Build Suggestions for an Architect

My build was 137 pound over the initial budget, 37 pound over the revised budget that would make it 152 over or 52 over. So if he can push his budget that far, then by all means go for that one.
 
Ok guys we gotta keep this under £500, just spoke to the buyer, the corsair is the PSU I would like to go for though.

Thanks for the builds so far, really like the Hexcore system, anyway we can make cuts in it?
 
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If you're going to go for the quad core black editions don't waste money on the 965

It's a 955 with the multiplier pushed up by 1. Just get a 955, and poke the multiplier up by 1, then you have a 965. :)
 
if there is a potential for upgrade within say 6 - 12 months down the line then psu would be fine with the clear knowledge it isnt great and may go, just got to hope it doesnt take anything else down with it.

The gpu should be fine for reasonable sized projects but there will be a time issue involved especially for rendering.

The dell monitors are fine but then that depends on how much clarity you want on lines and curves, most of the lower end dells ive had dealings with have been pretty blocky with text and fine graphics.

But even after saying all that, that is a great build for the price and limitations are going to have to be expected for that price. Im surprised to see a 9800 that cheap the price really has dropped on those
 
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £126.89
(£107.99) £126.89
(£107.99)
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
(£72.33)
Dell IN1910N 18.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey £82.24
(£69.99) £82.24
(£69.99)
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVS34G1333ELK) £70.49
(£59.99) £70.49
(£59.99)
XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £58.74
(£49.99) £58.74
(£49.99)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £39.99
(£34.03) £39.99
(£34.03)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £31.71
(£26.99) £31.71
(£26.99)
Sub Total : £421.31
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £75.70
Total : £508.26

Best you'll do without going more over budget. Only real way to make it cheaper is switching that motherboard for one of the micro-atx boards.
 
The essential programs are photoshop, vray, rhino, sketchup, cad and indesign.

What is the most basic MOBO I can get to work with the Hexcore? Since I will obviously need a standalone GFX.

Thanks.

So many good builds, but do we need such a high end MOBO?
 
This is what I have come up with, not all from OcUK though.

Processor
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz 9MB Cache Socket AM3 Retail Box Processor 204939 60 in stock £155.99

Monitor
Cream 18.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £79.89

Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H 880G Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard 218935 14 in stock £69.09

Memory
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVS34G1333ELK) £70.49

Graphics Card
XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £58.74

Power Supply Unit
Corsair 400W CX PSU - 12cm Fan 80Plus Certified Efficiency 6x SATA 1x PCI-E 150985 684 in stock £34.55

Hard Drive
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 146252 > 5 in stock £34.98

DVD-RW
Samsung TS-H653G DVD-RW SATA Optical Drive - OEM 227080 > 200 in stock £13.99

Mouse and Keyboard
Black Wireless 2.4GHz Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse with Nano USB Receiver 196051 1798
£12.99

Total without case = £530.71
 
akbarirfan said:
This is what I have come up with, not all from OcUK though.

Processor
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz 9MB Cache Socket AM3 Retail Box Processor 204939 60 in stock £155.99

Monitor
Cream 18.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £79.89

Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H 880G Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard 218935 14 in stock £69.09

Memory
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVS34G1333ELK) £70.49

Graphics Card
XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £58.74

Power Supply Unit
Corsair 400W CX PSU - 12cm Fan 80Plus Certified Efficiency 6x SATA 1x PCI-E 150985 684 in stock £34.55

Hard Drive
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 146252 > 5 in stock £34.98

DVD-RW
Samsung TS-H653G DVD-RW SATA Optical Drive - OEM 227080 > 200 in stock £13.99

Mouse and Keyboard
Black Wireless 2.4GHz Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse with Nano USB Receiver 196051 1798
£12.99

Total without case = £530.71
Click to expand...

Best spec so far, most of the previous ones were utterly crap.

--------

@OP, probably a something like an Athlon II X4 or even X3 will be good for you and it might be worth going for that ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-263-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=803 in example ) and then eventually you can upgrade if you feel like it's not good enough.

Anyways, if you really want the x6 straight out of box, that's what I came up with:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £157.44
(£133.99) £157.44
(£133.99)
Iiyama E1908WS 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £99.99
(£85.10) £99.99
(£85.10)
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVS34G1333ELK) £70.49
(£59.99) £70.49
(£59.99)
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AMD 785G (Socket AM3) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £66.99
(£57.01) £66.99
(£57.01)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £39.99
(£34.03) £39.99
(£34.03)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £35.24
(£29.99) £35.24
(£29.99)
Sub Total : £400.11
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £71.99
Total : £483.35

No case/kb/mouse.

One thing I'd like to mention is that for graphic/photo work I'd kill myself if I had to do it with that 18.5" monitor which has only a resolution of 1366x768 and would try to stretch to either the one in my spec or even wait for the 22" ocUK one to come out and that's a nice 22" with res of 1920x1080.

Another thing is that as much as you might think that the mice/kb is not important, if that will be your work rig I'd highly recommend at least a good quality mice, not only it will increase your productivity with graphics due to much better precision/extra buttons ( can assign shortcuts/macros ) but will also provide you with comfort so that your hand doesn't get tired/hurt after long hours of work.

Last thing would be regarding the GPU, I'm not sure how much of an improvement you'll see from the 9800GT over onboard GPU from 780/785g chipset as most of the software doesn't even use the GPU and it's a thing that you can add later at anytime without any hassle and can order it for next day so I'd leave it for now and see if you're happy with the build as it is before ordering a GPU. Especially that you're on such a small budget, it might not be worth it or you might better spend the money on extra 4gb of ram or something else or just keep it if you find out that you're happy with the performance as it is.
 
Thanks for the spec Phoenix...are you sure I can do away with the gfx? One requirement is to not have to wait around for ages when using the programs!

Thanks
 
How about this....
AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail-£157.44
OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK)-£82.99
Club 3D ATI Radeon 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card-£76.36
Asus M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard-£51.99
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black-£26.99
Total : £484.81
Plus whatever monitor you wish?

or if you dont mind a drop in performance....

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 635 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail-£77.54
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVS34G1333ELK)-£70.49
XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card-£58.74
Asus M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard-£51.99
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK)-£39.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)-£35.24
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black-£26.99
Total : £374.78
Plus whatever monitor...could probably go 20'' + with the extra money saved
 
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chokedoke said:
if there is a potential for upgrade within say 6 - 12 months down the line then psu would be fine with the clear knowledge it isnt great and may go, just got to hope it doesnt take anything else down with it.

The gpu should be fine for reasonable sized projects but there will be a time issue involved especially for rendering.

The dell monitors are fine but then that depends on how much clarity you want on lines and curves, most of the lower end dells ive had dealings with have been pretty blocky with text and fine graphics.

But even after saying all that, that is a great build for the price and limitations are going to have to be expected for that price. Im surprised to see a 9800 that cheap the price really has dropped on those
Click to expand...
I really think that a cheap PSU is a false investment, because it IS likely to take other components with it. Use the computers in the labs for a while and save up an extra £50. Even students can expand budgets.
 
DavidB said:
I really think that a cheap PSU is a false investment, because it IS likely to take other components with it. Use the computers in the labs for a while and save up an extra £50. Even students can expand budgets.
Click to expand...

I do agree with this the PSU really is one component its better to wait for and invest in
 
akbarirfan said:
Hi All,

I am looking to build a computer with a maximum budget of £400 that will run the programs: Vray (rendering), Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe InDesign, AutoCad, Rhino 3d Modelling Program, 3d max, sketchup and flamingo rendering with no problems.
I can’t remember whether this type of work required more cores or more Ghz.
Click to expand...

Also an architecture student here! With the programs your using have you checked to see if they support 6 cores? I know autodesk programs do, (so autodesk autocad 2010-2011, 3dsmax and revit 2010-2011 etc). If they dont support 6 cores you would be better off with a higher clocked 4 core.
 
akbarirfan said:
Thanks for the spec Phoenix...are you sure I can do away with the gfx? One requirement is to not have to wait around for ages when using the programs!

Thanks
Click to expand...

Oh trust me it won't be slow at all !
You're looking here at one of the fastest CPUs on the market ( only i7 goes slightly ahead and i7 x6 beats it by larger margin, but that costs more for cpu alone than the whole PC you've got here ! ) and still most of the graphic work, especially rendering is mostly about CPU.

Personally I can tell that most of the graphic designers I know don't even have a proper GPUs ( apart from the few big serious guys that got 4k worth rigs ).

Most of the software doesn't use GPU at all and the integrated HD4200 isn't all that useless.

And as I said if you feel the need for better GPU, you can always add that later easily when you get more money. Even if some of the software could utilize it, I'm still 100% sure that even without it, the x6 with 4GB DDR3 will blow you away.


Just wondering, what's your current setup or what did you have recently?
 
My take on this is Dual core AthlonII 3GHz is quite adequate, main emphasis on memory, graphics capacity for rendering etc., AM3 and Crossfire for good upgrade route in future to hexcore and/or dual graphics. This is not the same as a gaming rig. My occupation, Civil Engineer.

andy.

Iiyama ProLite E2008HDS 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £109.99
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5750 512MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £88.11
OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) £82.99
Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £74.99
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £51.69
Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD5001AALS) £44.99
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £39.99
Logitech Wireless Desktop MK300 (920-001633) £29.62

Sub Total : £444.57
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £79.77


Total : £535.59 incl shipping, everything except case. Uses DVD-RW from previous build.
 
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