Maximum PC

Hello,

I need help with a build.

I was looking for a solution to store my pictures/videos on a raid for added protection but also to use the system for games and multimedia. Below is what I came up with.
Any comment is appreciated. I'm not really sure if I should go ahead with this.

PROCESSOR
1 x
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Item #:N82E16819115072
$219.99

MOTHERBOARD
1 x
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
Item #:N82E16813131730
$204.99

MEMORY
1 x
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820145347
$99.99

VIDEOCARD
1 x
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked EE 01G-P3-1373-AR Video Card
Item #:N82E16814130568
$189.99

RAID CONTROLLER CARD + BATTERY BACKUP UNIT
1 x
LSI MegaRAID SATA/SAS 9260-4i 6Gb/s PCI-Express 2.0 w/ 512MB onboard memory RAID Controller Card, Single
Item #: N82E16816118106

1 x
LSI LSI00161 MegaRAID LSIiBBU07 Battery Backup Unit for 8880EM2, 9260-xx and 9280-xx
Item #: N82E16816118118

Combo $499.98

HardDISKS FOR RAID 5
4 x
Western Digital RE4 1TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #:N82E16822136798
$479.96

OTHER HardDISKS (OS and Frequent usage HD)
2 x
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #:N82E16822148697
$109.98

CASE
1 x
Corsair Carbide Series 400R Graphite grey and black Gaming Case
Item #:N82E16811139008
$99.99

POWER SUPLY
1 x
AZZA Dynamo 850 850W Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817517003
$86.99

CABLES FOR RAID
1 x
HighPoint Int-MS-1M4S SFF-8087 to 4 SATA Fan Out Cable
Item #:N82E16816115064
$29.99

CPU FAN/HEATSINK
1 x
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm sleeve CPU Cooler
Item #:N82E16835103065
$39.99

THERMAL COMPOUND
1 x
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Item #:N82E16835100007
$9.99

MONITOR
1 x
ASUS VW246H Glossy Black 24" 2ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor Built-in Speakers
Item #:N82E16824236049
$199.99

WEBCAM
1 x
Logitech C310 HD WebCam
Item #:N82E16826104368
$46.99

Grand Total: $2,318.81

Switch up to a 500 series GPU. Also, don't quote me on this, but I think the motherboard's Z68 chipset has built in RAID. I approve of the cooler and the ram.

I think you have a good over all idea here but I think we can change a few things and save quite a lot.
1) 16GB of RAM is a lot too much, drop that in half and you will still have no problems. good memory though!
2) Drop the RAID cards they aren't needed at this point mainly since the MB you chose can handle RAID 5 with 4 drives off the 3G connections.
3) While I am sure the RE4 drives are good and are enterprise drives you will pay a bit of a premium for them. I think you could grab 4 Spinpoint F3 1TB drives for a lot less and they are still a reliable drive.
4) For you frequent usage drives go for another Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB and with the money saved from the RAID cards and RE4 drives you can get a Vertex 2 120GB SSD.
5) Also with the money saved you can up your video card to either a GTX 560Ti or a 570.
6) I would replace the PSU that you chose with a more reliable and trusted brand like Antec, Corsair,or Seasonic. A Corsair 750W will set you back a bit more but knowing you can trust the PSU is huge!

Here is the build with the changes:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Publi ... r=13576554
The total comes out to $1870
Total savings:$448

Personally, if you want a computer to media/storage, I'd look at getting 2TB or 3TB drives in your raid5 setup. You don't exactly need 7200 speed for a storage disk so the slower 5900 green drives will work just fine. You can find 2TB drives around 60-70 nowdays, add four in a raid 5 setup and you'd be playing with 6tb in a single disk. Add a speedy 1TB 7200 drive as your boot drive and a cheap/speedy small sdd as part as your SRT cache drive and it'll be more than enough for a media box.

Also, you can find the 460's for cheaper than 190. At at that price, you might as well get the 560 or speed a little more for the 560ti. You can find the 460's around the 130ish mark easily, maybe even around 100 on sale.

Thank you all for your input. Much appreciated. I aligned myself towards what Wiked_smart proposed, and have done the following upgrades. The parts are bought and are being shipped atm. I can hardly wait until I receive them.

PROCESSOR - UPGRADED TO
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

MOTHERBOARD - UNCHANGED
1 x ASUS P8Z68-V PRO ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

MEMORY - UNCHANGED
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

VIDEOCARD - UPGRADED TO
1 x EVGA 012-P3-1570-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

HardDISKS - Changed FOR RAID 1 (Figured that a raid 1 with 2TB capacity is a good compromise compared to a 4 disk of 1TB in Raid 5). The RAID will contain my family pictures and videos so I did not want to compromise on the Enterprise series HDs.
2 x Seagate Constellation ES ST32000644NS 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

OTHER HardDISKS (OS and Frequent usage HD) (The SSD is out of my budget and I wanted to maintain fairly high storage capacity)
2 x Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

CASE - UNCHANGED
1 x Corsair Carbide Series 400R Graphite grey and black Gaming Case

POWER SUPLY - UPGARDED TO (my order went through with the previous AZZA 850W; I will have to RMA though bought the new one already)
1 x CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

CPU FAN/HEATSINK
1 xCOOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm sleeve CPU Cooler

THERMAL COMPOUND
1 xArctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

MONITOR
1 x ASUS VW246H Glossy Black 24" 2ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor Built-in Speakers

WEBCAM
1 x Logitech C310 HD WebCam

OS
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM

Grand Total: $2,261.85 (before tax and shipping charges; ~$2425.00 with taxes and shipping fees)
Canadian Dollars (newegg.ca)

Problem with a lot of 2TB and 3TB drives: Their slow time causes them to fall out of RAID. I know that's a standing problem with WD Caviar Green 2TB/3TB drives...you have to pay $100 more for pretty much the same drive to be a "RAID edition."

Really? didn't know this. You have a link to any articles about this problem? I haven't built a raid 5 using green drives the 2TB drives I have are 7200 and got them on sale for the same price as the greens about 8 months ago. Would be an interesting read.

Oh and HLazar, just keep an eye out on cheap ssd's to add to your system. You can find the cheap 64gb kingston v100/v+100 drives for about $50 AR. They aren't the speediest of drives, but add them for a SRT cache drive will help compliment your mechanical disk drive. SRT only uses 40gb max so you'd have the other 24gig as a scratch drive if you want to work with image files.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see a link for an optical drive?

good read maggard. thanks the info.

If you aren't going to play/burn any discs, I would forgo it. You can always install Windows from a flash drive.

Yeah, but how you gonna get the image on to the USB drive?

There's an optical drive in the chain somewhere!!

While that is true, everyone has a friend ore a spare PC they can use for this.

also, don't forget whatever computer OP is using to post with! Plus public libraries and a hacked best buy demo computer will work as well... lol

Fry's, if there is one available, has fewer people watching. And there's always the public library. Ours has decent dual-core Pentiums and a DVD drive.

wasn't there something in the news recently where a dude was watching porn on public library computers and said he had the right because its free speech?

Actually in this example no, there are a few (legitimate) places where you can get a Windows ISO. Download it, extract its contents and install it to a flash drive, then boot from it. When I did my first Windows 7 installation, this is how I went about it.

Lastly, borrow a drive, usb or internal if you really want it. Its just that this way is faster, and saves you a few bucks.

Yeah, like the Microsoft Student site.