Looking to build a digital art PC on a £5-600 budget

LabraBell

LabraBell

LabraBell

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Hey there.
Let me preface this by saying I'm brand new to this website (And to PC building as a whole), so if I've posted this in the wrong place please let me know. I'm hoping to get some guidance on what parts I should use for a PC build, please. I've been banging my head up a brick wall for the past couple of days trying to understand what part is compatible with which, and needless to say I've got quite the headache, and I'm no closer to creating a good build. Or any build at all.

I'm currently looking to build a computer that will adequately run Clip Studio Paint and a couple browser tabs at the same time. That's... pretty much it. I do occasionally dabble in 3d modelling in Blender, but this isn't particularly important to me as much as the digital art side of things is; especially as that's going to be the basis of my livelihood. So I'd like art to be the priority.

I have a £600 hard budget. Anything over that I'd have to borrow, but up to £100 extra is definitely possible. Unless it's something I definitely should get though, I'd prefer not to. What with the state of the economy right now, I'm also looking to save money by not getting a GPU. It's not especially important for my build, as far as I can tell, and I can always buy one and upgrade when I've got a better budget to work with.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this post, and thank you in advance for any advice you can give me. By this point, I'll take anything I can get :3

EDIT: Based on the information online, I made a list on a certain website that allows you to Pick PC Parts. I don't understand why it keeps censoring me on that though.

Intel Core i5-12500 3 GHz 6-Core Processor
Gigabyte B660M DS3H AX DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
PNY XLR8 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
BitFenix Nova Mesh SE ATX Mid Tower Case
Corsair RMx (2018) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Is that an okay build? Is there anything I should add, or change, or swap out? This is currently bang-on the budget, so changes may breach into borrowing territory
 
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Does it need to include the tablet? Something like this should be doable for your budget:
12400 (not F), B660 or H610 D4 motherboard, 16GB (8x2) of DDR4 3200 or 3600 memory, 1TB SSD.

You could also step down to an i3-12100 (not F).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WklVah7ERo

If you're working with very large files, it might be worth an upgrade to 32GB.

I don't know if Clip Studio Paint is multi-threaded, but from a browse of their reddit, it seems like RAM and SSD is considered very important and so is single-core performance (I'd check for yourself though).

In the video I linked above, the 12400 is much faster than the 12100 in blender, so if you're planning to use this program a lot, the 12400 would be worth it.
 
Tetras said:
Does it need to include the tablet? Something like this should be doable for your budget:
12400 (not F), B660 or H610 D4 motherboard, 16GB (8x2) of DDR4 3200 or 3600 memory, 1TB SSD.

You could also step down to an i3-12100 (not F).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WklVah7ERo

If you're working with very large files, it might be worth an upgrade to 32GB.

I don't know if Clip Studio Paint is multi-threaded, but from a browse of their reddit, it seems like RAM and SSD is considered very important and so is single-core performance (I'd check for yourself though).

In the video I linked above, the 12400 is much faster than the 12100 in blender, so if you're planning to use this program a lot, the 12400 would be worth it.
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Apologies, I should have specified that. I do have a tablet already - likewise I have all the other equipment I need, like a monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. These are all things I've bought to make using my laptop easier, so I can bring them across.

I believe in its base form, CSP files aren't particularly large. However, because I draw with a built-in timelapse option turned on, it does bulk up the file sizes quite a bit. My biggest recent artwork comes in at 2GB, but most of the time I'm looking at between 0.5/1GB for each. My current laptop has 16GB RAM and it functions well enough - though the save time starts to chug towards the latter half of an artwork.

I was originally thinking I'd prefer 32GB RAM, so hearing your advice on this is definitely helping me to make a decision there. Thank you for your help :D
 
bloodiedathame said:
Have you considered an iPad with Apple pencil?
Click to expand...

Thank you for your suggestion. Yes, I've considered it, but no, I don't plan on ever getting one. First of all, I don't like how restrictive Apple are with their products - I had a single Apple phone once, hated it, won't ever go back. Not to mention Clip Studio is my go-to art program, and I don't believe that I would have that if I were to get an ipad. I've already invested money into a graphics tablet and into CSP, so I wouldn't feel comfortable starting all over again.

Plus tablets just don't last. I've had my time with portable devices - now I want something more grounded, something that I can upgrade and improve rather than just deal with and replace when its planned obsolescence raises its head.
 
Personally I'd go for the 12500 rather than the 12400, for only £15 more. It has a very minor clock speed increase which will improve performance very slightly, but more significantly it has much stronger integrated graphics, which might come in useful at some point.

Also, that patriot viper steel 3600mhz memory has come up a few times recently with people having trouble getting it to run at its rated speed (I had the problem myself too). It might work fine (plenty of people haven't had a problem), but you might end up having to run it slower than the xmp settings, or sending it back. Personally I'd probably go for some 3200mhz C16 stuff at that budget just to have more confidence it'll just work first time, performance would be very similar.

Also the motherboard you've picked has onboard WiFi and Bluetooth, so no need for a separate adapter.

A corsair rm750 power supply would be good, but a bit overkill for a system like this, unless you have plans of buying a high powered graphics card at some point in the future. A Corsair RM550x (currently reduced at a competitor...) would be a good option imo.
 
mickyflinn said:
Yep solid choice .

Aerocool case only comes with one fan but coukd always add some more but if you
U like the then this has 4 rgb fans

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/bitf...MIr8fq_Yvn9QIV1u7tCh2KOga4EAQYASABEgK4VPD_BwE

Off to bed ill pop back to take a look at your final build as others may also have some good sugestions
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Much appreciated, I will do that. I'm not particularly bothered by how fancy or bright it looks, and I noticed there's a slightly cheaper version of that case whose only difference seems to be that it doesn't have the tempered glass side, is that right? It's the "BitFenix Nova Mesh SE ATX Mid Tower Case"

Have a good night :D
 
GreatAuk said:
Personally I'd go for the 12500 rather than the 12400, for only £15 more. It has a very minor clock speed increase which will improve performance very slightly, but more significantly it has much stronger integrated graphics, which might come in useful at some point.

Also, that patriot viper steel 3600mhz memory has come up a few times recently with people having trouble getting it to run at its rated speed (I had the problem myself too). It might work fine (plenty of people haven't had a problem), but you might end up having to run it slower than the xmp settings, or sending it back. Personally I'd probably go for some 3200mhz C16 stuff at that budget just to have more confidence it'll just work first time, performance would be very similar.

Also the motherboard you've picked has onboard WiFi and Bluetooth, so no need for a separate adapter.

A corsair rm750 power supply would be good, but a bit overkill for a system like this, unless you have plans of buying a high powered graphics card at some point in the future. A Corsair RM550x (currently reduced at a competitor...) would be a good option imo.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with you there, £15 difference is just too little to pass up.

While I can't see myself being bothered about memory not running at max, I'll definitely look into that extra memory

Oh, no way! I chose a different motherboard to begin with then switched to a new one, so I missed that one. Good catch, thank you!

I do plan on buying a graphics card in the future, but not so sure about it being high powered. I picked a random PSU that matched "corsair RM" based on another comment so I also have no qualms about changing.

Overall thanks for all the info there, I'll go about getting those changed.
 
I've read some stuff about the Crucial P2 swapping out TLC for QLC and I don't think it has DRAM either. If so, I wouldn't want to use this drive for the OS, but it should be fine for storage. The SN570 says it's TLC in the datasheet, but it is still DRAMless.

One option would be to buy the 250GB MX500 for £30 purely as a boot drive, but you might not want the SATA cables cluttering up your build. If you went with a second M.2 (possible in most B660 boards), I'm not sure what would be an appropriate choice.
 
Tetras said:
I've read some stuff about the Crucial P2 swapping out TLC for QLC and I don't think it has DRAM either. If so, I wouldn't want to use this drive for the OS, but it should be fine for storage. The SN570 says it's TLC in the datasheet, but it is still DRAMless.

One option would be to buy the 250GB MX500 for £30 purely as a boot drive, but you might not want the SATA cables cluttering up your build. If you went with a second M.2 (possible in most B660 boards), I'm not sure what would be an appropriate choice.
Click to expand...

So, if I'm understanding correctly, my option would be to use a different SSD which has DRAM, or buy the above SSD as a second one purely to boot from? Sorry lol, I'm only just about grasping what you mean here.

Either way Crucial was mostly just the first SSD I clicked on so I'm happy to use another instead
 
LabraBell said:
So, if I'm understanding correctly, my option would be to use a different SSD which has DRAM, or buy the above SSD as a second one purely to boot from? Sorry lol, I'm only just about grasping what you mean here.

Either way Crucial was mostly just the first SSD I clicked on so I'm happy to use another instead
Click to expand...

It's generally recommended not to use QLC drives for the OS because QLC has poor write endurance (and an OS is many small writes and reads). For storage (not cold, QLC is very dubious for cold storage), it's not usually an issue because it's written to far less frequently.

As an example, Samsung's 1TB 870 QVO (QLC) is warrantied to 360 TBW, but the Evo (TLC) is warrantied to 600 TBW. The raw numbers for QLC are actually much worse than that (at least 3 times less durable than TLC, usually more).

Drives with DRAM also have better endurance and lower latency than DRAMless drives, which again means DRAMless drives are less suitable for the OS. Personally, I'd only use a DRAMless drive (as a boot drive) on a casual browsing PC, certainly not a workstation type build like yours.

The MX500 uses TLC and it has DRAM. Crucial's MX SATA drives have been proven as boot drives for quite some time. It's also slower than an NVME M.2 drive (because it uses SATA, not PCI-E), but it doesn't really matter for the OS.

I couldn't suggest an M.2 for the OS, but definitely avoid QLC (or rumoured QLC).
 
LabraBell said:
Much appreciated, I will do that. I'm not particularly bothered by how fancy or bright it looks, and I noticed there's a slightly cheaper version of that case whose only difference seems to be that it doesn't have the tempered glass side, BitFenix Nova Mesh SE ATX Mid Tower Case is that right? "

Have a good night :D
Click to expand...
The BitFenix Nova Mesh SE ATX Mid Tower Case has two 120mm RGB LED fans included not 4 .

As for psu getting a slightly higher wattage may seem overkill now but who knows what gpu you will get and graphics cards are using more power than ever. Go with what you feel comfortable with paying but a bit more watts covers you .
 
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Tetras said:
It's generally recommended not to use QLC drives for the OS because QLC has poor write endurance (and an OS is many small writes and reads). For storage (not cold, QLC is very dubious for cold storage), it's not usually an issue because it's written to far less frequently.

As an example, Samsung's 1TB 870 QVO (QLC) is warrantied to 360 TBW, but the Evo (TLC) is warrantied to 600 TBW. The raw numbers for QLC are actually much worse than that (at least 3 times less durable than TLC, usually more).

Drives with DRAM also have better endurance and lower latency than DRAMless drives, which again means DRAMless drives are less suitable for the OS. Personally, I'd only use a DRAMless drive (as a boot drive) on a casual browsing PC, certainly not a workstation type build like yours.

The MX500 uses TLC and it has DRAM. Crucial's MX SATA drives have been proven as boot drives for quite some time. It's also slower than an NVME M.2 drive (because it uses SATA, not PCI-E), but it doesn't really matter for the OS.

I couldn't suggest an M.2 for the OS, but definitely avoid QLC (or rumoured QLC).
Click to expand...

Aaah, I gotcha. Thank you, that makes a lot more sense
 
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