First Build Advice

[shades316]

Hi,

After much thought I have decided to go for it and build my own rig - however would welcome advice on the spec.

Budget is approx £450 and I do not need a monitor, keyboard, speakers or OS etc - just the tower.

PC will not be used for gaming, but I do intend to use it for video editing, Adobe etc and I would need 2 HDDs initially.

Not looking for an absolute beast of a machine, just a general good all rounder which will last a few years and allow me to upgrade in the future.

Will be speccing up some builds today, but any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Redmint]

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £167.99
(£139.99) £167.99
(£139.99)
Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G) £47.99
(£39.99) £47.99
(£39.99)
Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £35.99
(£29.99) £35.99
(£29.99)
BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
(£27.49) £32.99
(£27.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £30.98
(£25.82) £61.96
(£51.64)
LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£14.99) £17.99
(£14.99)

Sub Total : £370.75
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £76.65
Total : £459.90

Wasn't sure how much HDD space you needed but that's with 2x 500GB, concentrated more on CPU power and RAM. If you decide to upgrade the cooler later on you'll be able to overclock the CPU fairly easily.

 

[shades316]

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £167.99
(£139.99) £167.99
(£139.99)
Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G) £47.99
(£39.99) £47.99
(£39.99)
Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £35.99
(£29.99) £35.99
(£29.99)
BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
(£27.49) £32.99
(£27.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £30.98
(£25.82) £61.96
(£51.64)
LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£14.99) £17.99
(£14.99)

Sub Total : £370.75
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £76.65
Total : £459.90

Wasn't sure how much HDD space you needed but that's with 2x 500GB, concentrated more on CPU power and RAM. If you decide to upgrade the cooler later on you'll be able to overclock the CPU fairly easily.

Thanks for that - wasn't sure if I would need a dedicated graphics card to accomodate Adobe? Obviously that would push the overall cost up.

Looking at additional cooling in case I decide to overclock.

Also looking into upping the PSU as I will no doubt add additional drives etc over time.

 

[dfour]

AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail with FREE Deus Ex PC Game £119:99
MSI 880GM-E41 AMD 880G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £53:99
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel can be had elsewhere for approx £43

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £30.98

Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache £46:99
Asus ATI Radeon HD 6670 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 £67:99
LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99

Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £35.99

Fractal Design Core 1000 Midi Tower Case - Black £28:99

Total £450 ish + delivery

hexa core chip for rendering ability with a graphics card for acceleration in adobe etc.

 

[Redmint]

Thanks for that - wasn't sure if I would need a dedicated graphics card to accomodate Adobe? Obviously that would push the overall cost up.

Looking at additional cooling in case I decide to overclock.

Also looking into upping the PSU as I will no doubt add additional drives etc over time.

Well hard drives hardly use any power (10w each maybe) so you could run 8 off that PSU without any issue if you were using the onboard graphics or a low power graphics card.

As far as using a dedicated card for Adobe goes, some Photoshop plugins can use CUDA so it's up to you if you want to spend the extra on an Nvidia card or not. With the 2500k most of your image processing will still be pretty quick even when using the onboard graphics on the motherboard but CUDA can speed things up a bit.

 

[shades316]

Well hard drives hardly use any power (10w each maybe) so you could run 8 off that PSU without any issue if you were using the onboard graphics or a low power graphics card.

As far as using a dedicated card for Adobe goes, some Photoshop plugins can use CUDA so it's up to you if you want to spend the extra on an Nvidia card or not. With the 2500k most of your image processing will still be pretty quick even when using the onboard graphics on the motherboard but CUDA can speed things up a bit.

Thanks for your input so far... I have to say when it comes to whether I need a dedicated graphics card im confused....!

Some who I have spoke to say I should go for a dedicated graphics card, whereas others suggest that the onboard graphics of this spec are more than enough.

Am i right in thinking that its only certain Adobe plugins that take advantage of CUDA and a dedicated graphics card?

From a Photoshop point of view is it more important to go for more RAM and CPU as opposed to a dedicated card?

Does having a dedicated graphics card mean that rendering and transcoding etc is offloaded to the dedicated graphics card therefore keeping RAM and CPU load down or does it not work that way?

I have read various threads and am still confused - straight talking is what im after!!

Thanks again!