New Build..Look OK?

bh4mr1ck said:

Thank you everyone for the suggestions.

As far as backups go, I do have a 1Tb external that I do backups on, but I don't go as far as having two working copies. Luckily for me, I have never needed even my first backup (knocking on wood!!), but I am sure that there will come a day when something happens and I will need it. I will probably go ahead and get the two 750gig drives you mentioned and place an imaging partition on each. The 80gig SSD will strictly be the OS drive, everything else will be on the HDD's.

From a graphics standpoint, I think I will wait to see what comes out a little later on and stick with the 4890 for right now. In the meantime I will check out DX9, 10, and 11 to see what they are all about.

Thanks again for the suggestions! Rep added for helping me out!

You're more than welcome, as said before, the new pc should keep things flying for some time! The 4890 is a really nice card also and you can always upgrade it later-on^^

Photo and video editing can be as gfx intensive as gaming. I have no hands-on familiarity with the 4890 or 5770 but I am also in the process of researching components as I am anticipating building a new machine (mobo/CPU/gfx/RAM - which I will do before year's end). To me, choosing and matching mobo chipsets/CPU/RAM is not as complex an issue because I ALWAYS go with ASUS/AMD: start with CPU, which dictates mobo chipset, which dictates RAM (I usually go with OCZ or Corsair).

Although I ALWAYS go with ATi gfx cards (especially if I anticipate running an XFire array), gfx card choices present me my most difficult choice, in part due to gaming demands and, in part, due to cost if I decide on XFire. Well before I am ready to rebuild I start searching and consider: what's available; what gamers are using and why; what is forecast to be available when I am ready to start buying; and important but less so, what reviewers/testers say (mindful that there is often no nexus between the real world and labs).

Finally to my point: the 5770 seems to be decent in terms of its overall performance but folks seem to be luke-warm about it; most seem to agree that ATi hurried it through to beat NVIDIA to the street with a DX11 card. The 4890 has a good rep, has been around since about April 2009 and is, generally, very-well thought of.

It's early from me to make a final judgment for a year-end purchase. The 5770 can be had on the street for about $150; the 4890 for about $200. I suspect that, based on your needs, you would be quite happy with the 4890 (heck, anyone would be) but I think it is good that you will look into DX capabilities/differences and near-future (2010) developments; afterall, your needs will/should dictate your choices.

Monk