Need advice on PC specs

[ryuusei]

Greetings to the tech support people!

I am just wondering if i can get some sort of advice/feedback on the following specs i will be posting. I will be using this new computer for some programming/engineering simulation/graphics designing (i.e. using programs such as MATLAB, Solidworks, Lightwave and Rhinoceros) so i assume a gaming PC would be good enough.

Specs (from itestate.com.au):

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
MB S775 ASUS P5Q Deluxe
DDR2 4GB Kit 800MHz Patriot C4
VGA (nV) GTS250 1024MB Sparkle
3.5" SATA 1TB 32MB Samsung
5.25" DVD-Rw SONY AD7200A0BS1
Gaming Case CM Storm Sniper
PSU 1100w Apevia Warlock

Which amounts to $1689AU (which approaches my budget). To be honest, besides the RAM none of the other specs makes sense to me.

So my question is, if i were to use this computer for programming/simulation/render etc, will this setup be enough to do an above decent job?

Also i'm thinking of adding maybe another 2gig of ram just for good measure.

Feedback/advice/criticism accepted

thankyou

[Claies]

I would add another 2GB or even 4GB of RAM for the rendering. I don't think a 1100W PSU is necessary. My build very much resembles yours and I'm using a decent 600W PSU.

I approve of pretty much everything else. You may want to get a second hard drive.

[chikorita157]

1100 W PSU is a bit excessive and it will use alot more power than you really need. Unless you are overclocking your computer, a decent 600W like Claies suggested will do fine enough.

Also, 4 GB of memory requires a 64-bit OS... Also, Samsung hard drives aren't the fastest hard drives nor I own one.... but I highly suggest Western Digital drives from my experience since they are the most reliable... but don't buy a Seagate hard drive since they have a serious flaw to them.

Graphics Card will do fine, but Quadro will do better with 3D modeling/rendering, but won't perform well with games.

[mechabao]

I think they've fixed the data corruption problems with their 7200.11 series hard drives.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by mechabao

I think they've fixed the data corruption problems with their 7200.11 series hard drives.

Yes, but I still don't have any trust Seagate for any of their drives since the firmware fiasco... It seems that their quality control have dropped a long time ago, ever since they acquired Maxtor.

Also, they are responsible for hard drive failures in the 2007 Macbooks since they used a faulty Seagate hard drive with faulty firmware which is more of Seagate's fault, not Apples. Thats why I tend to stay away from Seagate hard drives because of it and also the recent firmware flaw.

[Jinto]

Generally I see a details that is somewhat interesting:

The RAM is clocked at 800MHz CL4.
The Core 2 Duo in the E8xxx series should have a FSB with 1333 MT/s. This makes one sound assumption possible, RAM clocked at 333/667/1333 MHz will work better with this sort of Core 2 Duo processors and is in general more compatible regarding the clocking. The whole memory controller and northbridge setup is much more sound using such clocking. Imo a decent quality DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM setup would fit better with such a processor. But not all MBs support it, especially the older ones and cheaper ones and those that are not meant for CPUs with FSBs of 1333MHz. Considering the 1100W PSU I assume some of the components seem to need a lot of power, which is sometimes a sign for either low quality components or even worse overclocked counterfeit components (using some cheap chips and relabeling them to counterfeit more expensive ones). Now my last lines are basically just a vague assumption. But it appears strange to me, that such a system would be delivered with such an overpowered PSU.

edit:

looking at the MB specs I see the reason why they opted out for the 800MHz RAM, it is basically the better of two bad choices.
I don't understand why they did not just use the Asus Maximus Extreme with the Intel® X38 Express chipset. That fits much better the processor.

[ryuusei]

thank you all for your feedback