New Monster Computer Build

[bananaman10991]

So, I've been wanting to get a new computer for some time now, and this is kind of what I've been looking at.

-COOLER MASTER COSMOS II
-ASUS P9X79 LE LGA 2011
-Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011
-Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler
-Patriot G2 Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 (x2 for 32 total gb's of ram)
-Thermaltake Toughpower TP-1350M 1350W PSU
-ASUS GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
-Intel 520 Series Cherryville 120 GB SSD (OS Drive)
-4 Western Digital RE4 250 GB SATA 3.0 GB/s Internal Enterprise HDD (RAID 0 Recording Drive)
-6 Western Digital Caviar Black 500 GB SATA 6.0 GB/s Internal HDD (RAID 0 Sample Drive)
-640 Gb HDD (already owned, will hold music and games)
-Intel RAID SATA 8 internal port w/ 256MB cache memory
-Windows 7 64-bit


Now I would need a RAID controller card since I'm using all of the available SATA connections on the motherboard. so I was looking at the Intel controller because it was the only one on newegg that looked decent that had 6 or more connections on it. Although, I wouldn't be opposed to using only 4 HDD's for the sample drive and getting a cheaper RAID controller card, but that's really about the only part I'm not very sure on. Everything else I feel fairly confident with. While the case is expensive, I also didn't see any other options that would hold all 12 drives without any adapters.
About the video card, yes, I will be playing games on this computer, which all of those will be on a 640 Gb HDD that I have in my current computer. I also have a 3 monitor set up, so the main display is on a 42" led tv, and then a 23" monitor on both sides that I can drag stuff to. I could get something like my current card, which was $150, but if I'm going to build a monster machine, I figure I might as well go all out and get super cool stuff all around.
I currently don't have any sample libraries, but I was planning on getting EastWest's Composer's Collection and going from there. The whole idea behind all the computer stuff is to not have any limits in the hardware department of my studio. Or at least be very difficult to find those limits.

[ecc83]

I know diddley about 'puters...but I read a lot!

Would a SSD not be the cutting edge thang for the main system drive?

Dave.

[aww-de-oh]

I know diddley about 'puters...but I read a lot!

Would a SSD not be the cutting edge thang for the main system drive?

Dave.

Looks like he has one listed.

"Intel 520 Series Cherryville 120 GB SSD (OS Drive)"

banannaman (trying saying that 5x fast!),
the CosmosII is a friggin awesome case. However, i don't know how good it is acoustically. I have the origional one, and it's well built and has acoustic foam, rubber grommets, ect. I'm not sure the new one does though.
With being a gaming machine and having the crazy powerful graphics card comes alot of noise.
You could cut alot of cost off your build by foregoing the dual RAID setup, and just getting quick drives for each. Use the extra for backup drives. While nice, unless you're running crazy symphonic 120 piece orchestrations, the RAIDs are overkill IMO. Besides, by using the huge graphics cards, i'll bet that just by way of fitting the card, you'll block off 2-4 SATA ports off the mobo anyhow. You can try right-angle SATA connectors, but sometimes even these won't fit under the GPU.

[bananaman10991]

I'm not worried about noise, as the computer is in the other room with 50' cables connecting it to to all the fun stuff! (I really need to post some pics sometime..) so noise is not a problem. I have yet to see anything about acoustic foam or anything like that in this case, but it does have a bagillion rubber grommets, so cable management should be nice.
My current computer has a RAID between 2 drives for the recording drive, and I've found the limits of that, (about 100 stereo tracks at 24-bit depth and 44.1 KHz) but these are also older drives and probably not as fast as any today. Maybe if I just do 3 of the 250 gb drives in a raid, I'll be more than covered.
I wanted to get the EastWest Composer's Collection, and I don't know how hard that is on the hard drive, so I wanted to be sure to be super prepared for any kind of demand on it. Perhaps I should just have 2 hard drives in a RAID for the sample drive and call it good. Going that route would knock off a pretty decent chunk of the cost.

[aww-de-oh]

i'm always wary of using RAID 0 for anything important, unless you have a rigorous backup scheme in place. If one drive fails, everything is lost. And by multiplying the number of drives, the probability of failure of any one drive goes up expodentially. the new SATA6 drives are pretty capable on their own.
If you do go with a RAID for music purposes, be sure to get a good quality hardware controller and not the mobo's built-in. I would look into RAID 1+0 (10) as well as other options too.