New Base Unit

[RoastChicken]

Basically my sisters Boy friend has asked me to build him one. Now I'm fine with actually building and setting a PC up its just what components to go for is the issue.

Were Aiming at a £500 budget but the PC needs to be fairly powerful. Will be Running CS4 would be hugely heavy use but Illustrator will be used quite a bit.

So I'm looking at:

E8400
8 Gb Ram
HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5
500Gb HDD
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45
PSU?


It will be running Vista Ultimate 64bit And internet security is both already purchased. DVD drive again don't worry about.

I mean if theres any particular makes that are reliable for particular components i personally would prefer to go with a Gigabyte board prefer them really, and Go with an Intel processor also.

The graphics side i really don't know how much power etc is needed to run CS4 so if that is too powerful or could be toned down a bit thats fine but if we can get it in that £500 it would be marvellous.

Thanks for the help.

(Not sure if this is the right forum)

 

[Kennysevenfold]

so you dont need an os as you have VU x64.? and what monitor will he be using.? res wise....

 

[Kennysevenfold]

My shot...


Product Name Qty Price Line Total

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £120.74
(£104.99) £120.74
(£104.99)

Asus M4A78 PRO AMD 780G (Socket AM2+/AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £90.84
(£78.99) £90.84
(£78.99)

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £77.04
(£66.99) £77.04
(£66.99)

OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent ATX2 Power Supply £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 Dual Channel (OCZ2G10664GK) £33.99
(£29.56) £67.98
(£59.12)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £29.99
(£26.08) £29.99
(£26.08)

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51) Sub Total : £426.79 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £65.89 Total : £493.18

 

[Quixote]

You don't mention 3d work or gaming. Now I know that CS4 can accelerate certain functions on the GPU but for everyday benefit I don't think there's any way it will provide enough extra to spend £200 on a graphics card.
In my experience (and I've built several PC's for creative work using consumer parts) a mid range card is enough for even Maya / Cinema 4D / Max work.
I would say a 4670 would be plenty for your needs.

I would also be inclined to think that 8gb RAM is overkill. If the person in question upgrades very rarely (like every 5 years) then it may be worth it but you WILL NEED a 64 bit opertaing system to benefit from more than 3.5 gb of RAM.

Kenny's spec is a good improvment, 4830 might still be a bit excessive but the price is good. The apps you list would be more likely to benefit from the extra core of the CPU than 4 more GB of RAM. The other parts he lists are also good value.
One place I would differ is the PSU. While the OCZ is fine, I think a 400-500 watt Corsair, Silverpower or Akasa are better power supplies. I don't think modular is of any importance.

 

[RoastChicken]

Firstly theres going to be currently very little gaming done on the machine its not being built for that really. And if there was to be gaming were not looking to max out settings to things like steam games maybe Team fortress things on the range of that.

From what he's told me its photo editing if by 3d you mean rendering objects in 3d i don't beleivev thats what he's doing but i would have to check.

On the RAM side the main reason i went for 8gb was i assumed when photo editing it can be a major memory hog so went for 8 probably could go for 6 instead if 4 wasn't enough.

On the upgradeing side i eman once this is built there wont be any upgrades happening really. the only thing that might change would be an extra HDD for space and possibly if we went for 4gb/6gb ram upgrade that but really there wouldn't be much upgrading for 4-5 years.

We have Windows already went for 64bit to maximise the memory for at least 4gb and give the option of being able to upgrade it at a later date.

On the graphgics side i don't know how powerful it needs to be to be perfectly honest, don't know much in the photo editing side. Do the Phenoms hold up against the Intel Dual cores?

Thanks for the help

 

[Razor-BladE]

As there's little gaming an 4890 is definitely an overkill. Even the 4830, like what Quixote said, is more than enough. I guess if there's little upgrading then the 4830 will be fine for the years to come. And in a good price.

For the RAM, i would recommend just getting 4gb for now. And if he needs to later, just buy some more, because it's so cheap and easy to do.

Phenoms or higher end duo cores are more than capable. Me personally would go with an Intel C2D, but i'm probs being bias.

 

[RoastChicken]

I assume this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-168-GI

Is DDR 2 Backwards Compatible tey don't mention it but i would guess all boards are surely?
Or am i going to have to go with DDR3 memory?
I much prefer the Gigabyte boards personally hence going for 1

Just finalising my spec now took your advice and will be going with 4gb RAM for now.
And also going with XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3.

 

[Kennysevenfold]

I assume this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-168-GI

Is DDR 2 Backwards Compatible tey don't mention it but i would guess all boards are surely?
Or am i going to have to go with DDR3 memory?
I much prefer the Gigabyte boards personally hence going for 1

Just finalising my spec now took your advice and will be going with 4gb RAM for now.
And also going with XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3.

you will have to get ddr3, there totally different slots

 

[Kennysevenfold]

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £120.74
(£104.99) £120.74
(£104.99)

Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £114.99
(£99.99) £114.99
(£99.99)

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £77.04
(£66.99) £77.04
(£66.99)

OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent ATX2 Power Supply £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)

OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P13334GK) £41.39
(£35.99) £41.39
(£35.99)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £29.99
(£26.08) £29.99
(£26.08)

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51) Sub Total : £424.66 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 15% VAT : £65.57 Total : £502.73

 

[Kennysevenfold]

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.5GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail £166.74
(£144.99) £166.74
(£144.99)

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £77.04
(£66.99) £77.04
(£66.99)

Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.74
(£64.99) £74.74
(£64.99)

OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent ATX2 Power Supply £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)

OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 Dual Channel (OCZ2G10664GK) £33.99
(£29.56) £33.99
(£29.56)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £29.99
(£26.08) £29.99
(£26.08)

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51) Sub Total : £423.23 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 15% VAT : £65.36 Total : £501.09

 

[RoastChicken]

Excellent thank you for that