New Build Advice

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 08:49

Hi Guys,
could i get a little help on specing up a pc for myself.
i will be using it to play a couple of games WOW and SWTOR, but at the same time i would need it to be able to run Photoshop, illustrator and 3d modelling packages.

my budget is about £1000.

thanks

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 08:51

Hi,

What do you need for £1000?

OS/monitor/keyboard/mouse etc?

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:15

sorry, i have monitor keyboard and mouse

will need OS - i was thinking windows 7 ultimate 64bit

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:26

Well im sure you dont need Ultimate edition, Home edition does everything I could imagine you want,
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/products/compare

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" OC 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £214.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £132.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £78.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** £75.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £37.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.39
Total : £1,025.75 (includes shipping : £11.25).

Doomedspeed · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:39

stulid said:
Well im sure you dont need Ultimate edition, Home edition does everything I could imagine you want,
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/products/compare

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" OC 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £214.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £132.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £78.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** £75.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £37.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.39
Total : £1,025.75 (includes shipping : £11.25).

Yes. The only thing you'd really be missing out on is SLI in the future but with the games you play thats no issue what so ever.

Great spec.

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:45

if i did want to have the option to upgrade to SLI in the future what would i need??

also were i am going to put the pc is quick cramped is the cooling ok??

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:50

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £132.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x XFX Pro 850W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** £75.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £37.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.39
Total : £1,056.76 (includes shipping : £11.25).

Thats the cheapest board that supprts SLI+Crossfire, it sends an equal 8X bandwidth to both PCI-E16X slots.

The PSU is suitably beefed up for a pair of those cards.

also were i am going to put the pc is quick cramped is the cooling ok??

Sandybridge chips dont get as hot as older CPUs, The A50 heatsink should see you overclocking to 4.5GHz±

If you used the stock heatsink supplied with a retail chip then 4GHz is a more realistic figure.

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:57

cool, thanks
if you were going to improve any part of the above spec what would it be?

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 09:59

wonkymagic said:
cool, thanks
if you were going to improve any part of the above spec what would it be?

A modular PSU so cable management is easier.

liamcrane · 5 Mar 2012 at 10:10

One of these full modular power supplies would be great
Corsair Professional Series AX650 High Performance 650W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-051-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 10:41

would 650w be enough. also what do you think about the gfx is it powerful enough for photoshop etc?

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 13:46

wonkymagic said:
would 650w be enough.

For the GTX560ti cards in the second build it is, but there are other 650W modular PSU's,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-002-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-052-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

Now those three are semi-modular meaning the cables you do have to use are always connected and some other connectors are also always attached.

The GTX560ti 448 edition is essentially a GTX570 cut down a bit and two of those would require a 750w+ PSU,
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-001-XF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

also what do you think about the gfx is it powerful enough for photoshop etc?

Yep and with Nvidia you get CUDA support so some programs can off load to the GFX card instead of the CPU and fastly speed up times.

arad85 · 5 Mar 2012 at 15:58

wonkymagic said:
would 650w be enough. also what do you think about the gfx is it powerful enough for photoshop etc?

Photoshop only accelerates 2D graphics and runs perfectly happily on any graphics card with 512Mbytes or more of memory. Basically, a £20 graphics card will do everything PS requires.

stulid said:
Yep and with Nvidia you get CUDA support so some programs can off load to the GFX card instead of the CPU and fastly speed up times.

The only Adobe application that is CUDA accelerated is the latest Premiere Pro video editing suite.

If all you are doing is photo editing, graphics card doesn't matter these days.

beejjacobs · 5 Mar 2012 at 16:21

arad85 said:
Photoshop only accelerates 2D graphics and runs perfectly happily on any graphics card with 512Mbytes or more of memory. Basically, a £20 graphics card will do everything PS requires.

The only Adobe application that is CUDA accelerated is the latest Premiere Pro video editing suite.

If all you are doing is photo editing, graphics card doesn't matter these days.

I thought you could get plugins for some software that will enable the use of CUDA acceleration?

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 16:27

arad85 said:
The only Adobe application that is CUDA accelerated is the latest Premiere Pro video editing suite.

If all you are doing is photo editing, graphics card doesn't matter these days.

He is playing games and 3D modeling, quite a few of them have CUDA support.

arad85 · 5 Mar 2012 at 18:40

I just read the "Photoshop etc..." in the post I quoted... To read the ORIGINAL post would have meant I had to scroll to the top of the page :eek:

and I did qualify it with "photo editing"

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 18:41

arad85 said:
To read the ORIGINAL post would have meant I had to scroll to the top of the page

done that myself once or twice.

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 20:01

thanks for all you great advice. ive managed to squeeze another 200 onto the budget where do you guys think i should spend it?

stulid · 5 Mar 2012 at 20:06

wonkymagic said:
thanks for all you great advice. ive managed to squeeze another 200 onto the budget where do you guys think i should spend it?

Better case, board, modular PSU, GFX card,

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £249.95
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £132.98
1 x Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £122.98
1 x XFX 750W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £104.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black £92.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** £75.98
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £37.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £21.98
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.39
Total : £1,189.20 (includes shipping : £12.50).

wonkymagic · 5 Mar 2012 at 20:07

would it be worth increasing RAM.

also what is the smallest case all these parts could fit in?