Critique Welcome of a Proposed System

[markymarc]

Here is a proposed system, mainly for Photoshop.

Components from another machine will be raided:
EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 896MB video card (non overclocked version)
120 GB SSD SATA III (6GB/s) for boot OS
Black Caviar 1TB or 2TB Drives for storage. No RAID.

Config:
ASUS P8P67 Pro, P67 with an i7 2600K 3.4 Quad
Kingston RAM but 16GB and preferably DDR-1600
Corsair HX 850W
Gelid Tranquillo
Blu Ray reader/writer
Possible replacement of stock fans with quiet fans.

Case: Antec P183v3 or a Cooler Master Version. The Cooler Masters get such rave reviews. I understand those cases have more noise but the fans seem to make a lot of difference, even more so than the insulation foam (sometimes). My current case is open and I do not get much fan noise. To be honest, my biggest noise complaint over the years has been those d**n hard drives.

My concerns: Will I have enough cabling length from the PSU to reach all video card and other peripherals? I like going with a Corsair PSU just in case I may want to move the PSU around to another case. I like options.

I am guessing my video card (now 2 years old) can still hold its own? I got the GTX 260 as Adobe specifically called it out as supportable on CS4. CS5 works well too.

Any input on case choice and anything else is most appreciated.

[PCC-William]

If you are going for quiet I would definitely recommend the P183. Its stock fans are pretty quiet to begin with, so unless you are aiming for silence (which you won't get with a fan-cooled video card and spinning hard drives anyways) you don't need the upgraded fan kit. Should you decide on the Cooler Master chassis, though, the fans there can't really be upgraded either. They use primarily large 200mm fans - at least in the HAF series we carry - and so far as I am aware no quieter fans are available in that size.

As for reusing your components, the parts you listed certainly make sense. That video card is still a fine one for work like you've described as well.

However, our policy here at Puget is that we can only sell a system that is fully functional on its own. Adding customer parts is not a problem, but on the off chance that they arrive and are defective or won't work with the other components for some reason we need to still be able to finish and ship the system in an operational state without them. That means we have to include some sort of video output capability and internal drive, though obviously if you sent those parts in (or install them yourself once the computer arrives) they would be used instead.

To that end, I would suggest the Z68 motherboard instead of P67. That has built-in video outputs and would let the system run without the video card if needed. That is actually a nice touch as well in case your video card ever failed in the future - you could keep running the system while waiting for a replacement.

On the drive side of things, a small 500GB WD Blue drive doesn't cost much at all. Or, if you need more storage space anyways, you could just opt for a drive that you'd be fine adding to your storage pool - maybe a WD Black or Green model.