Component Help - Where To Imvest

Associate
Joined
19 Aug 2014
Posts
20
I am building a pc designed for multi tasking, multi screening, and streaming television. What are the most important components that I should be considering? I understand that a processor will be essential to handle multi tasking. Would it be advisable to have one very good graphics card and one average? I won't have more than 2 screens that will be demanding on the graphics card. Are there any other components that will be vital? Thanks in advance for any advice! :)
 
All of those tasks (though vaguely described) are CPU dependent. If its just general day-to-day multi-tasking they are also single threaded, which meansa powerful (strong core) CPU is needed.

The 4690k is the obvoius choice, depending on your budget, though (if you're on a tighter budget) the Pentium K is a great shout. Overclocked to 4.5, it'll cut through anything.

The AMD CPU's rely on multi-core (thread) performance, so i'd rule those out.

Have you got a TV card? Would you need one to stream TV the way you're doing?

As for the GPU you don't NEED one, but i'd look at investing in a cheap secondhand card (GTX 460) or a mid-range new card (R7 265 or GTX 750[ti]), this will give you abit of gaming power too.
 
750ti would be a good cheap gpu. Very low power usage and you can still play games at some very decent frame rates. When you say multi tasking, what kind of tasks? If you are talking web browsing and word docs then you don't need much power at all. If you mean rendering videos and streaming HD content at the same time then more grunt is needed.
 
As Devrij says, it depends what you mean by multi-tasking. If you mean a few things open at once then any modern CPU will be fine, no need to go anywhere near the level Doomedspeed suggested.Most ordinary tasks don't require very much single threaded performance at all, even if they are poorly threaded, so a cheap AMD (6300 or 8320 )is fine, or possibly an i3. Higher than that sounds like a waste of money to me.

You'll need some RAM (all computers do!) - multi-tasking generally means you need more of this as each task will use some, but again it depends what you would be doing with those tasks. I'd suggest perhaps 8GB RAM as a sensible place to start unless you're doing something abnormally RAM intensive (give us some use examples and we can help!)

To stream TV you may need a TV card (e.g. an HD arial running to your computer would need a TV card to let you watch it) - I'd look to get quite a good one as cheap ones really ruin the experience. Of course, if you're e.g. streaming video from the internet then this bit is totally unnecessary!

Multi-screening doesn't require multiple GPUs, one can drive several screens. As Doomedspeed mentions, you don't need a discrete GPU at all, though a lowish end one is probably a good idea, again depending what you actually do with the machine. Also, this depends what you chose in the CPU section, as some CPUs come with onboard graphics and others don't. If you get an Intel celeron, i3, i5, i7 or any AMD APU then it'll come with onboard graphics of varying capability. If you get an AMD 63xx, 83xx, Intel Xeon then you won't. Once you've chosen a CPU we can advise you better :) The things you've specifically mentioned don't really need lots of GPU power (again, multi-tasking being so vague I'm just ignoring it).
 
Hi guys, thanks for your advice. I'll try to clarify a few things. The budget is around £1,000. If needed it can be increased by a couple hundred but that should be high enough for this build as far as I know.

When I say multi tasking, I mean several software applications, office document, multiple web browsers, and a couple of online streams running simultaneously. The reason i'm enquiring about graphics cards is because I want to have 3/4 monitors running at the same time, which include 2 streams and a variety of software. I don't think a TV card will be necessary right now.

From what I understand so far, the processor and RAM will be the main components of this build.
 
Fortunately for you literally any CPU you can buy new at OcUK will be fine for those requirements, you're talking about a basic office PC as long as those "software applications" aren't abnormally intensive (databases, video rendering, etc.).

£400 should be enough, £6-700 for something a bit more flashy.
 
joeyjojo, thats good to hear. So you reckon a £600 budget pc would be able to support 4 monitors, streaming and all the other programs without any problems? The software I will be using will require intense refresh rates and a lot of data btw.
 
Thanks for the build Doomespeed, I have also tried to make something myself. I know that this is unnecessarily overpowered for what I've mentioned, but is it fine in terms of component compatibility? Or are there other substitutes to make the system more efficient?

Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor

Asus Maximus VII Ranger Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard

Kingston HyperX 16GB (2x8GB) PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit -

Black/Red (HX18C10BRK2/16-OC)

Asus GeForce GTX 750Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Aerocool XPredator X3 Avenger Midi-Tower - Red / Gold

Corsair RM Series RM 550 '80+ Gold' 550W Power Supply (CP-9020053-UK)

Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G)

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD

Raijintek Themis Evo Professional CPU Cooler

Total is £800. I will probably downgrade closer to what you suggested.
 
Sorry, forgot to mention in my last post. Essentially it's going to be investment software so things like tracking data and graphing. The streams will be mainly for news and sports. I'd rather put in the extra couple hundred to make sure everything runs smoothly with minimal lags or delays.
 
I see, thanks. I think what you've got looks pretty good. If it were me I'd do something like this, justifications below:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £161.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 260X OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/8X) £59.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 450W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £44.99
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
Total : £384.95 (includes shipping : ).



  • The plain (not K) i5-4690 because I wouldn't expect you to overclock a work machine. Quad core and very fast (3.5 GHz).
  • 260X GPU has 4 connectors on the back - 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, and 1x displayport. You haven't said what connectors your monitors have but this gives you a good chance of finding somewhere to plug everything in. I've heard displayport can be "daisy chained".
  • 8 GB of memory will be plenty. This is a really insane special offer and will need to run at less than its rated speed in most motherboards!
  • 450 W PSU is plenty, most likely you'll never go over 200 W.
  • Basic motherboard, has all the connectors you need without overpaying.

The case, cooler, etc. are up to you.
 
Last edited:
Sorry, forgot to mention in my last post. Essentially it's going to be investment software so things like tracking data and graphing. The streams will be mainly for news and sports. I'd rather put in the extra couple hundred to make sure everything runs smoothly with minimal lags or delays.

The only way lag would creep into that is through you network connection and you're HDD load times.

Thats why i put a big SSD in my spec, so you can store all the software on that (aswell as the OS).

I assume this will be connected via ethernet then? (for faster transfer)
 
Yes, it will be connected by ethernet. Are there any other ways to maximise transfer? Also, would it be worth having a larger SSD and an external hard drive instead of the internal one? I will have an external drive.
 
Back
Top Bottom