New Build for CS5.5 Do You See Anything Wrong With This List

[Jeff Brown]

If you can spend a little more for your system drive, I’d suggest a SSD (Solid State Disc). It will make program loading quicker; I’ve been very happy with mine on a recent build (Intel SSD; Win7pro; SuperMicro MB).

-Jeff

[Bill Zowak]

Jeff,

Thank you for your input. What model MB did you go with? As far as the SDD goes I’m not convinced of the their benefits just yet. I am a custom systems builder but I will tell you that I do not have a lot of personal experience with SSD. My main system is not as beefy as the mentioned build. I have an I7 920 with 12 gig ram. My OS drive is a WD 10000 rpm. I purchased a well rated Intel SDD out of professional curiosity. My personal findings (this was about 6 months ago) was there was no noticeable difference between the 2. Your suggestion will now make me reconsider this. The case I specked out for this build is designed for a SSD. I will search for a “to SSD or not to SSD” post. The real reason I was not looking in that direction is/was the horror stories of degrading drives, lost data, drives just failing, etc…. Has that changed? That is far more important to me then the cost. As I said, I build custom systems and have built dozens of edit systems for different platforms but I am not an arrogant know it all and would not be doing my due diligence if I did not seek the help for those that actually use the systems for editing. Again, thanks for your input. I would like to hear about what SSD you are using , how long for, and any other info you could help with.

Appreciate the time.

Bill

[Jeff Brown]

You have more experience that I do! But, for what it’s worth, I built my current workstation about 7 months ago. The only issues with my Intel SSDs (one system, one “scratch” drive) were: having to make sure the system BIOS was set to AHCI mode on installing* (for Win 7 to recognized SSDs as such). Added the Intel management sofware, which I have set to “trim” once a week. My disc I/O in “Windows Experience Index” is 7.5. The mobo I’m using is a SuperMicro X8DAH (single i7-hex) as part of a 5046 “barebones workstation.” [nice unit, BTW].

*in my case, I found out _after_ installing, and had to do some voodoo to switch from non-AHCI to AHCI to get the drives seen as SSD by Windows. At this point, I forgot what the ‘voodoo’ was, but I don’t remember it being too painful.

-Jeff

[Morgan Newall]

Hi Bill,

Will be building a rig myself in the short-term.

Re: Sandy Bridge, I stumbled upon this article in my research, seems Sandy Bridge aint the way to go: https://www.videoguys.com/Blog/E/DIY+Update+Sandy+Bridge+Not+Recommended+by+Videoguys/0xe84ad86778528fd86109889b90a3d37a.aspx

My specs at the moment (based on videoguys recommendation):

• 16010561 X 1 – Antec Three Hundred Tower Gaming Case – No Power Supply

• 19010199 X 1 – Intel Core i7 960 Processor

• 28023380 X 1 – ASUS Sabertooth X58 – ATX

• 37140806 X 1 – Corsair 12GB (3x 4GB) Vengeance DDR3 RAM

• 42050940 X 1 – EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SE – GDDR5 1024MB 256Bit VRAM

• 22040155 X 1 – SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 – 1TB

• 22040155 X 1 – SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 – 1TB

• 17040381 X 1 – Samsung 22x DVD-RW SATA

• 34040607 X 1 – Cooler Master GX Series 750W Power Supply

• 18010127 X 1 – Antec TriCool 120mm

• 39090367 X 1 – Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate – SP1 – 64-Bit

Cheers,

Morgan