RAM compatible with 3930K and ASUS P9X79 PRO + more

[Matthews Media]

Hello all-knowledgeable computer friends,          

I am taking the plunge and am about to purchase these parts via newegg for ~$2000 to complete my DIY Premiere Pro 6/AE video editing computer for DSLR footage. I would love any feedback possible. What do you love/what do you hate? What should I change?

Some questions:

-Can anyone double-check my RAM, motherboard, & CPU compatibility? 

-Should I invest in a cooling fan?

-Will 750w be enough for PSU?

-Which RAM should I go with, 1600 or 1866 with the 3930k? Ripjaws a good selection?

[MOBO]

ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS

[RAM]

I can’t decide between the 1600 and 1866? Will one be more compatible with my CPU?  Intel’s website lists the 3930k compatible with 1600 only I think? Anyone know? G. Skill seems like a good option for my configuration (unless anyone thinks otherwise please let me know).

-G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 32 GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL

• Vs.

-G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9Q2-32GBZL

[CPU]

Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K

[GPU]

EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI

[DRIVES]

What is the best configuration with these drives? I’m think SSD for programs, etc. but then what? Should I RAID0 the two 1TB?

Plextor M3 Series PX-128M3 2.5" 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

(x2) Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

[PSU]

I am still trying to figure out this one? Anyone have any recommendations? I have an old 750w PSU that I think may work?

[CARD READER/DVD]

Rosewill RCR-IC002 74-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader w/ USB port / Extra silver face plate

DVD-RW from old computer

[CASE]

I have a large Antec case from previous computer.

Thanks for your help!

[Harm_Millaard]

Adobe Forums: Planning / building a new system. Part 1

Have no answer yet on the memory. For the rest the article linked to above should get you on the way.

[Matthews Media]

Thanks Harm, I've defnitely already been using that as a resource

Do you have any other off the cuff reactions to my proposed build?

[RjL190365]

I'm not Harm, but keep in mind that if you're ever going to do projects with more than three or four layers of HD video or any number of layers of 4K video, the 1.25GB of RAM on that particular GTX 570 will limit you: If a particular scene runs out of VRAM on the card, the entire rendering process for that particular scene will fall back completely to software-only MPE, and Premiere will not even let you know that it will default to such a setting.

[Matthews Media]

Good to know, I may switch to the 2 gb

[Harm_Millaard]

I would even suggest the GTX 670 with 4 GB. It requires less power, has double the memory, is around 10-15% faster and has up to 4 monitor connections.

[David OS]

I seem to remember reading on one of the threads on here that the Samsung Green MV-3V4G3D/US 4GB sticks which are found here were compatable. Could someone please clarify this. I've just bought 32GB of these to run along side an i7-3930K and will begin to build the system in the next week or so.....

[ECBowen]

Yes those Samsung are compatible. If you enable the XMP profile then you will likely have to change the voltage to 1.4 if fully populated.

Eric

ADK

[Matthews Media]

So, if I swapped out the G. Skills memory and purchased 32 gig of this low voltage Samsung, you think I'd have a pretty stable/speedy system?

[ECBowen · Accepted solution]

The Samsungs are definitely compatible and just may require a few tweaks. The G-Skill compatibility is completely dependant on the modules used in that batch and the systemboard compatibility updates and whether the QVL has changed because of module changes. The Samsung definitely will mean a stable system if set right. The G-Skills I can't say for sure because of the question marks.

Eric

ADK

[Matthews Media]

Thanks Eric.

Any other advice on my current build? Think I'll be safe with a 750W PSU? CPU fan?

[ECBowen]

You will need a CPU fan. Harm has many good recommendation in his article about those. The 750W will be enough for your current config. However what will be the overall disk configuration in the future. That is what you want to plan on. I would take the video card recommendation. The 4GB cards are limited inventory currently and the 2GB are cheaper. Your overall budget will decide that.

Eric

ADK

[Matthews Media]

Eric,

Thanks again. I am trying to stay around ~$2000 and the current configuration is right at that. I currently have 3 HDDS. 1 ssd and 2 x 1 TBs.

In regards to my hard drive configuration, do you think the three hard drives will serve me well?

Or is there a better option going with one more HDD and attempting some sort of RAID?

[Harm_Millaard]

Every extra disk will help, but raiding them does not always help when you are on a limited budget. Parity raids are 'not done' on a mobo. They are much too slow. Striping means you also have to have a backup disk, to alleviate the risk of complete data loss. That means two extra disks, one to create the raid0 volume and a second one as backup disk. Well, you need backup disks anyway, but if you are only thinking of adding a fourth disk, I would suggest to keep them as simple volumes and just distribute the load more amongst them.

[Matthews Media]

So here it is:

I am going for most bang for my buck here, and am trying to stick around $2000. This is what I've come up with and am planning on ordering soon and am at ~$2100:

MB: ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS  I plan on occupying all RAM slots for 32 gig.

CPU:  Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX...

FAN: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 140mm and 120mm SSO CPU cooler

RAM:  SAMSUNG 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model MV-3V4G3D/US

(need 32 gig) Still unsure about this Samsung, but am going for it!

GPU:  EVGA 025-P3-1579-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) HD 2560MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready S...

SSD [x1]:  Plextor M3 Series PX-128M3 2.5" 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

HDD [x2]:  Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Dr...

PSU:  CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850 (CMPSU-850AX) 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD C...

Card Reader:  Rosewill RCR-IC002 74-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader w/ USB port / Extra silver face plate

I have a large antec case and dvd drives I will be using from a previous build. Any other thoughts?

[Harm_Millaard]

Instead of the 570 consider the GTX 670. You will need more memory and more disks in the future, when budget allows.

[DaveCowl]

This system is very close to what I am looking to build.

I am still curious what the deal is with the memory needing to be Samsung low voltage - not that I am opposed to Samsung especially, just curious as to why it is important.

I saw someone else was talking about Mushkin low voltage RAM also...

I like the look of the Plextor SSDs - I was going to go Crucial but the Plextor is very tempting.

You might want to consider a USB3 Card Reader?

Cheers! Dave.

[Kinhoikhun]

I have just built a system that is very similar to yours.  I am still getting it set up and ready for overclocking.  It was a bear to instal windows properly and get the RAID driver to work. 

Regarding the Samsung memory, I installed all 8 DIMMS with 4gb memory each for a total of 32gb.  The system set stock performance of the RAM has been 11-11-11-27 at 1600.  Not all that great.  After the CPU overclock I hope to improve upon the timings but I think with all 8 slots full I will not be able to push the RAM past 1600.  Installation of windows with the RAM was a real pain.  Because the Noctua tower is so large, and there is little space under the CPU cooler to instal RAM after the coller installation, I populated all the memory slots with RAM prior to windows instal.  This was a mistake.  I had to remove all the RAM but 1 stick and was only able to instal Windows with 1 4gb stick of the Samsung RAM in place.   After loading all the drivers, some other programs and Windows updates I then repoplutated all 8 slots with the RAM.  That seems to have worked. The good news about the Samsung RAM is that it has no heat spreaders and is not very tall so with difficulty you can instal the RAM latter on without having to remove the Noctua cooler.    

I set up 2 WD VolociRaptors 500gb each in a 2 drive RAID 0 using the the Intel software RAID.  i ran AIDA64 disk drive benchmark for Random Read and I achieved 240 MB/s using the SATA 3.0 controller.  I was hoping for better but am not surprised as others have reported similar results.  I may try the Marvell SATA 6.0 controller to see if I can improve the performance.  At the end of the day I probably will need to get a separate RAID card.

[fsrdh]

Greetings everyone.

I'm new to this forum and am currently building a new computer for Premere Pro. I have been using an I5 setup with a Radeon that would encounter serious lags during production/montage. I don't want to start a new topic as my question is very similar to this one (same motherboard) Could you please have a look at this setup and tell me what should I look to improve (I know now from reading that 1GB on the GPU may not be sufficient)  or what components should I avoid.

Sincerely Jacob

ASUS P9X79 PRO

INTEL Core i7-3770 3.4GHz LGA1155

PATRIOT VIPER XTREME DIVISION 4 DDR3 4x4GB 2133MHz CL11 ELK

Asus DCII OC 1GB GTX 560

OCZ Vertex 2 SATA 60GB

[Harm_Millaard]

Jacob,

Nothing much, except a different CPU and different memory or different mobo. Ivy Bridge does not fit on a X79 mobo. You also need a PSU, several 7200 RPM SATA disks, a good cooler and several fans, all in a good case.

[fsrdh]

Thanks for catching my CPU mistake Harm. I have been copy-pasting the configuration and got the wrong CPU in the list.

The one that I'm interested (financialy capable now of purchasing) is

Intel Core i7-3820 processor

I read mixed reviews and opinions about it on this forum... But I can's seem to find a good alternative. I'm an art student and most of my work is well... Art. I am trying to get the parts I need for around $1300. Could you please advise on the CPU and elaborate on my choice of RAM why do you recomend chaning the Patriots?

Jacob 

[Harm_Millaard]

Jacob,

Instead of the i7-3820, which is a quad core, you may be better off with an i7-3930K hexa core, which is unlocked and thus easier to overclock and has 2 MB extra L3 cache. It is of course much more expensive and I do not know whether it fits in your budget.

Instead of the Patriot memory sticks (1.65V) you are better off with the Samsung LV 1600 (1.35V) modules, and with 4 x 4 GB you save almost $ 40 and you can in the future fully populate all memory slots. You can't do that with the Patriot sticks.

[Tamas]

Hi folks I have a similar question. I already have purchased most of the components for my new build, including the following:

Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 2011, X79, EATX, 8x DDR3, PCI, 5x PCI-e, Crossfire, SLi, 4x SATA-300, 6x SATA-600, 0, 1, 5, 10, 1Gbps, 2x eSATA, FW, 7x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, PS/2, 7.1,
Cooler Master HAF X
Intel Core i7 3930K Boxed Socket 2011 cpu 3,2GHz
Noctua NH-D14 Special Edition (LGA 2011) 140mm
Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W 80-plus-gold
2x Intel 520 120GB 120GB SSD (OEM) SATA-600
Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP2 815MHz 3GB GDDR5

The last component which I still haven't figured out is the RAM.

As I understand, the 3930k works (best) with 1,35v ram. My question is, will this 1,35v ram work on the Gigabyte mobo, which supports 1,5v memory? Or do I have to adjust something in the Bios in order to make the ram work properly? Or do I have a major problem here?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Any other suggestions on this build are welcome!

Message was edited by: Tamas Media

[Harm_Millaard]

Samsung will work on Gigabyte mobo's. Add a couple of 7200 RPM SATA disks to the equation.

[Tamas]

Thank you Harm!

I forgot to mention that I will add a 1TB 7200rpm and a 2TB 7200rpm harddisk from my previous build.

1st SSD is for OS.

2nd SSD is for global performance cache

1TB is for output

2TB is for media and project files.

I also will use an external hard drive for backups, as well as blu ray disks.

Any idea where I can find those Samsung sticks in the Netherlands? Tweakers is not listing them properly.