Here's my 2 cents, with existing monitor/keyboard/mouse. Not the most ultimate, but could be within my means:

Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 201-v3 8 core (16 threads) - 899.99
ASUS X99-A LGA 2011-3 motherboard - 279.00
Corsair Dominator Platinum Series 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 26666MHz - 369.00
Corsair H110 280mm Extreme Performance LCS - 129.99
4 x EVGA GTX750Ti FTW GPU - 680.00
Corsair Carbide Series Air540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - 139.99
2 x Samsung 850 Pro Series 128GB SSD - 259.99
Samsung 850 Pro Series 1TB SSD - 699.99

Total $3,458.93 USD not including tax

Then add a quality PSU. ;-)

Cheers.

Damn - forgot the PSU - already have one, an Ultra X4 1200 watt from the dead i7/930. Also the UPS - APC Back-UPS XS 1000 - two other no added cost items. Network/internet is via Verizon FIOS so that takes care of the router.

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

The CPU can effect how quickly your GPU tasks run. I had a HD5750 in my HTPC with a i5-4750K@3.4GHz. Running only AP 3 CPU + 1 GPU the GPU times were 70-75 minutes. I upgraded the GPU in the HTPC & moved the HD5750 to my older i7-860@3.46GHz. Running only AP 0 CPU + 1 GPU the GPU times are 85-90 minutes.

I did some of my own calculations and for the type of system that I would build, the difference between AMD and Intel would be less than 5% of the total system cost, but the difference in performance would over 10%, so for me Intel would be the better investment.

Back in the day when I was a very young man and not very wise, I built an AMD machine with an ATI GPU in one of the first systems that I built, and it lasted exactly 25 days. Luckily the CPU/board/GPU were still under store warranty and I was able to swap everything out for Intel and NVidia components and haven't looked back since. AMD processors may be cheaper than Intel, but in my opinion they're not as efficient, and their GPUs have too many problems handling different applications. Intel processors with their associated boards and NVidia cards may cost more, but I'd rather spend the extra cash then put up with the problems that a lot of people have with AMD/ATI type components, especially when it comes to SETI. The main problem that I have with AMD/ATI GPUs are the drivers, they could never get it right, whereas I can install a NVidia driver and go through several family types and never have to worry about them not working and crunching SETI. I can count maybe three times that I've had a problem with NVidia drivers and it's usually something stupid that I've did. I can count twice that a driver screwed with SETI and one of them I was the first to report it. I have no problem running SETI with a beta driver version, but I bet you can't say that about AMD/ATI drivers.

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

My current build project -

Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Black
Case: Corsair 760T Black E-ATX 7 Fan -> red LED, clear left side case
CPU: I7-4930K -> I am not paying that much for 3mb of extra cache on the 4960X
Cooler: Corsair H80i Liquid 120mm
GPU: 2 x Asus GTX-750 TI OC
RAM: 32Gb Adata XPG
PSU: Corsair 750W
HDD: 4 x WD 2Tb Red in Raid 10
SSD: boot, 256Gb SAMSUNG 850 Pro Series MZ-7KE256BW 2.5"
Optical: ASUS Black CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive Model BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS
Key/Mouse: Logitech mk710
OS: Win 7 Pro 64

Budget is "almost" not a consideration, I have all parts except the optical drive.

The "almost" - I considered the new Intel CPUs but I had already purchased the 32Gb of DDR3 and to go with the 5930K I would have had to spend 1k$ more on mb/cpu/mem, most of that on the new DDR4.

The other considerations were 40 PCI lanes and number of DIMM slots

Regards
Robert

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Maybe I ought to start thinking NVidia from now on. I have just started a new build with case and intel MB.

Back in the day when I was a very young man and not very wise, I built an AMD machine with an ATI GPU in one of the first systems that I built, and it lasted exactly 25 days. Luckily the CPU/board/GPU were still under store warranty and I was able to swap everything out for Intel and NVidia components and haven't looked back since. AMD processors may be cheaper than Intel, but in my opinion they're not as efficient, and their GPUs have too many problems handling different applications. Intel processors with their associated boards and NVidia cards may cost more, but I'd rather spend the extra cash then put up with the problems that a lot of people have with AMD/ATI type components, especially when it comes to SETI. The main problem that I have with AMD/ATI GPUs are the drivers, they could never get it right, whereas I can install a NVidia driver and go through several family types and never have to worry about them not working and crunching SETI. I can count maybe three times that I've had a problem with NVidia drivers and it's usually something stupid that I've did. I can count twice that a driver screwed with SETI and one of them I was the first to report it. I have no problem running SETI with a beta driver version, but I bet you can't say that about AMD/ATI drivers.

Maybe I ought to start thinking NVidia from now on. I have just started a new build with case and intel MB.

Back in the day when I was a very young man and not very wise, I built an AMD machine with an ATI GPU in one of the first systems that I built, and it lasted exactly 25 days. Luckily the CPU/board/GPU were still under store warranty and I was able to swap everything out for Intel and NVidia components and haven't looked back since. AMD processors may be cheaper than Intel, but in my opinion they're not as efficient, and their GPUs have too many problems handling different applications. Intel processors with their associated boards and NVidia cards may cost more, but I'd rather spend the extra cash then put up with the problems that a lot of people have with AMD/ATI type components, especially when it comes to SETI. The main problem that I have with AMD/ATI GPUs are the drivers, they could never get it right, whereas I can install a NVidia driver and go through several family types and never have to worry about them not working and crunching SETI. I can count maybe three times that I've had a problem with NVidia drivers and it's usually something stupid that I've did. I can count twice that a driver screwed with SETI and one of them I was the first to report it. I have no problem running SETI with a beta driver version, but I bet you can't say that about AMD/ATI drivers.

Given how new GPGPU computing is there will be issues as it gets rolling. Since it hasn't had 40-50 years to get to the refined point of CPU computing. I think most of the long time NV GPU users will tell you there have been several "don't use X.nn driver" or "don't use X.nn driver on Y card" issues. You could ask the GPU app devs about drivers issues.
This is also why when a new driver set come out you tend to see a post "New NN/ATI driver vN.xx released." Where people post issues or non issues.

When selecting a GPU for SETI@home it is more of an issue of which do you want focus on, MB or AP. As currently NV hardware is better for MB & ATI hardware is better for AP. Which is why I included one of each in the system I spec'd out in this thread.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Thanks Hal,
I almost forgot about that distinction.
I'll tie a string around my finger, as if that would help.

Thanks you and Tbar re. 6570's on my dell and showing me how to upgrade a dell bios. You think they might have included something fundamental like that in their paperwork 5 years ago. Today they don't even bother with paper. I had one dvd for reinstall of the OS and 1 page of electrical warnings.

Maybe I ought to start thinking NVidia from now on. I have just started a new build with case and intel MB.

Back in the day when I was a very young man and not very wise, I built an AMD machine with an ATI GPU in one of the first systems that I built, and it lasted exactly 25 days. Luckily the CPU/board/GPU were still under store warranty and I was able to swap everything out for Intel and NVidia components and haven't looked back since. AMD processors may be cheaper than Intel, but in my opinion they're not as efficient, and their GPUs have too many problems handling different applications. Intel processors with their associated boards and NVidia cards may cost more, but I'd rather spend the extra cash then put up with the problems that a lot of people have with AMD/ATI type components, especially when it comes to SETI. The main problem that I have with AMD/ATI GPUs are the drivers, they could never get it right, whereas I can install a NVidia driver and go through several family types and never have to worry about them not working and crunching SETI. I can count maybe three times that I've had a problem with NVidia drivers and it's usually something stupid that I've did. I can count twice that a driver screwed with SETI and one of them I was the first to report it. I have no problem running SETI with a beta driver version, but I bet you can't say that about AMD/ATI drivers.

Given how new GPGPU computing is there will be issues as it gets rolling. Since it hasn't had 40-50 years to get to the refined point of CPU computing. I think most of the long time NV GPU users will tell you there have been several "don't use X.nn driver" or "don't use X.nn driver on Y card" issues. You could ask the GPU app devs about drivers issues.
This is also why when a new driver set come out you tend to see a post "New NN/ATI driver vN.xx released." Where people post issues or non issues.

When selecting a GPU for SETI@home it is more of an issue of which do you want focus on, MB or AP. As currently NV hardware is better for MB & ATI hardware is better for AP. Which is why I included one of each in the system I spec'd out in this thread.

I'm not disputing that there have been NV driver issues, but I believe they are far less than ATI. I still believe NV drivers are more stable as they provide more family backward compatibility then ATI drivers do. For example the current driver 344.11 applies to all families from GE400 series up to and including GE900 series, a total of 54 GPU types. I can put in my old GTX460SE and run with this driver. As far as crunching is concerned, my twin EVGA GTX750Ti FTW, running 2 AP tasks each, usually run 1.25~1.45 hrs., depending on blanking, and I can live with that as I don't particularly care about how long it takes as long as it gets done successfully and my GPUs run at 99%, and that's with allocating .5 core for each task.

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

My build would be built around the i5-4460 Haswell Quad Core with 2 Sapphire Radeon r9 270 gpu's. Any comments or tips are very welcomed.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-4460-1150-BX80646I54460/dp/B00JIJUBAS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412603433&sr=8-1&keywords=i5-4460

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I0D81OG/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=JPASR9VG68WO&coliid=IYC4AFQRQ9XM4

OK then, how about:

My build would be built around the i5-4460 Haswell Quad Core with 1 Sapphire Radeon r9 290 gpu.

http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Version-PCI-Express-Graphics-11227-00-40G/dp/B00HJOXUKC/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1412621003&sr=1-3&keywords=r9+290

I'd ...

build somenhing with Seasonic X-1250 + Asus P9X79-E + el cheapo (used) 6/12 core intel LGA2011 processor + H20 cooling and then a bunch of extension cords and some 8 nvidia 7(5/9/x)0's + linux on SSD with the GPU's hanging in a circular free air iron rack (self made) over a 16" blower mounted below them. The RAM modules would have to be just to be sure Cas 6 at 2200+ MHz if I ever wanted to do any processing with the CPU.

... wish I had time to write to Santa.

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To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

I went and bought the Intel Core i7-4790K Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz) (BX80646I74790K) for the start of my build.

I am and always was an impulse buyer. I'll listen then I follow my heart.
I live with the consequences. No buyers remorse.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I got one of those too. I just liked the idea of being able to hit 4GHz without overclocking.

Yes sir and I am so used to 8 threads, I couldn't go with the 4.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

Yes sir and I am so used to 8 threads, I couldn't go with the 4.

I went back & forth several times between the i5 & i7. Either is a good choice. If I was building a machine for pure crunching then I would have spent the extra money for the i7. Given the primary purpose of my machines is not crunching I didn't justify the extra cost of the i7 over the i5.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

And sometimes the emotions get involved there a bit too.

I just got my new motherboard from UPS. It's an ASRock Z87. I have one concern; the cpu is very close to the 4 memory slots which are thicker (the memory sticks that is) than the old ones in that they have, I guess, a built in heatsink. So now I have to be careful that my cpu heatsink/fan is "slim" enough. I need to measure everything out and do some research. The MB is a little larger than a standard 12x9.6" board.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

So now I have to be careful that my cpu heatsink/fan is "slim" enough. I need to measure everything out and do some research.

Those that use heat pipes may be high enough over the motherboard (and the base is the size of CPU)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2XC1E12084
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Sleeve-Direct-Socket-100-FS-C901-KR/dp/B00FS6O20A

What's the height of the mounted RAM ?

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

Oh yeah I didn't see that before.
I get the case tomorrow. Then the cpu and ram follow in a few days.
I will put it all together. Those links you have are very interesting because they do look high enough for what I imagine the ram-sticks to be.
Thanks BilBg

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

And sometimes the emotions get involved there a bit too.

I just got my new motherboard from UPS. It's an ASRock Z87. I have one concern; the cpu is very close to the 4 memory slots which are thicker (the memory sticks that is) than the old ones in that they have, I guess, a built in heatsink. So now I have to be careful that my cpu heatsink/fan is "slim" enough. I need to measure everything out and do some research. The MB is a little larger than a standard 12x9.6" board.

Depending on how tall the memory you have it could be an issue. The CPU memory layout is pretty standard & looks like it is exactly the same as my MB. Even using a massive Noctura D-14 cooler I was fine for clearance with the memory.
http://www.hal6000.com/seti/images/host_5837483_01.png
I was worried about the height of the cooler, but the specs for the case include the max cooler height allowed & it was within 5mm. So was fine.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[