Machine for graphics and animations ~£600

kazakore

kazakore

kazakore

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Joined
3 Jan 2009
Posts
124
Location
London
Building a new PC for a mate and a little out of the loop of what is best for what. Still AMD more budget than Intel but is there really that much difference these days? Still generally good with most Asus, Gigabyte and MSI boards?

So for heavy graphics (Photoshop, vector graphics etc) and 2D/3D animation (3DSMax, Toon Studio etc) possible some video editing (Premier, After Effects.)

Now for this type of work in the past Intel has always had a fair edge over AMD for more serious graphic or audio work. Have had a friend of his recommend parts for an AMD Athalon 2 X4 system though. Personally wondering if Intel i5 may work out better, partly because, although initially very likely a bit slower it may well give a lot better upgradability in the future. Maybe even the basic i3 if need to save at very start.)


Will get a couple of possible solutions together if I have a quiet enough period after lunch today (already two hours late going for it and still got stuff I should be staying and doing but can't argue with my stomach any longer) but hoped I may get a few pointers while I'm away.


Many thanks guys and gals.
 
something like this?

Your basketProduct 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)
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
(£72.33)
OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
(£70.63)
Point Of View GeForce 9800 GT Green Edition 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £72.84
(£61.99) £72.84
(£61.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £48.49
(£41.27) £48.49
(£41.27)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £39.99
(£34.03) £39.99
(£34.03)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £449.12
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £80.65
Total : £541.52

you havent said exactly what you need? copy of windows? etc?
 
Last edited:
Sorry need:

MB
CPU
GFX
RAM
PSU
Case
HDD
Cooling

Have monitor, mouse, keyboard and OS which will be kept.

Think he's also willing to spend about an extra £50 on a 2.1 speaker system.


So you'd go for a AMD solution over lower end Intel (although seems Intel at that price would be pushing it to be fair.)
 
yeah, AMD rules at lower price points.

that above spec has a HEX core cpu.

a NVIDIA gpu which supports CUDA, so certain programs such as ADOBE ones and others can use the GPU to do most of the rendering/encoding to speed up this process.

if the program doesnt support this, the the six cores in the cpu will go along way in helping.

just add almost any after market heatsink to replace the stock noisy one, which will add around £20
 
Taken on board but just had a quick look through for a possible Intel. If the guy may be willing to upgrade (IE new processor and second pair of RAM) in a year or so time would you still say definitely go for the AMD over something such as this? Looking at what you get feeling it may be best choice for him (although have generally avoided recommended AMD in the past try and not be a fan boy and know it was a mistake in the past, around P4 era for EG.)

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £154.99
(£131.91) £154.99
(£131.91)
Asus P7P55D-E LX Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard Asus P7P55D-E LX Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £119.98
(£102.11) £119.98
(£102.11)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C7 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C7) Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C7 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C7) £102.99
(£87.65) £102.99
(£87.65)
Lian Li PC-60FNWB Aluminium Midi Case - Black Lian Li PC-60FNWB Aluminium Midi Case - Black £88.99
(£75.74) £88.99
(£75.74)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5570 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5570 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £72.84
(£61.99) £72.84
(£61.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £48.49
(£41.27) £48.49
(£41.27)
Sub Total : £500.67
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £89.28
Total : £599.45
 
stulid said:
that will still work, but do consider an Nvidia card for the CUDA support.
Click to expand...

Will do. Had put the ATI before reading your post as it's still what most video workstations recommend.

and the ocz reaper ram is cheaper and has faster timings.
Click to expand...

and your missing a PSU.
Click to expand...
Doh! Knew I had missed something when I re-wrote the list on paper. Too tired and hungry. Although he does have the one from his current PC and I have my old one I think a new one is probably worthwhile.

and a comparison between the cpus- http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/147?vs=109 some of those graphs are "lower is better"
Click to expand...

Cheers. Some reading if I ever manage to get some lunch!
 
OK seems the nVidia with PhsyX/CUDA at a reasonable price are only DirectX10 compatible, not DirectX11. DirectX11 is one of the reasons I went for the card above. Is it not that worth a consideration? Or have the pages just not been updated since DX11 spec came out?
 
no, you are right, only the GTX460 and higher models do DX11.

why do you want this for (Photoshop, vector graphics etc) and 2D/3D animation (3DSMax, Toon Studio etc) possible some video editing (Premier, After Effects.)?

or does your friend want a little gaming action too?
 
Little gaming too but not huge amounts and unlikely the newest games. RTS is his favorite type and mostly some of the older Command & Conquer (although he may well treat himself to a new one every now and again.)

Have seen other programs needing DirectX as well, rather than OpenGL, but never anything newer than 9 so probably could do without it. Just wondered from a more experienced post of view how worthwhile it was considering.
 
now im starting to get out of my knowledge zone, whether a DX11 card will benefit those sort of programs. I just know that CUDA does wonders for the time it takes to compile the scenes/do the work where available.

you could spend an extra £40 get a ATI5770 and rely on the six cpu cores to do the work?
 
Also consider that if you go i5 thats you pretty much stuck with it as the sockets get replaced next year, so upgrading probably outta the question.
 
I would go with hex core, Nvidia card and lots of ram.

Nvidia cards tend to work better with 3d apps and cudu will be nice for video.
 
Mak3R said:
Also consider that if you go i5 thats you pretty much stuck with it as the sockets get replaced next year, so upgrading probably outta the question.
Click to expand...

Really? Hadn't read that. Especially as the first i7 was 1366 and newer ones seem to be same as i5 with 1156. No promises AMD wont change their socket either and current production i7s will still be available for a while after socket changes...


May go with the Hex AMD advice even though linked benchmarks showed even the i5 performing very nearly as well in anything graphics related and the i7 (easy upgrade) far outstrips it...
 
I m guessing the amount of app cuda supports is a lot more than that of stream ? althrough both are very handy
 
Not sure about Stream but I though Avivo HD was quite supported, at least on the decoding side. Not sure about encoding and don't think it helps outside of video codecs (not without spending a lot of time researching I currently don't have.)
 
May go with the Hex AMD advice even though linked benchmarks showed even the i5 performing very nearly as well in anything graphics related and the i7 (easy upgrade) far outstrips it...
Click to expand...
in outdated benchmarks on old software yes...

go look in the cpu section theres a nice debate thread it was pretty much settled that any program capable of using 6 cores runs slightly faster on x6 than i7 930 and anything that cant use 6 cores runs nearly aswell.

seeing as most rendering , video editors etc can use 6 cores theres no sense in going for an i5.

h264 , handbrake http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18161030 amd x6 was faster
cinebench http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18166193 once we stoped using version 10 and started using the newer 11.5 amd x6 was faster

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18165270 big debate thread pretty much settled at the end that anything that can use 6 cores is faster and anything that cant i7 isnt a massive amount faster.

i5 is not as good as a hexcore cpu fact
 
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OK will take the X6 recommendations.

Going for DX11 over CUDA so gone ATI for graphics.

Thinking this:
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £157.44
(£133.99) £157.44
(£133.99)
OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
(£70.63)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £64.61
(£54.99) £64.61
(£54.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £48.49
(£41.27) £48.49
(£41.27)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £39.99
(£34.03) £39.99
(£34.03)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.76) £14.99
(£12.76)


Plus either:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-402-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-251-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782


have a question about RAM. Very few of the boards state supporting the 1800MHz RAM. Is it actually worth going for over 1333MHz RAM if you're unlikely to do much in the way of overclocking?
 
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