Entry X99 Build Questions

Hardware Build a PC
1

I'm in the process of purchasing the components for an X99 build and wanted to ask for some outside opinions on some of the components. I'm an engineering student in college and will be using this computer for any program I need/want to use/learn in the next 4 years, currently that's cad programs, namely Creo. I will also be using it for 1080p video editing with Adobe, but not in the near future. I'll be gaming as well but only at 1080p 60htz, and it's not as important to me as general usefulness.

Budget: $1500-1600

 

Current parts list:

- 5820k $311

- Noctua ND15 $75

- Fractal Define R4 $72

- EVGA Supernova G2 850 $125 (got it just before the price dropped sadly)

- 2x BeQuiet 140mm Case Fans $14

- Crucial MX100 256GB $106

Total so far $703

 

Still needed:

Motherboard

- Trying to decide between the MSI SLI Plus ($230) or waiting for the Asus X99-A ($280)

Ram

- Should I get Crucial Ballistic Sport 4x4GB 2400mhz $234 or save $30 and get 4x4GB of Crucial's 2133mhz ram for $204?

GPU

- Depending on what ram and motherboard I get, I was planning on getting the new GTX 770 ($400) or 780 ($500) when they're released. However, I don't know if I would need the 780 given the purpose of this computer. Would the 780 offer a tangible benefit to general productivity over the 770? Or can you tell me why I would be better off with a 290/290x?

I've read some benchmarks on tomshardware and they both seemed pretty close in general with each performing better or worse in some programs. They both seemed to offer similar performance to the k4000 which is already out of my budget, and thus why I'm not looking at the workstation cards.

Other Stuff

- Would prefer lower sound level

- I do plan on moderately overclocking

- Avoiding water cooling

- Have peripherals already

- Have an OS

- Have a DVD Drive, and 2x 2TB Seagate NAS HDD's

- I know I could've saved on the PSU, my mistake

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Ramapo17/saved/c9hFf7

 

 

2

Faster RAM will be beneficial in rendering times.  However, there usually isn't a huge difference between 2133 and 2400.

I was planning on getting the new GTX 770 ($400) or 780 ($500) when they're released

I assume you mean GTX 970 or GTX 980(or whatever's coming next after the GTX 7XX series?).

If the programs you use can utilize OpenCL, an R9 290/290X would be a much better price-performance option.  It's got 4GB of VRAM, which will help with rendering, and can match a GTX 780 in many cases.

EVGA's Supernova G2 is a good power supply.

3

I did mean the 970/980. This is the article I mentioned comparing the cards in Creo.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/specviewperf-12-workstation-graphics-benchmark,3778-8.html

The biggest problem is I can't say for sure what I'll be working with will be Cuda or OpenCL favored, or have particularities that work better with Nvidia or Amd. In the article the 290x and 780ti are right next to each other in Creo but at the end they mention the poor performance of the 290 drivers causing some ugly graphical things. Not that either is immune to that as they both have nonoptimized drivers. I guess I'll see where the prices are at after the 19th and go from there.

The power supply is nice but I probably could've gotten away with a smaller and cheaper one.

4

some of the x99 boards will run at 2400 native and step down if you use 2133.

for rendering  ... recommend faster and low latency