I've changed this topic to be more general as to what makes a good computer build for Iclone / video editing ....and 3rd party softwares like adobe / hitfilm / 3D softwares in general. Not to pigeon hole the topic into one part like the cpu vs iclone thread.

I've made a wishlist with a variety of high / mid / minimum performance parts, and doing a ton of research for making a good media computer. http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/AIJUZVJNMG13/ref=cm_sw_su_w

so far I'm really liking the gtx 770 lightning card - and while it may be overkill for iclone - it's great for gaming, video editing and compositing . which btw the gtx 770 lightning version is said to perform as well as the 780 - for the price it seems appealing.

the board I reaaally want is the msi mpower max motherboard - but I'm leaning towards the half price msi g65 gaming board - as it has a few extra features that I really like that are useful to my needs and everyone says it's more than enough for average gamer / user - While I could go geek with it- I'm not sure I'd be wanting to oc my system to 5.0 ghz anyways simply to extend it's longevity

Despite re-assurances, I'm still not confident enough on the SSD technology to make it my main drive - the whole thing just seems too fragile to make it the computer lifeline - Others have suggested making partitions on 2ndary drives to place images of the ssd as back up in a raid format -

Truth is I am naturally technically inclined, I pretty much can learn anything I really get into - anyone can really - but I am trying to check myself so I can focus on making videos - not breaking a world overclock record so I can render a 5 minute video in 3 seconds flat - instead of 5 from massive overclocking. Had I pursued my degree in computer science @ Pace University as I originally set out to do, it would make sense ...but I went into Entertainment ...so I just need enough to be able to work fluidly without my computer choking up on me.

If I had the money and the time.....I'd go asus vi rampage / extreme extended board with a Intel Core i7-3970X and 64 gigs of ddr 3000 ram lol 4 titan sli I've learned enough to build a $10k system without even trying - much like some people would collect exotic sportscars - but that's not an option at the moment lol ( i'd still have a 4770k system for it's single thread prowess though! ) which btw ...they are aiming to make the 4770k 8 core for mid 2014 - so I'm sure there will be a 4770x as well in the works.

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I shared your concern, but let me attempt to change your mind.

My favorite hardware site is AnandTech.com.  What I love about them is most of their reviews are very analytical in nature, but they also share their opinions and biases openly (and you can differentiate between test results and opinions).  They also have behind-the-scenes articles that explain the technology or talk about how companies balance technology-vs.-marketing concerns.

For quite some time, Anand was saying the BEST UPGRADE you could do for an otherwise “good” system was to move from HDD to SSD.  However, reading about SSDs “wearing out” scared me.

Eventually I got over my fear, and I LOVE my SSD.  I got my son one for Christmas, and even on his aging system (dual-core Athlon 64) he could feel the difference (and this spring we upgraded the rest of his sytem as a graduation present).

Key PRO points:

• You really can feel the difference between an SSD and an HDD
• If you WRITE about 10GiB/day, you are still talking about 10 to 20 YEARS of life for the small disks, much longer for 256GiB disks
• Life span concerns are really only valid in a server environment, not for regular consumers (even heavy-hitting power users)
• When they “wear out” it is graceful – it gradually becomes a read-only device – it is not like it suddenly breaks one day
• They are vastly more reliable that HDDs
• You should ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP, no matter what you’re using – what it your house gets hit by lightning and it fries everything in the case?

Key CON points:

• More expensive than HDD – I recommend SSD for boot device, software installation, and your favorite games (so levels open really quickly) – put “My Documents” and all your data on an HDD
• There used to be compatibility issues, and may still be in rare cases, so do shop before you buy… but if it works for a week, you should be in great shape, and the market has matured a lot so this is getting to be very rare
• Easy to over-shop… You can split hairs, and one is faster here while another is faster there… but keep it in context, and remember, even a mediocre SSD is way faster than a high-end HDD

Here are a few links:

SSD Lifetime Estimation – See the table in the Conclusions.

Lower Endurance – A non-issue (see the first paragraph, at least)

AnandTech goes all SSD - Because they're so fast and so reliable

There's lots and lots of interesting technology behind the drives, but in the end I highly recommed them based on my own experience.

 

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

FWIW - PC Hardware Spec requirements are different for NLE, High-end Gaming & 3D Animation.

NLE & 3D Animation Programs aren't necessarily going to function with a High-end Gaming PC. Neither will High-end games necessarily function with NLE & 3D Animation PCs.

So - You need to decide where your priorities lie & go for a Medium Spec Gaming PC that will function with both NLE & 3D Animation Programs, if you're a Gamer.

The above being said, it's how you use your PC & Programs which is more important than using a Rolls Royce to go shopping, apart from impressing the neighbo(u)rs ;)

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@ justaviking - I did more research on the SSD , am still iffy on it lol - I guess also the price point and my computing habits - I tend to use my main HD like a work space, I do beta's, test a lot of softwares, I'm in a record pool so I download gigs of music a week to review - then there's also film making where I create gigs of uncompressed avi files and compress / back them up when I'm done - So i'm constantly downloading and deleting large amounts of files. Add to this many softwares aren't friendly about installing in a drive other than your c: - which can be annoying if you are limited to 256 - 512gigs - so that technology is still green imo.

I've been checking out the hybrid drives though, they take the best of both worlds for speed and old school price point for space.

@Colour - I say gaming , because I do game - but in reality - I'd like to be able to use an effect like motion blur in real time video editing - at the moment, that is really one of my biggest issues with a software like Hitfilm - almost any effect I try tweaking in real time chokes the computer - which is extremely annoying to me creatively - like how am I supposed to tweak effects on a visual that is constantly choking up ? on gaming and video editing - it seems they both heavily rely on the cpu for rendering.

Then there's also the point that you can make a monster build for about 1.5k that you don't have to upgrade for many years. As I understand it, many of todays computer technologies have pretty much reached a saturation point - It seems that if anything, Software developers need to up their game to take advantage of all these new processes - about the only real software advantage with a power pc is to be able to open up several programs with little speed degradation - which I kind of like because I tend to multi task often. I've learned that many softwares are still working at a 1 to 2 thread level, so the 4770k is the fastest 1 thread processor on the market - next stop - quantum computing!

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I don't want you to think I'm pressuring you, but I do enjoy both the technology and the discussion.

I'll leave you with one final thought, and then I'll leave you in peace...

Is it a good VALUE for your dollars?

If you are constantly installing/uninstalling/reinstalling software, you would really appreciate and benefit from the performance of an SSD.  Every time you do something like that.  Every time, every day.

Graphics cards become out of date and get replaced.  CPUs too.  Suppose, in a worst-case scenario you "wore out" an SSD (like this one , randomly picked) in 5 years.  That's a long time for computer technology (and it's almost certain to last a lot longer).  That would cost you only $3.17/month.  Once you have one, you'd NEVER trade it in for an HDD for that little money.

OTHER COMMENTS ABOUT THE COMPUTER:

• You are already aware of single-threaded vs. multi-threaded performance, so it's important to understand your applications (as you already know)
• For graphics cards, consider CUDA support (only on Nvidia cards).  Right now Blender makes great use of CUDA cores with it's "Cycles" rendering engine.  It's not fully functional on OpenCL yet.
• In gaming and most other work, my AMD card and my son's Nvidia card are very similar
• In fact, with my Intel i7-3770k with HD-4000 graphics, I barely even need a graphics card for most of what I do... but when it comes to Cycles Rendering in Blender, his card with Cuda support is way faster
• Once again, any time you want to push the envelope, you have to understand your usage, as has been stated before

Have fun shopping!!!!

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

hehe, the shopping is actually frustrating - it seems that most of these extreme variety of makes models are just marketing schemes for perks we will never use. I hate to seem pessimistic but after all this research, it appears that software isn't getting better, if anything it seems that all these new high tech equipment just helps software developers hide the bugs more efficiently. Many if not most games are 32 bit and demand thousands of dollars in super high end gear to get a decent fps ?

Computers need to go back to 640k ram and these 32 bit game developers need to be writing mmos in DOS so they can see where they went wrong! lol.


and @swoop, if i wanted photorealism in games, I'd go to a park and play frisbee!! @#%!@#

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

it's THAT simple! :ermm:

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

Nice looking case.

I did notice (among other things) that she installed a Solid State Drive (SSD).  ;)

About shopping being fun or agony, I find it to be both.  Shopping for each component has the ability to become a project of it's own.  You can over-shop the memory, the hard drive, the graphics card, the case, even the fans.  The challenge (for me) is sometimes knowing when I've shopped enough.

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

lol, yup - going through heat sinks today - Phanteks PH-TC14PE http://www.phanteks.com/PH-TC14PE.html - supposedly the best heatsink alternative to water cooling. reading around how people are buying this model but replacing their fans with better fans and you can add upto 3x 140mm fans on it for extreme cooling- the con to this cooler though is that it touches high profile ram ..in effect limiting your choices of ram and it doesn't fit all cases. I'm reading too many horror stories about how rigs are getting tanked by leaking liquid coolers - phantek is the only air cooler that I've heard of that will let you hit 4.7ghz on a 4770k - maaasive size though - 3lbs!! The noctua 140mm fans are the most praised. There are others but seems that noctua set the standard.

so far this is the build I'm looking at - not buying anything yet....


Thermaltake Chaser MK-I - case -
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00001719
I love this case, just discovered it today! it has a hot swap HDD feature that I reaaally like ( I have a collection of hard drives from past computers that I could put to great use with it ! ) - final choice

MSI Z87 MPOWER Max LGA 1150 - I love this motherboard
http://us.msi.com/product/mb/Z87-MPOWER-MAX.html
- 20 phases / bluetooth / wifi / widi - special intergration with msi video cards that gives it an extra boost - Final Choice

I'd like an MSI 770 lightning to go with that - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_770_Lightning/ it's the best you are going to get in it's price range and comparable to the 780 but about 250$ cheaper - am going to wait on it though, and use my old gtx 460 for now - I found out I can push it to 1350mhz - so it will have some headroom to hold me over till I can save up enough to buy a better card later. ( I'd really want a titan, but that card is $1.2k :crazy: )

Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
The blue is less expensive, but the black is raid friendly - good for future upgrades

I actually like the idea of an ssd in the build - I can easily intergrate it into a raid set up, but that's a later upgrade = trying to get the base build tight first within budget.

Haswell - 4770k - best media cpu in it's class *there's another tier of cpu but the 4770k is the winner in it's price range - easy on electric bill - can overclock to 4.7ghz ...but I'll probably keep it at 4.0 and have a preset for a higher oc for those moments I need extra power to do some intense video fx work - final choice

Ram - I'm still torn on what the best ram would be - the msi board can take up to DDR3 3000 - but that ram is expensive and I don't know if paying all that extra money is worth the 'tinge' of speed increase heh! I just know that if I get 1600 or above with xmp - I'll have headroom to overclock if i need.

Power supply, I'm still bouncing back and forth on also, I'm going for 750 watts haswell compatible would like a silver rating...but the silver and platinums can be expensive. Corsair has some nice ones, but they haven't been getting the greatest reviews among gamers

this is a combo build that I found at new egg, but I'm not sure if I want to get locked into a gtx 660 - and the ram they chose, but it's still a great deal with all the other parts I want - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1352829

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

It's clear you've been doing your homework.

When I bought my RAM (about 14 months ago) to go with my i7-3770k CPU, I opted for 1600MHz RAM.  My budget was lower than yours, and at the time it was the sweet spot for price-performance.  Today I'd look at the next level up (2300-ish?).

<preaching to the choir> As you know, once you go from poor to good to really good, then you start splitting hairs.  A lot of times the only way to tell the difference it to actually perform benchmarks.  If faster RAM reduced my rendering time for a 3D model from 60 minutes to 59.5 minutes, do I really care?  In either case I'm walking away from my computer and will do something else.  On the other hand, if my favorite application launches in 5 seconds instead of 15 seconds, I can really feel that improvement. If I can now rotate my model smoothly without studdering and pausing, I can appreciate that improvement too.</preaching>

Let us know when it's built, and post a picture so I can go "Ooo" and "Ahhh," okay?  When do you think it'll happen?

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD