The transformation of an originally budget Web-only PC...

E

E4g1e

Supreme [H]ardness
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...which was originally to be sold to a relative of one of the partners of a business downstairs from my home into my auxiliary video editing PC is almost complete. This is because I'm now keeping that system due to the would-be-buyer running out of money.

Here are the answers to the questions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Video editing (using Premiere Pro CS5.5), Web surfing, some gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$100 to $200. (Up to $300 if a Blu-ray burner is included.)
3) Where do you live?
Chicagoland area
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Motherboard, (optionally) a Blu-ray burner
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Originally:
Intel i3-2100
4 GB Patriot DDR3-1333 RAM
1TB Seagate 7200.12 SATA drive
SATA DVD burner
(Onboard Intel HD 2000 graphics)
Intel DH61CR motherboard
Cooler Master Elite 341 case (pulled from my auxiliary editing system)
Antec EarthWatts EA-380D Green PSU

Components added or upgraded since this build was originally conceived:
Intel i5-2400 (replacing an i3-2100)
8GB (2 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3-1600 RAM (which replaced 2 x 2GB Crucial DDR3-1333 RAM)
500GB WD Blue and 1TB Samsung F3 hard drives (one Seagate 1TB 7200.12 hard drive is also inside the case, but currently disconnected - see below)
eVGA GeForce GTX 560 1GB card
Antec High Current Gamer 520W PSU (replacing the EarthWatts Green 380W)
6) Will you be overclocking?
Maybe
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
19" widescreen @ 1440x900
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within one to two weeks, but more likely tomorrow or Wednesday
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
RAID, USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 Gbps are nice to have, but might not be necessary
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 64-bit

Here's the impetus for the upgrade (or rather, a component replacement):

I've already found a big weak spot of the Intel DH61CR motherboard that's currently in the system: The two ptimary SATA ports are now completely blocked by the double-slot cooler on the GTX 560 card. This forced me to use a right-angle SATA plug under the card - and then, I could not plug a second right-angle SATA plug at all because the two SATA sockets on the motherboard are much too close together to allow this. This effectively reduces my maximum SATA drive capability to only two HDDs plus one optical drive (which is why I left the aforementioned Seagate HDD disconnected).

I've looked at the other Intel Media Series motherboards, and found all of them to have one of the five internal SATA ports (in this case, the third SATA 3.0 Gbps port, or the fifth total) located so that it can be completely blocked by a double-slot GPU cooler (what would have been a sixth internal SATA port or a fourth SATA 3.0 Gbps port is instead used by a single eSATA port on those boards). But except for that weak point (which in this case is easily correctable by using a right-angle SATA plug in that fifth internal SATA port), it would have been close to ideal for what I'll eventually be using this would-become auxiliary editing rig for.

The case is no problem since I will be moving the carryover components that's currently inside the Elite 335 case to either an Elite 430 case (which I already have currently) or a new case altogether.

So, barring the Intel mobo, which board would you suggest?

And if I need a Blu-ray burner, which model would you recommend?

I would appreciate the suggestions.
 
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Maybe this Asus mobo?:
$133 - Asus P8Z68-V LE Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
 
Thanks. I looked at that Asus mobo (in particular, the similar P8Z68-V LX, with an inferior-specced onboard audio), but decided that I do not need three legacy PCI slots at all on a new mobo. Besides, I found two Gigabyte Z68 mobos at Microcenter that cost less up front than the P8Z68-V LX. One of the Gigabytes (GA-Z68AP-D3-B3) has only an HDMI output for the on-CPU graphics while the other (GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3) has HDMI, D-Sub and DVI outs. In addition, the Z68AP-D3-B3 supports only Crossfire while the Z68MA-D2H-B3 supports Crossfire or SLI. The two Gigabyte boards are priced only $5 apart from one another (not counting the rebate): $110 for the Z68AP-D3-B3 and $115 for the Z68MA-D2H-B3. The Asus at that same Microcenter costs $120 - but I am somewhat reluctant to go with another Asus board this time around given the quality control problems with the company's P67 boards (although the P8P67 PRO B3 that I have in my main rig is a relatively good sample of the board, only suffering from the occasional USB problem - my USB keyboard sometimes doesn't work until I unplug and re-plug the keyboard from and into the port).

I also considered another Intel-branded board, but the mATX H67 model that Microcenter sells (DH67BLB3) costs only $5 less than the mATX Gigabyte Z68 mobo. And that's not to mention that the DH67BLB3 has only five internal SATA ports total (two SATA 6.0 Gbps, three SATA 3.0 Gbps), and what would have been a sixth internal SATA port is instead eaten up by a single eSATA port. Plus, the Intel Media Series boards all support only one graphics card (GPU) even if the boards are standard ATX: The standard-ATX version of the DH67BLB3, the DH67CLB3, adds two legacy PCI slots to the DH67BLB3's standard PCI-e x16 slot, two PCI-e x1 slots and one PCI-Legacy slot. That's not a very good value, in my book.

Thus, after pondering all of those choices, I ended up with the mATX Gigabyte board. By the way, the GA-Z68MA-D2-B3 has no PCI-Legacy slots at all but three PCI-e x16-length slots which can run in an x16 (single card), x8/x8 (dual-card SLI or Crossfire), x16/x4 (dual-card Crossfire) or x8/x8/x4 (triple-card Crossfire) configurations.
 
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My only issue with the GA-Z68MA-D2H is that its newegg shipped price is fairly high for what it is. But at $115 from MC, definitely a solid deal.

Good luck with the mobo! Also I would like to see a review of that mobo from you if possible.
 
So far. so good although I had to reinstall some of the software on the system.

And now, I have also added a second 1TB Seagate hard drive (one that I have had for well over a year) plus a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooler - and decided to use the Cooler Master Elite 430 case (instead of the original's Elite 335) for this particular PC. This is because the primary PCI-e x16 slot on the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 is in line with only the accessable 3.5" drive bays (one filled with only an internal card reader, the other one empty); all of the hard drives are situated below the bottom of the GPU cooler.
 
What software did you have to reinstall due to the mobo swap?
 
Danny Bui said:
What software did you have to reinstall due to the mobo swap?
Click to expand...

I had to reinstall some of the Adobe Creative Suite programs.

As for the motherboard itself:

It actually supports only two GPUs simultaneously in either Crossfire or SLI (although that feature is more important for gamers than video editors). The third PCI-e x16 length slot, which runs at x4, is useful for those who have a video I/O card that uses that particular type of slot (many good I/O cards are like that). But so are the x4 slots on most of the regular ATX Asus Z68 mobos.

And initially, when I set up the system using this Gigabyte board, I used an XMP profile on the Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB kit. But enabling XMP would automatically force a 2-Turbo-step overclock on the CPU (halfway between the nominal Turbo setting and the maximum Turbo setting) - in other words, enabling XMP automatically forces the i5-2400 to run at 3.4GHz (with 4 threads) instead of the nominal 3.2GHz.

Stability seems good although I did not have the system running long enough to judge.

By the way, that Intel DH67BLB3 I mentioned in a previous post was worth the $90 shipped price at Newegg. But $110 plus tax an MC is too high for that particular mobo.
 
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By the way, my copy of the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 is version 1.3, which is already ready for PCI-e 3.0 for all of the x16-length slots (with Ivy Bridge CPUs) due to its inclusion of the newer Gen3 switch. The earlier revision 1.0 of that board has only a Gen2 switch, which will only allow the primary x16 slot to run in PCI-e 3.0 spec - and at only half-bandwidth (x8) speed (the other PCI-e x16 slots will be stuck at PCI-e 2.0 spec) when used with an Ivy Bridge CPU.

And now I know why the Asus non-Gen3 boards with an x8/x8 switch will effectively run its primary PCI-e x16 slot in what's effectively only PCI-e 2.0 x16 spec: For example, the P8P67 PRO will run its primary PCI-e x16 slot in PCI-e 3.0 but reduced to only eight lanes (in other words, PCI-e 3.0 x8 even with a single GPU). With Ivy Bridge, the Gen3 switch allows some of the bandwidth that would have been otherwise wasted with a Gen2 switch to be redirected towards the primary PCI-e x16 slot when only a single GPU is used (and thus will allow full PCI-e 3.0 x16 operation). The Asus P8P67 and P8P67 LE (and the P8Z68-V LE and P8Z68-V LX as well) will operate their primary PCI-e x16 slot at its full PCI-e 3.0 x16 bandwidth with an Ivy Bridge CPU due to their lack of an x8/x8 switch (the x4 slot will still be only PCI-e 2.0 in those four Asus mobos); thus, those four boards do not need the "Gen3" designation.

It's surprising that both Gigabyte and MSI do not use the name "Gen3" to distinguish their PCI-e 3.0-ready boards from their pre-PCI-e 3.0 ready siblings: You have to go by the board revision number for those two brands. Both Asus and ASRock use "Gen3" in their model names to separate the two generations of boards. And Intel is currently the only major brand whose boards are not user-upgradable to support either Ivy Bridge or PCI-e 3.0: The boards must be RMA'd to Intel for a factory-only firmware change.
 
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Hmm, something new learned for the day.

At least PCI-E 2.0 will still be enough for current cards for the foreseeable future.
 
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