Computer Build

My computer is getting long in the tooth and isn't up to 1080p video editing which has been frustrating for me for a while now.  Time to upgrade.

I took advantage of some of the sales going on and picked up these components:

Case: Corsair 600T
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Video: EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2682-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Power Supply: CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750W Gold Certified
SSD: SanDisk Extreme SDSSDX-120G-G25 2.5"
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache

I will be running dual 24" 1920x1200 monitors via DVI.

I expect to be able to edit 1080p videos fluidly with this setup.

One of the reasons I selected some of these components is because I want to build a Hackintosh, so OS/X will be one of my operating systems.  My main OS will certainly be Linux, probably Ubuntu 12.04 LTS because I like the OpenShot video editor.  I already own Adobe Production Suite, including Premier, so I will also need at least some Virtual machines running Windows which is what I do now.  I use VirtualBox for this currently.  If I can find a cheap (but legal) Windows 7 professional license somewhere I might purchase one.  I think I threw up a little when I typed that. 

I'll take it.  Thanks Mike.  Let me know when and where.

Thank you.

What are you doing with the old hardware, what Video Card was it running ?

My girlfriend wants my old computer.  I think it has a ATI Radeon X300.  I think the video card only has 128 MB RAM.

Just as well, was thinking I might buy it off ya. I need a replacement for my video card that went to blue smoke but as it's not available. Meh "nothing ventured nothing gained" eh

You wouldn't want this computer.  It's old and heavy so the shipping would probably be more than the computer is worth.  It has been a very reliable workhorse though.

What kind of video card was it that smoked?

hehe, well I wasn't going to say it but it would have been a step back from what I had ...
... Looking for equal or better

Card I had was a nVidia GeForce but I've since forget which model it was !?!

After the new computer is up and running and I have all the data migrated I may "upgrade" this system before giving it to my girlfriend.  I have a couple old servers around here and I'm pretty sure one that did duty as a home theater PC running XBMC has a nVidia card in it, maybe with 512 MB RAM.  There may also be some Crucial Ballistic RAM in them so I may be able to scrounge a little better performance out of this old timer for her.
The servers are 19" rack mount units, 4U or 5U, so I will also be able to reclaim some of that rack space for other stuff that's been needing a proper home.

I ordered a Synology NAS that will have 6TB HDD storage which will be used for data backups.  I will still use CrashPlan on a local 1.5 TB HDD for some frequently updated data.  All those 1080p videos are killing me.

The parts for my new workstation arrived yesterday so I couldn't wait to build it and start setting it up.
Everything went together perfectly except one thing. The huge Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler was interfering with the tall heat sinks on the Corsair Vengeance RAM modules so I had to trim off a couple fins on the NH-D14 CPU cooler. I also re-oriented the fans on the CPU cooler to blow up instead of down since the Corsair 600T chassis has a top of tower ventilation fan.

After burning the system in overnight the CPU reads 21 degrees C. Not bad at all for a Intel i7 running at 3.5 Ghz normal and turbo at 3.9 Ghz. I am seeing up to 40 degrees C inside the case, but I also did not connect the front nor the rear chassis fans because I was afraid of the noise. It turns out this system is super quiet and the power supply fan has yet to turn on at all. The front fan is a 140 mm size and the rear looks to be a 120 mm. The top fan is also a 140 mm unit and is spinning around 1200 RPM and I cannot hear it. The front fan appears to be the same fan so I will try connecting that and see if I can get the inside case temperature down.

This machine is super fast, at least for me compared to my current system. From pushing the power button to seeing the login screen on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS it takes 20 seconds. Opening the Chrome browser is just about instantaneous.

The photos are mostly the boxes of parts. The one of the insides is not very good because the tower is in a temporary home until I get the data and files migrated from my old workstation. I will take better photos when I move it to it's permanent home at my desk.

The inside:

Just perusing some of my old post, looking for 'something'

Hey, HOWS your new 'Toaster' now you've HAD some time to PLAY?

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It's really nice w00d.  So far I have only installed Ubuntu 21.04 LTS and Max OS X Mountain Lion.  Because my SSD is only 128 GB I used it as the main Linux system partition and the Seagate 1 TB 7200 RPM drive as the /usr/home drive.  What that does is allow me to keep programs and data separate.  Originally I intended to get a 480 GB SSD but at the time of purchase they were sold out and the 128 GB SSD I did get really isn't large enough for the multi-booting I would like to do.  Because of that I used a spare 300 GB drive as the Mac OS X system drive.  What is lame about that is I need to move a SATA cable to boot the two operating systems.  It is not really too big a deal because the case has thumb latches on both sides so access to the drive bays is super easy.  I want to get another SSD and set it up for multiboot so I can select the OS at system startup.

The system is super fast as you can imagine.  Getting into the Ubuntu Linux desktop is around 15 seconds.  Even getting into the Max OS X desktop from the standard HDD is well under a minute.

There are only a few programs that run under Windows that I occasionally need nowadays.  One is my Adobe Suite which I purchased, not the one you linked to.  But I really only need Photoshop from time to time since I can do all of the day to day stuff with Gimp.  The other is the DJI Naza assistant.  Those clever DJI Chinese guys really should make a Linux version of their software.  Heck, even Valve the huge gaming software company is moving away from Windows in favor of Linux.  Anyway, for my third OS I have a Windows 7 64 bit license.  I will use this for my few Windows dependent applications.

Until this new computer I ran Virtualbox virtual machines for various operating systems, including Windows XP.  What that does is allow me to run Windows in a window on the Ubuntu Linux desktop much in the way you open a browser window on any OS.  The DJI Naza assistant works great like this and I don't have to reboot into a different operating system whenever I need to tweak my RC models.  My Adobe suite works very well like this also.  However video editing with Adobe Premier on my old computer in a virtual machine was miserable.  Not because of the virtualization, but because that computer just didn't have the horsepower.  I have not yet tried running the Adobe suite in a virtual machine on this new computer.  If it allows fluid video editing in Premier then I may not need to multiboot into Windows afterall.

I should make some better photos of the inside of this computer.  The Noctua CPU fan I got for the Intel i7 is stupid huge.  When it arrived I thought the box must have several inches on each side of packaging but that was not the case.  The darn thing has got to be a eight inch cube.  It keeps the CPU very cool and I am quite sure I could overclock the hell out of this system if I wanted to.

Even without any overclocking I can work with 1080p video in all the editors I have tried.  I can shuttle forward and backwards in the timeline fluidly, which was important to me.

Another important consideration for me when I selected the components was noise.  I don't like loud computers with a lot of fan and HDD noise and this computer is really very quiet.

One thing that I am curious about is the power consumption.  I wish I had a Kill-a-Watt to compare the old computer to this one.

I've been wanting to upgrade some of the guts in my desktop for some time now. I just can't afford the stuff I want! I'd really like a solid-state drive but I can't seem to find one with sufficient storage that doesn't cost ~$500

Right now I've got a PhenomX4 2.3Ghz, 3GB RAM (DDR2!) and a GeForce GT430. It absolutely gets the job done, but it's hard not to want more power, ya know? It's getting to the point where my cell phone is becoming as powerful as my desktop...

Yeah I've been eying those for some time hoping the prices would drop ...
... they certainly are on my short list of 'Toaster' upgrades

My old computer is a Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz with 4 GB RAM, the graphics card is a ATI X300 which I believe has 256 MB RAM.  This computer was more than up to anything I need to do online and even run any applications I need.  The only real problem was HD video editing.  That was my reason to upgrade, but honestly that old computer is also 6-7 years old which in my experience is a disaster waiting to happen.

The other item I upgraded recently was my NAS, I got a Synology DS213.  I have used most NAS systems on the market, both hardware and software based, in various enterprises and the Synology systems are certainly among, if not the, best.  They are rock solid.  One thing that I am also impressed with are the apps available for one-click installation.  Accessibility from various computer operating systems (Linux, Mac and Windows) and devices from Android and IOS just work great also.  I've installed two 3 TB HDDs which are redundant and also connected a 1.5 TB USB drive to it.  The DS213 runs a automatic backup nightly to the external HDD.  The first backup took about 5-6 hours and now they run under 15 minutes which makes me think they are using RSync.  I can have a total failure of two drives (one internal and one external) and not lose a single thing.  The internal HDDs are hot swappable so upgrading to larger capacity drives is simply a matter of removing one of the drives and swapping it for the larger one and the device updates the volume in the background.  You can continue to access and read and write to the unit while this is going on.

I've installed several media servers and their iTunes sever.  Besides our data files all our MP3s are available to all our devices simultaneously.  We can even connect from our Turtle Beach Audiotron which are notorious Windows share centric devices.

There are servers for DNS, LDAP, Web (HTTP), email and more available for one click installation.  It can also reconfigure your PNP router for any ports you might need or want opened.
It can act as a DVR to record IP surveillance cameras and can be set to record movement events which works really well to save HDD space for hours of unnecessary video.

The Synology DiskStation products can easily replace Windows Servers for most small to mid-sized businesses.  It will cut costs in several ways from your hardware investment to your ongoing IT administration.

Highly recommended.