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Question

Advice on Hardware, Overclocking, Watercooling

Jul 17, 2016 2:55PM PDT

Hi all this is my first post in here, any advice or comments you have on this post would help me a lot.

First of I’m an amateur photographer using my computer for processing my pictures, dumping large amounts of RAW images onto the computer for processing. The main software I’m running is Adobe Photoshop cc, Lightroom cc, light office work using Microsoft software and web browsing. Considering having a look at Adobe Premier Pro in the next year or so.

I’m wanting to upgrade my CPU, Motherboard, RAM and SSD drive I will be running windows 10 on. The system I have now is coming on six years old so I’m looking for hardware that will be futureproof, still be good in five to six year’s time.

I built the system I’m using now so I know a bit about computers but this build will be taking me to the next level.
The parts I am looking at are.
CPU - Intel i7-6850 (Broadwell-E) 3.6GHz six cores, the reason I’m looking at this CPU is that it has 40 PCIe lanes and with multithreading and huge overclocking capability and overclocking is something I want to try.

Motherboard - Asus Rampage V Edition 10 Intel x99, as I’m planning to overclock and push the system hard this board really stuck out, I’m running 8 hard drives at the moment and this can handle 12 and has 4 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots not that I’m planning to SLI at the moment but future proof is what the goal is. M.2 slot that I will be running operating system of. Not to mention the cool LEDs lol I love it.

RAM - Corsair Vengeance LED 32GB DDR4 3000MHz, this is something that I will be upgrading to at least 64GBs later on but for now 32GBs should do me. Photoshop is a very RAM hungry program so you can never have too much. I have a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD that I will be using solely at a scratch disk when running Photoshop.

Hard Drive – Operating System - Samsung Pro 256GB M.2 PCI-e NVMe solid state drive. I’m looking at this because its spec shows it’s a lot faster than SATA. Read speed 2150-2650MB/s Write speed 1260-1550MB/s. From what I have read these figures don’t mean much unless you’re working with large files. IOPS are the figures that you should be looking at and this has 300k/100k read write. If I have this wrong, please let me know.

Water Cooling - As I am planning on overclocking hard, water cooling is a must, but this is something I have never had experience with. The way I am planning to do it is custom loop. Raystorm Waterblock, quad radiator not sure what make is good, XSPC D5 Phanton270 Reservoir/pump combo. Later on adding motherboard and graphics cards to the loop. If anyone has experience in water cooling or post a link to any good tutorials would be a great help.

The rest of my Rig I have.
3 Monitors, 1 Philips 40” 4k and 2 Philips 24” 1080p
Case – Corsair Obsidian 900D
Gigabyte Nvidia 980 Windforce – used to power Philips 40” 4k monitor
Sapphire Raiden HD 6790 – used to power 2 Philips 24” 1080p monitors. I use these for web browsing or Microsoft word. Nothing Demanding.
Hauppauge Capture Card – PCI-e HDMI
Power supply is a Lepa 850 watt, but the case is capable of housing two power supplies is I need more power.
Hard drives - 4 Western Digital green 2TB, will be setting these up as a RAID 0 configuration, or other option is to but a Western Digital Black drive just for stuff I’m working on and use the green drives for stuff I rarely use and backup drives.

I love playing about with computers so I’m really excited about this build, if anyone has any comments about the parts I’m looking at please let me know. This will be me most expensive build I have attempted yet so I don’t want to jump in not knowing what to expect.

A step by step guide to overclocking is a must for me. I have been reading up about it here and there but a guide for the Asus Rampage V Edition 10 Intel x99 board is what I need. Can’t find one anywhere.

Water cooling Tutorials would be helpful as well, what are the best brands and configurations.
Hope someone out there can help me. And many thanks for taking time to read this post.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
The thing is
Jul 17, 2016 3:08PM PDT

Overclocking is not and has never been a sure thing. Yes there are web pages on it and yet, it's your choice to do this. Many if not all of the steps can burn out hardware.

Why would you do that?

You have a nice enough rig but no where close to run 4K (UHD) output. I can help this area. Just pull the video card back to 1080p and let the display upscale. Later this year on maybe 2017 we'll see 4K UHD gaming cards.

I'd forget the RAID 0 and just install a nice SSD. You'll get the speed without the RAID 0 risks.

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Raid 0
Jul 22, 2016 5:38AM PDT

I'm running Windows 10 on a M.2 drive that uses PCI-e bus so operating system will be fast. Raid was going to be used for storing large archives of photos. 4TB I'm using at the moment and if I start doing 4k video later that will double in 4 years. I'm upgrading motherboard, CPU, RAM, M.2 drive and water cooling now. Will upgrade graphics card in 2 years to a high end water cooled. Whatever it will be at that time.

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RAID 0 for ARCHIVES? Won't see me do that.
Jul 22, 2016 9:29AM PDT

One glitch on either drive and you lose it all. If this is ARCHIVES you want reliability not speed by sacrificing reliability.

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Answer
Hardware
Jul 22, 2016 6:31PM PDT

I'd set this up a little different.

Cpu...your choice

Mobo....your choice

Ram....the fastest ram the cpu and mobo will support in native mode.
Do set it up to enable dual channel.

Storage....for the OS/apps/work disk a ssd....your choice of flavors.
For gp storage some hdd....your choice.

Gpu...your 980 should be able to drive 3 monitors.
If not fast enough consider a gtx 1080 or a second 980 and sli or wait for the new titan to hit the market.

Backup....some hdd in an enclosure.
If you want raid shop for a raid enclosure.

Ocing....I would not go there.
Water cooling....watch the temps you should be able to tell if the stock setup needs help.

Connect all this behind a ups system.

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Rethink
Jul 23, 2016 2:00AM PDT

Yes I see your point there. I found a W/D black performance 4tb for £145. Use that in pc and use my 4 , 2tb drives in a NAS enclosure as backup. And as far as RAM goes, RAM for motherboard is quad chanel, does any1 know if I can use 2 duel chanel sets or do I need to buy a quad chanel set. Couldn't find any info on that when I looked.

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Ram
Jul 23, 2016 2:43AM PDT

I would not mix ram even two kits of the same ram can have enough difference to cause problems.

If you want 32GB of ram get a 4X8GB kit.