£1000 for a purely graphic design PC

tonho51

tonho51

tonho51

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22 Jun 2012
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Hi all, I've got a budget of £1000 for a PC (just the system, no monitors needed) which will only be used for graphic and motion design.

I expect to have a 40% motion graphic (video editing / after effects / 3DS Max ...) and 60% graphic (photoshop / illustrator etc...)

I won't be doing any gaming on it, and I was wondering if I could have your suggestion to what I should get. I am particularly interested to hear your thoughts on the right graphic card for the job!

This is my first build!

Cheers!
 
Welcome.

Sounds interesting, as far as i know the motion graphics portion of you needs are highly CPU based and graphics are a secondary use as for the graphic section this is not much different. Yes the GPU does get used more but it's light usage and down to the CPU, if im not mistaken.

A build like this should do you fine.

Obviously you can reach your budget by:
Upgrading the case
More/ Bigger HDD/SSD's.
A bigger air cooler/ all in one watercooler

But this is a good foundation for the build.

The GPU's CUDA core will help with any 3D processing which needs doing.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £257.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
2 x TeamGroup Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316G1600HC11DC) £77.99 (155.98)
1 x Gigabyte Z77-DS3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £65.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-500CXUKV2) £49.99
1 x MSI GeForce GT 430 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £49.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.12
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £826.01 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
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same with uprated components.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £257.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML16GX3M2A1600C10) £109.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £83.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x MSI GeForce GT 430 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £49.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 120 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/AM2/AM3/FM1) £24.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £942.40 (includes shipping : £13.75).

 
I don't know what people smoke on this site, but I've seen people suggest outrageous graphics cards for photo editing when a 430 will do and two people here have suggested 430s where you should be putting money in the graphics card (Nvidia for best compatibility - see links).

Premiere Pro has lots of accelerations. See: http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2012/05/opencl-and-premiere-pro-cs6.html
After Effects has lots of acceleration, see: http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2012/05/gpu-cuda-opengl-features-in-after-effects-cs6.html
3Ds Max can be accelerated. See: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-3ds-max.html
Photoshop for graphics can be accelerated. See: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html
Illustrator can be accelerated. See the Photoshop link.

Spend some money on a decent GPU (no idea what's decent, I don't do much of what the OP does). Drop to an i5 if you are pushing money (the i5 is 90% the speed of an i7 for video encoding). Definitely try and keep a K processor for an overclock.
 
I agree with arad85, people on this forum are spending unnecessarily. But then I guess that's what keeps OCUK in business.

I just built myself such a system, my specs are:

Intel i5-660 3.33GHz
16Gb Kingston HyperX (1600)
Asus P7P55D-E
ATI FirePro V5800
OCZ Agility3 240GB
WD 600GB/150GB VelociRaptor
Zalman Z9 Plus (£50~)
Zalman CNPS9900 NT
Zalman ZM1000-HP Plus

The PSU is over kill, but in future I want to CrossFire with another ATI FirePro V5800. The motherboard isn't spectacular, but it's enough for this build. Most of it is B-Grade, and 2nd hand parts, but overall it's a lot less than £1000.
 
arad85 said:
I don't know what people smoke on this site, but I've seen people suggest outrageous graphics cards for photo editing when a 430 will do and two people here have suggested 430s where you should be putting money in the graphics card (Nvidia for best compatibility - see links).

Premiere Pro has lots of accelerations. See: http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2012/05/opencl-and-premiere-pro-cs6.html
After Effects has lots of acceleration, see: http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2012/05/gpu-cuda-opengl-features-in-after-effects-cs6.html
3Ds Max can be accelerated. See: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-3ds-max.html
Photoshop for graphics can be accelerated. See: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq.html
Illustrator can be accelerated. See the Photoshop link.

Spend some money on a decent GPU (no idea what's decent, I don't do much of what the OP does). Drop to an i5 if you are pushing money (the i5 is 90% the speed of an i7 for video encoding). Definitely try and keep a K processor for an overclock.
Click to expand...

A good GPU will defiantly help the process, though it's not needed to start with. Actually shown by your links.

I would suggest something like a Firepro v5800 or Quadro 2000, though these push £300 each and aren't sold on this site.

You don't need a big PSU, the V5800 for example only uses 75W (max)

If you can open your budget up to £1100-£1200, you can get i7 & Firepro v5800 or Quadro 2000.
 
Doomedspeed said:
A good GPU will defiantly help the process, though it's not needed to start with. Actually shown by your links.
Click to expand...
:confused: The lionks show what's accelerated and with the acceleration switched on, you get faster rendering as you work (not necessarily on output).

The Mercury Playback Engine has a huge impact on ~50% of the effects in Premiere Pro. Also it speeds up previews in After Effects. I'm no big graphics card user (the best gfx card I've ever owned is the 450 I have now) but I'd certainly spend money here if I was doing anything along the lines of the OP.
 
I'd also avoid AMD graphics (i.e. Firepro). The Adobe acceleration is OpenGL, OpenCl and CUDA accelerated. Whilst the first two can be covered by AMD, the third cannot - which dumps the whole of the Mercury Playback Engine from Premiere Pro for a start (even my lowly 450 completely massacres the i7-2600K for video rendering on the timeline).
 
arad85 said:
I don't know what people smoke on this site, but I've seen people suggest outrageous graphics cards for photo editing when a 430 will do and two people here have suggested 430s where you should be putting money in the graphics card (Nvidia for best compatibility - see links).
Click to expand...

cos you were shouting at people that much in the last graphicy related thread that you scared them so they didn't want to overspec the graphics card this time :D.
 
To be fair, You should really go for a Quadro anyway.

I'm also pretty sure there are some gains to be had with the i7 over the i5.

So there.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 550D Quiet Midi Tower Case - Black £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML16GX3M2A1600C10) £109.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £83.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/ AMD AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1) £29.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £829.37 (includes shipping : £13.75).



Can go Fractal R3 or Antec P280. But that would be the basis, with a suitable GPU. I do think a i7 would work quite well in there.
 
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is quadro worth it.

Doomedspeed said:
If you can open your budget up to £1100-£1200, you can get i7 & Firepro v5800 or Quadro 2000.
Click to expand...

I have been trying to work out if it really worth it buying a quadro on a smaller budget. Answer I'm not sure...

At this sort of budget I would Imagen the best your going to end up with is an fx1800 maybe 2000 if lucky by sacrificing the i7 for the i5. Even then surely the only program that will see an obvious improvement is 3ds max.

From a personal point of view - I use a quadro 4000 at work and ati 6970 at home. I cannot tell any noticeable difference using the adobe suit. (I've not used 3ds at work). Ati card = £300 Quadro = £750 (******).

Thoughts anyone?
 
Dan8 said:
Thoughts anyone?
Click to expand...

I used a £250 Quadro card for 3D modelling work at work a few years ago, and my GTX 460 seemed to outshine it. The 460 was a newer generation or two though.

I think that Gaming GPU's are underrated for this kind of work. Though as the OP isn't gaming. Maybe the Quadro/firepro is the way to go. will defiantly use less power.
 
Dan8 said:
From a personal point of view - I use a quadro 4000 at work and ati 6970 at home. I cannot tell any noticeable difference using the adobe suit. (I've not used 3ds at work). Ati card = £300 Quadro = £750 (******).
Click to expand...
Ahh, apologies, they have moved the CUDA acceleration in Premier Pro to OpenCL in CS6 - CS5 was Nvidia only (and there are still a few bits that are Nvidia only in CUDA).

I don't think you need Quadro cards to enable these features - you can certainly trick PP into using an unsupported card simply by editing a text file.

I have NO idea on relative performance of Nvidia vs ATI for these sorts of apps though.
 
Can anyone confirm if Corsair's low profile memory (CML16GX3M4A1600C9) will work correctly with Gigabyte's GA-Z77X-UD3H?

It's not on the memory list but most of the Corsair Vengance range is missing...
 
@arad85 - prolly because if I remeber the right threads those people a.) had a higher budget and b.) didn't specifically specifiy that there would be absolutely no gaming at all.

I like the above specs as there is no gaming at all they are bang on. If able to spend a bit more I would up the GPU and it would (very slightly) help the tasks carried but also add the ability to game if ever wanted. But for OPs specific requirements specs are good imo.

@ Dan8 - can't see a 16GB Corsiar low profile ram set here on ocuk but I can't see the timings or voltage being incompatible with that mobo no. For a layman such as myself if it is dual channel PC12800 it should be absolutely fine with a Z77 board.
 
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[WU-TANG]GZA;22293330 said:
@arad85 - prolly because if I remeber the right threads those people a.) had a higher budget and b.) didn't specifically specifiy that there would be absolutely no gaming at all.
Click to expand...
But the budget was skewed towards the graphics card at the expense of other things which would have helped improve other items in the build (in the case I was referring to, better monitor(s)). There does seem to be an assumption that everyone who wants a fast machine games so ""needs" a relatively high end graphics card. I have 11 PCs here (for 3 people!!) and not one has a game installed.

We don't even own a console.......
 
Ahh nevermind :)

My friends cousin has just signed up to ask about a system/gfx combo for rendering! This guy is obv not him :)
 
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