Advice needed - how to best use the following components

[Step666]

Hi,
Hoping for a bit of help with regards to building a a new (in a manner of speaking) rig.


I recently acquired a computer with the following specs:

• i7-3770
• 16GB (2x8GB) 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
• nVidia Quadro K4000 GPU
• 120GB Samsung Pro SSD

It was going spare at work, destined to be chucked, so now it's mine.

There's a very good chance that I can get my hands on at least one more of these, so it would give me double everything listed above.
If I do get my hands on a second system, I was certainly thinking of using all the RAM and both SSDs. I'm not sure how well the K4000s will work together as I'm aware they don't support SLI but I figure it's worth a crack.
If I were to manage to acquire even more, I was thinking of just stripping the SSDs out of them.


Anyway, it's been a number of years since I last built a computer (my last rig had a Q6600 and SSDs cost about as much as a decent second-hand car), so I was looking for some advice on a few different things - stuff like which PSU to get, which case and what sort of cooling I should be looking at.
That and anything else that is worth considering or that I've overlooked.



Thanks in advance.

[OldChap]

You don't mention what you want to use it for but....

Maximum power needed for that GPU is only about 80w and the cpu is not a K so no need to factor in power for overclocking. Together these facts lead me to suggest that a psu in the 500w range will allow you to run full power in the sweetspot for efficiency. The case is going to be a matter of taste but again not a huge amount of heat to deal with so you might want to consider one with large slow fans for their silent qualities..... same goes for the heatsink.... you could just run a stock cooler but a bigger one will be quieter

If others become available then raid maybe? Go for maximum ram, you will be glad you did. I am always looking for more

Any spare parts you end up with might be interesting to us guys that do wcg for XS so come over and talk to us.... if the price is right we could help fund some of your build

[Step666]

You don't mention what you want to use it for but....

Apologies.

It would just be a general main rig for myself - my last desktop met an untimely end a while back and I wasn't in a position financially to replace it.
Watching movies, web browsing, photo editing, a bit of gaming but nothing OTT - I'd be perfectly happy if I could play Red Alert 3.

Maximum power needed for that GPU is only about 80w and the cpu is not a K so no need to factor in power for overclocking. Together these facts lead me to suggest that a psu in the 500w range will allow you to run full power in the sweetspot for efficiency. The case is going to be a matter of taste but again not a huge amount of heat to deal with so you might want to consider one with large slow fans for their silent qualities..... same goes for the heatsink.... you could just run a stock cooler but a bigger one will be quieter

That's very useful, thanks.

If others become available then raid maybe? Go for maximum ram, you will be glad you did. I am always looking for more

Yes, that was my thought.
It depends a bit how many of them I can get my hands on. There's a chance it could be as high as 6 or 7.

Any spare parts you end up with might be interesting to us guys that do wcg for XS so come over and talk to us.... if the price is right we could help fund some of your build

I'll certainly bear that in mind.
I think I have a small list of people have put their names down for one if I can get them, with me keeping the SSD as a finder's fee, so we'll have to wait and see

[zalbard]

I would sell the Quadros. They are expensive, and don't offer anything special for home user.

[OldChap]

I don't game but the described rig will run rings around Red Alert.

The only issue I see is perhaps needing to run Vista

[Step666]

I would sell the Quadros. They are expensive, and don't offer anything special for home user.

That just ends up being more hassle though.
I'm just looking to make this as easy as possible.

I don't game but the described rig will run rings around Red Alert.

The only issue I see is perhaps needing to run Vista

Yeah, I kinda figured.

I've run RA3 on Win7 before with no issues, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[Step666]

Well, I should be getting my hands on a second system on Thursday.
So that should be 32GB of RAM and a couple of SSDs to go along with the i7 and, maybe, a pair of Quadros.

I take the point about the Quadros not being consumer-grade cards but I can't help thinking that by the time I go through the time and hassle of selling them and buying something else, I won't necessarily have gained or achieved anything for all the palava.