Confused 1st time builder needs help!!

Torresmagnifico

Torresmagnifico

Torresmagnifico

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Joined
19 Jul 2009
Posts
17
Hi,

As I have never built a PC before I am looking for some advice regarding make and type of components.

I will be using my PC mainly for the following: digital retouching in Photoshop, word processing, surfing the Internet and listening to music. I will NOT be playing any games on it!

Therefore, if anybody can pass on their advice regarding the following I'd be most grateful:
Case
PSU, the wattage variation leaves me bewildered!
Motherboard
Processor, is Intel superior to AMD?
RAM, I'd like a min of 4GB but with enough expansion slots to go up tp 8GB
Hard drive, initially just the one but I will need room in the case to install at least one more in the future, was thinking 640GB as a starting point
Wi-fi enabled
Sound and video cards
I currently have a CD ROM drive and a DVD drive on my desktop so the same again I guess

The other important issue is the overall quietness of the PC, I don't want noisy fans and HDDs making a din; also all the components must be compatible, so any help with all this will be most welcome!

Many thanks,

Torresmagnifico ;-)
 
PSU wattage - generally you'd only have to consider the larger psus for systems tended towards gaming/overclocking - gfx cards using up a lot of watts - though one can assume that with time power requirements will continue to rise so getting a high wattage psu is somewhat future proofing

Given your use of digital retouching in photohop I'd consider a setup of a solid state hard drive and a sata drive - if your budget can afford so

My recommendations for setup would probably be Intel i7, ddr3 memory, x58 motherboard, antec p182/183 case, hard drives really is down to loyalty and experience tbh, cant go wrong with a ati 4890 for price and performance for graphics

Thats all dependent on budget i guess though
 
Many thanks Lemin and Cru54d3r for your prompt replies; I'll be looking into both of your suggestions.

I guess it will all come down to budget versus quality and speed of the PC.

Cheers me dears ;-)
 
How much touching up in photoshop do you plan on doing? Also what type of speakers will you be using? (unless you REALLY enjoy your music i would say hold off from a sound card for a while - can always get it later if on-board does not please you).
As for PSU i reckon ~600W is the sweet spot.

Of course it all depends on the budget as has been said.
 
Hi ConceptBoz,

Thanks for your reply; I'll be using Photoshop a lot as I am in the process of setting up a digital retouching website.

I agree about the sound card as I will probably use my old desktop speakers in the near future; Diamond Audio is the make.

Regarding the budget I was thinking about £600 including a 20'' monitor.

Anybody else please feel free to suggest any other make of components!
 
+1 for the better monitor for Photoshop, it helps to no end when performing touch ups.


i7 is a bit overkill unless you are constantly encoding video, at most I would say a Q8400 CPU, but you could go less and not notice a massive performance difference.

For the PSU, that depends a lot on the hardware you are using, the OCZ PSUs offer very good value for money. Generally speaking 550W or so will do unless you have a ridiculous amount of hard drives or a beefy graphics card.


Avoid integrated graphics, as you will want nice image quality and plenty of tweaking options for the image quality, and I find the nVidia control panel is useful when tweaking, so a basic 9500GT will do on the GFX front and allow you to upgrade to dual monitors if you wish.




For motherboard, just make sure the socket is correct for the CPU, people here will tell you if you ask, and if you go for an Intel LGA775 CPU (The name will begin with E, Q, QX or X and be follow by 4 number e.g E8500) then THIS motherboard is a nice price and has plenty of features, it also has 2 PCI-E x16 slots for if you want to add another Gcard at a later date to get more than 2 screens.


Hope this helps, if I get more time I'll draw you up a complete spec to help you out.
 
Many thanks Voxination for your suggestions; i think i'll run with your advice re the graphics card and the mobo.

Still unsure of the processor, quad or dual core?

Re the PSU, as I probably will only want to run two internal HDDs at most, I was thinking of an OCZ 400w; is that ok?

Still not certain of case as I want one with good ventilation slots and good cable management.

Any more help would be gratefully received. ;-)
 
No worries :D.

Cases are a very personal thing and unfortunately ones that cool well tend to have an acquired taste like the Antec Gaming series (300, 900, 902, 1200) the 902 and 1200 provide excellent cooling like all of them but have good cable management, although neither have a hole dedicated for the CPU Heatsink to be replaced, though that's only a major problem if you do a lot of heatsink or CPU swapping.




I didn't think Photoshop was multi-threaded, although if it is then great, a quaddie in your system will be perfect. The Q6600 or Q6700 provide great performance and high levels of overclockability while the Q8300 and Q8400 are good budget CPU's that should draw less power.

The Q8200 is the ultimate budget CPU and isn't the best, only go for it if you desperately want to keep costs down but need a quad.
 
How are the microATX P180's for sound? If he's not gaming then a smaller board might be the way to go?

Dunno, just tossing ideas out.
 
Hi guys,

This is my proposed shopping list and would really appreciate any feedback, in particular to any possible compatibility issues with the various components:

Case: Coolermaster CM-690

PSU: OCZ 400w StealthXstream

Mobo: Gigabyte GA EP33 DS4 Intel P35

CPU: Intel Quad Core Q8400

Graphics card: Geforce 9500 GT

HDD: WD Caviar Black 640GB SATA 11 32MB Cache and Akasa dampener

RAM: Kingston Hyper X 4GB DDR2 1066MHZ Dual channel

Optical Drive: LG H22N250 SATA Dual Layer

Cost: £444 (rounded up)

Can anyone tell me is there a problem with the PSU not being modular?

I am thinking of a Samsung monitor as they appear to have a good reputation and this would bring my build within the £600 price range.

Once again thanks for all your time and input on my PC project! ;-)
 
I'd say that looks good :)

I'm running the same CPU but I know especially being an overclockers site people dislike it but it's draws less power and if your not overclocking i'd go for it.

As for the PSU non modular just means all the surplus cables will be left in the psu so you might just want to hide them away.

Looks like a well rounded spec though :)
 
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