EXPERTS, please review this configuration!!! (Thanks)

[ruthmassias]

I would really appreciate your help!!

What do you think of this combo:

 

Case: ATX NOX CoolBay Tower

Motherboard: ASRock 1155 Z77 PRO4-M

Processor: Intel Core I7 - 3770 - 3.4 GHz

Memory: 8 GB DDR 3 Ram (2 x 4gb) - PC 1333

Hard Disk: 240GB Extreme SSD HDD

Graphic Card: Geforce 660 GTX - 2GB - PCIX

Optical Drive 1: LG/Philips/Pioneer 16x double layer

Miscellaneous 1: 900W PSU

Miscellaneous 2: 8 GB DDR 3 Ram (2 x 4gb) - PC 1333

Miscellaneous 3: 2 Terabyte Sata Hardrive

[Dimitris Tolios]

All in all it is a cookie cutter setup. Nothing wrong with it. Some comments

 

PSU: 900W PSU is over-the-top-over-kill for your configuration.

Your system under full load won't be pulling more than 350W off the wall at full CPU/GPU load, which is very very rare to happen. When rendering with your CPU etc, I would expect less than 250W.

A 650W would be more than enough, with headroom for adding a second GPU in the future (or dual 79xx etc just as well). Future GPUs and CPUs will be more power efficient also, so the 900W is overkill for any single GPU system unless you are planning on a system with more than 2x GPUs for gaming or GPU rendering, or an overclocked 6-core s2011 with 2 or more cards (still probably doable with a good 650W and 2x 6xx nvidia cards).

Get a 80+ Gold or equiv. rated 650-700W and you are more than safe, with the PSU operating at the sweet spot between 50-60% load for max efficiency.

 

SSD: Sandisk or w/e makes good SSDs, but the fastest + most reliable atm are the latest drives from Samsung (840 Pro), OCZ Vertex 4/Vortex and Plextor M5. If I wanted something cheaper, i would opt for Crucial m4 or Samsung 830 that are phased out now, yet hold pretty good performance along with the best reliability record.

 

RAM: get 2x8GB, preferably 1600 or 1866 speed. The price benefits from 1333 are minimal, while speed % penalty is not. The board will have 4x dimms, so getting 4x4GB sticks is not wise: you are ruling yourself out of upgrading to 32GB without wasting your initial investment.

Edited January 15, 2013 by dtolios

[ruthmassias]

WOW! thanks so much for your help

[artmaknev]

Get two HDD's to set up Raid 1, to have piece of mind in case 1 HDD fails, but other then that Dmitris said is exactly what I should get, at least 16GB ram is preferred, considering its really cheap nowdays.