huge tweaker at this point. I overclocked an Intel Q9450 CPU a few years ago, and it was a piece of cake--so I will probably do a bit of it. Maybe down the road a while, I'll consider getting more hard core at it, and then look at a more expensive cooler.


TB

 

[ChiefWizard]

You can take a look at the Hyper212+.

EDIT: I almost forgot--I saw the 5GHz clock speed in your signature. WOW! I'll bet that thing flies!

Best CPU cooler for the money IMO I have two 77 cfm fans push-pull on it and I have a large case with awesome airflow (8 case fans). Though I think I just got lucky with the chip, 5.0 at 1.41v unfortunately I can't seem to get past by even 100MHz, went all the way up to 1.5v and couldn't hit 5.1GHz. But ya, 7.96 Cinebench

As for the drives I unfortunately don't know, I have the 500GB one from the customac build page and a 1TB that isn't and they both have this problem, though my old Hitachi 5400rpm works fine so it's hit and miss for me. It's not a huge problem if you do get a drive like mine... more of a pain that's all. --> sorry for the long winded post

 

[BlueHornet]

How difficult was it to resolve the issue? You mentioned some command line work, and that doesn't bother me at all. In the Linux world, it's pretty much all I do. Of course I'd need some guidance on *what* commands to execute--but I love working from the CLI.

TB