Building a 'High Performance' Windows 7 PC

if i were building a high performance pc right now i'd go with:

AMD Phenom II X4 940 - $215
Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P - $180
OCZ OCZ3G1600LV6GK $95
XFX HD-489A-ZDFC HD4890 - $250
Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB RAID0 - $170 x2 = $340
Western Digital 2TB - $300
HT Omega CLARO - $160
Corsair CMPSU-850TX - $150
LG Blu-ray GGC-H20L - $100
ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 - $50
Zalman VF1000 - $45
Antec Twelve Hundred - $180

The total cost actually ended up being much higher than i expected at $2065
it would still be a badass machine

I just completed my "Windows 7 Ultimate" Core i7 computer about six weeks ago (see system specs in my profile - I won't repeat it all here). My primary use (other than visiting the Win 7 forums, of course ) is for my other hobby/profession: my photography.

As I have no interest in gaming, my video board choice was a compromise between power and silence. The Gigabyte/ATI 4850 1GB was the most powerful board I could find with a totally passive cooler. Moreover, the single board can handle my two 24" monitors at 1920x1200 resolution easily.

I considered going with a full 24BG of memory; however, after conversations with service reps at both Corsair and OCZ, both heavily into digital photography, I cut back to 12GB, buying the 6x2GB OCZ platinum kit. Bibble, NX2 and PhotoShop fly.

The only place I went really hog-wild was storage: digital images seem to multiply faster than a single coat hanger in a locked closet. My system drive is currently two single 150GB VelociRaptors, one with Win.7.7000 installed and the other with Win.7.7077. I can swap between the two easily (they're mounted in a hot-swap drive cage). My intention is the use the two drives in a RAID-1 configuration when Win.7 is released commercially later this year. My primary workspace is a pair of 1TB WD "black" RE3 drives in a RAID-1 configuration. If one fails, I'm covered. This combination is faster than greased lightning. Well, maybe SSDs would be faster, but they certainly aren't cost effective.

Ongoing projects are stored on an 8-drive RAID-6 array using an Adaptec 5805 controller and eight of the 1.5TB WD "green" drives. At half the price of the 2TB version, again, they were the cost-effective choice.

I run a full backup weekly with incremental backups daily of both the system drive and my primary workspace, swapping out the target backup drives, three more 1.5TB WD greens (they mount in a hot-swap bay), one per week in a three-week rotation, giving me a true, three-generation backup of my work. Finally, there are a pair of 6-drive Netgear ReadyNAS units (currently containing 1TB drives, to be upgraded to 2TB drives when their price drops), one mirroring the other, which serve for additional storage. I archive projects to multiple DVDs.

If I were building for gaming (actually, I have - but not for myself) I would stick with 6GB (or possibly, only 3GB) memory, drop all the fancy extra storage, run 4 hard drives (a pair of 150GB VelociRaptors or a pair of SSDs, depending on budget, in RAID-0 for OS & games/applications, a 640GB or 1TB WD "black" for data, and a 1TB or 1.5TB WD "green" for automated backups. Plus I'd probably install a pair of the new 4890 video cards (and in a much smaller case than the full-tower I'm currently using) instead of the single 4850 I'm using for image editing.

Another change would be choice of monitors: I'm running a pair of H-IPS panels which might not be really bad for gaming; but a much faster TN panel would be a better choice. An auxiliary sound card with 5.1 or 7.1 speakers would be good for immersion gaming, too.

I can say that my machine is cheap now adays (see my system specs, it's the Core2Quad one that I use at home). I bought it ending 2007, but now is very cheap and a good choice as high-end machine. Cheap & fast. Maybe you don't need the quantity of hard disks that I've, but I recommend to use 2 hard disks into a RAID-0 to get even more performance.
I use that machine for video and audio encoding without problems at a very nice speed. I also play games with that and do whatever a computer tech can do with a computer, that means EVERYTHING. From virtualization and OS tests to hardcore gameplay and MP3. :)
I think that a PC with that features must be at some 1000 dollars now adays. Think about it.

Core i7 for Windows 7 FTW!

Sorry if this is straying off topic, but any chance I could see some of your work weh? I love photography.

12 gb of ram and 3 tb of HDD space is overkill imo.

I'd stick with 6gb of ram ($110), 60gb ocz vertex ssd ($234) and a WD black caviar 1tb (actually seeing it sell for $99 atm). I'd also spend a little more on a quality PSU like a 1000watt corsair just in case I want to sli in the future ($230) and ditch the soundcard (-$135). Onboard sound is decent on newer mobos and I probably couldn't tell the difference anyways.

That comes to a total of $673 for these 3 components so I'd still have $117 + $130= $247 to spare. With the ssd I'd definitely see a performance increase compared to having 12 gb of ram and 3tb of HDD space but if i was really running low on space i'd spend that 247 for another 1tb. leaving me with 147 left as pocket change :P

Honestly, I would consider this a very expensive and nearly a sky's the limit rig. Wish i had $2000+ to spend on a PC lol

Hi there, Would a new one like me be welcome here?
Thanks so much in deed.


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