Powerful PC build (non-gaming)

par451te

Hi all,

I am hoping to put together a list of parts to buy to put together a powerful PC. It is not for gaming but some multimedia capabilities couldn't hurt. I do not want to spend more than 1800 but can if it is worth it.

I have put together a list of parts that seem suitable. Any advice or pointers would be appreciated!

I plan to use one SSD for Windows and the other for Ubuntu.

The main programs I would use are:
Matlab, Labview, Solidworks, EAGLE, Altium, Firefox and a few more.

Processor Intel Core i7-5820K LGA2011
Processor Cooler Cooler Master Nepton 140XL
Motherboard MSI X99S Gaming 7 LGA2011
Case CoolerMaster Case Pro 5
RAM Kingston HyperX Predator 4x4GB
Graphics Card MSI GeForce GTX 960 2GB
Power Supply Unit CoolerMaster GM Series G750M
SSD1 Samsung 850 EVO series 120GB
SSD2 Samsung 850 EVO series 120GB
HDD Western Digital 1TB
CD reader Pioneer BDR 209
Card Reader Recom 16:1

Digital Solitude

Why the 960 if you're not gaming?

A single 250gb or 500gb SSD would be better than two individual ones, if you've two then you need to pick which to boot from everytime the PC turns on. With one, your given a menu and you just pick which OS to boot.

Is an X99 build necessary? A Skylake one could knock a lot of money off that

par451te

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Why the 960 if you're not gaming?

A single 250gb or 500gb SSD would be better than two individual ones, if you've two then you need to pick which to boot from everytime the PC turns on. With one, your given a menu and you just pick which OS to boot.

Is an X99 build necessary? A Skylake one could knock a lot of money off that

Thanks for the quick reply.

I will get one SSD so!

To be honest I don't know a whole pile about it. I have read a lot of articles but have never built a PC before. The graphics card is for Solidworks, Altium and multiple monitors.

I didn't want to get AMD as I have had problems with them before.

I assume that a Skylake is a chipset? Do they also have a mount for LGA 2011-3?

Digital Solitude

My initial reaction is that something cheaper would have done, like a 750 but I don't know much about the side of computers you'll be using.

Skylake is the 1151 chipset, Intel's newest. Might be worth looking into if there won't be a huge performance hit

mad turnip

Most of the applications you are CPU bound so going for a high end g-card is a bit unnessary. As Solitude said a GTX 750 will do fine. I presume your an engineering student?
I would also recommend one SSD aswell.

A 750W power supply? A bit over the top 600W is fine. I would probably recommend 16gb ram but it might be a bit high.

Skylake chipset mostly has its benefits in thermal output and power consumption which will not help if your staying in student accommodation which it sounds like might be possible.

Digital Solitude

If you're a student you likely won't need to spend half of this budget tbh

Johnboy1951

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Why the 960 if you're not gaming?

A single 250gb or 500gb SSD would be better than two individual ones, if you've two then you need to pick which to boot from everytime the PC turns on. With one, your given a menu and you just pick which OS to boot.

Is an X99 build necessary? A Skylake one could knock a lot of money off that

You are mistaken.
The function of boot managers such as Grub is to facilitate multiple operating systems.
You get a menu even if you have multiple bootable drives and OSs in the build.

In fact it is much better to have two separate drives for the two operating systems, as it means the OSs are completely separate.

Each of the two SSds can be bootable, with one selected by default. That one carries a menu which allows the other to be booted.
In the absence (or failure) of the default boot drive, the second drive can be selected via the UEFI/BIOS option.

A definite recommendation for two separate drives for the operating systems.

Digital Solitude

I wasn't aware of that, I had attempted it a couple of years ago and it didn't work for me, I assumed it was a hardware limitation.

I was on IDE, it might well have been

Johnboy1951

In a situation like that I suggest that Win is installed to its own drive first before connecting the second drive for Linux.
Win can then be set up and updated etc etc.

Then add the Linux drive, and make that the default bootable drive.
Install Linux on it writing Grub boot manager to its boot sector.

Now there are two drives which are each bootable.

The Grub entry on the Linux drive should also have an entry for the Win drive ...... this is usually set up automatically, but if that fails it can be easily done manually.

As neither OS interferes with the other, there should be no interaction that would cause problems.

To me this is optimal ...... although I mostly put both on the one drive, particularly in Laptops where there is not much choice

Each of the three drives in this PC has one or more bootable operating systems on it, all accessible from the menu.

Great fun trying to remember what is where