What do you think of this Cyberpower build?

Thanks, Guys. I've suggested my pal Galen from OKC sign up to interact with you about these great suggestions. I am not a good intermediary because I'm not any more hardware conversant than he is. I remember when I first saw his Cyberpower custom built rig ten years ago with the spooky case lights and bubbling water cooler. I'd never seen anything like that, though it does make me wonder if that water somehow got into the PSU to short it and the mobo out since he'd heard a loud shorting sound with smoke and replacement PSU couldn't start the mobo.

Galen is a famous artist educated at the Sorbonne but also a country boy who is so multi-talented I bet if he wants to take this on as a project, with your guidance he could build it himself at considerably less cost with better hardware and performance. The premium paid for fancy in this case may be completely unnecessary, and nobody knows function better than you guys!

Happy New Year everybody!

I believe one area of concern is the GPU. Most video/Photoshop recommendations use NVIDIA cards usually Quadro for high end systems. I think NVIDIA standard cards also use CUDA and the OpenGL standard.

Have him look at Pugetsystems.com

They are a boutique builder that lets you custom-configure from scratch or lets you begin with one of 7 or 8 base models which you can also configure. Each base model places emphasis on a particular aspect: gaming, low noise, small size, business environments, post-production workstations, general purpose, extreme performance, etc.

Prices begin somewhere near 1300.

You can get Xeon processors if desired, along with a variety of SSDs, hard drives, cases, power supplies, etc.

And bling if he wants bling.

I get the idea that Cyberpower inflates prices to make flashy gaming rigs, that cutting them out as a middle man might save some money even using better parts like the PSU. What are the benefits of using a builder since he's going to manage the OS himself, and the hardware is all warranteed separately?

Core i7 is all good, 16gb RAM seems plenty to me, how about the GPU?

He said he's avoiding water cooled this time and may go with the flatter case to fit better.

[QUOTE=gregrocker;2973015]I get the idea that Cyberpower inflates prices to make flashy gaming rigs, that cutting them out as a middle man might save some money even using better parts like the PSU. What are the benefits of using a builder since he's going to manage the OS himself, and the hardware is all warranteed separately?
/QUOTE]

I suspect your suspicions are right about Cyberpower.

Probably a good idea to avoid watercooling unless he has heavy duty overclocking on his mind and is a tinkerer type.

The builder saves you the time of assembling if you know how, and is mandatory if you don't. And it should help you avoid DOA parts and increase the chances it will fire up on the first attempt.

They may also include a year or more of tech support, sometimes extendable to several years.

Offhand, I'd think the advantages of a builder are diminished if you have little control over brand names/models for the parts. Unless of course you HAVE to use a builder because you can't or won't build it yourself.

You need to find a builder who in fact gives you more control over parts or else just take your chances, as many do.