Please help spec a small pc for graphics

[jezscott]

I haven't used my home computer for 2 years, now it pops during start up. I'll post a thread on this later, but right now I'd really appreciate help with a new PC.

Its for Photoshop, 12Mpix RAW files, CAD, 3D modelling/rendering & occasional game.

I'd like it to be microATX or smaller and quiet, monitor will be a dell 24" LCD. Hard drive to be fast rather than large (files stored elsewhere), I don't mind overclocking to get more for my money. not sure how much memory I need, min 1gb.

would like to keep costs down but no budget yet.

any advice would be very welcome

Thanks

 

[semi-pro waster]

Something like this would probably do, I was going to go for the Antec Aria but it/the replacement is out of stock. The motherboard probably isn't great for overclocking but then no mATX motherboard ever is.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.99 £107.99
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£139.99 £139.99
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£17.99 £17.99
CA-060-AN Antec Fusion HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU (CA-060-AN)
£97.99 £97.99
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.95 £45.95
CD-045-NE NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-045-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£74.99 £74.99
Subtotal £550.84
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £98.14
Total £658.93

 

[jezscott]

Something like this would probably do, I was going to go for the Antec Aria but it/the replacement is out of stock. The motherboard probably isn't great for overclocking but then no mATX motherboard ever is.

Thanks for this, with your recomendations I've started to investigate each part.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.99 £107.99

for overclocking I'd like to find out how far I can safely push the E6300, E6400 & E6600 and compare these results.
Will the 4mb cache give a significant benifit? I'll look for a comparison on the web somewhere....

MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99

This looks like it overclocks with room for GFX, TV & wifi cards and should be ideal, is it capable of running all current core 2's?
Any other overclockable options for comparison?

MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£139.99 £139.99

without any knowledge of core 2 mobo/cpus, is 667Mhz enough?

HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£17.99 £17.99

looks tall, I assume it'll fit matx cases

CA-060-AN Antec Fusion HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU (CA-060-AN)
£97.99 £97.99

This is a bit expensive and looks big for an mATX case, it seems cooled well. The case doesn't need to integrate with a hifi but if it is otherwise a good case it doesnt matter.
I can wait for the Aria and there are similar sized cases out there aswell.
What PSU performance do I need, if I wait for the aria, will 300W be enough?

HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.95 £45.95

this doesn't seem to be on storage review yet, I'll investigate.
SR rates these highly:
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 NCQ 320GB
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD
will be for swap disk, running windows, programs etc and I'll store elsewhere.

CD-045-NE NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-045-NE)
£19.95 £19.95

sounds good. easy to make region free?

GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£74.99 £74.99

looks like good value, not sure what I should be looking for with 2d graphics

Subtotal £550.84
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £98.14
Total £658.93

Total price is about right, I don't mind spending a little more

 

[snowdog]

Something like this would probably do, I was going to go for the Antec Aria but it/the replacement is out of stock. The motherboard probably isn't great for overclocking but then no mATX motherboard ever is.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.99 £107.99
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£139.99 £139.99
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£17.99 £17.99
CA-060-AN Antec Fusion HTPC Case - 430HE Watt PSU (CA-060-AN)
£97.99 £97.99
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.95 £45.95
CD-045-NE NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-045-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£74.99 £74.99
Subtotal £550.84
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £98.14
Total £658.93

Replace mainboard by a gigabyte p965 ds3, overclocks a lot better, repalce ram with geil 800 mhz not 667 mhz, hdd by a wd raptor and cooler with a scythe ninja.
With the stuff i stated it'll clock a lot better ( to 3.2 ghz approx) and a raptor is faster as a baracudda.

 

[xirokx]

for overclocking I'd like to find out how far I can safely push the E6300, E6400 & E6600 and compare these results.
Will the 4mb cache give a significant benifit? I'll look for a comparison on the web somewhere....

To over 3ghz or close for each cpu...

I cant see you ever needing to utilise the 4mb cache to be honest

This looks like it overclocks with room for GFX, TV & wifi cards and should be ideal, is it capable of running all current core 2's?
Any other overclockable options for comparison?

yes it will do the job nicely especially at that price, it will run all cpus which have are socket 775...

without any knowledge of core 2 mobo/cpus, is 667Mhz enough?

well the different types of DDR2 memory are recommended for diff chips to be able to help with the maximum overclock....I cant remember if you need PC5300 or PC6400 but I know semi pro waster knows his stuff and wouldnt recommend parts that would hold you back if you will be overclocking...just double check in the memory section depending on which CPU you go for of course..

looks tall, I assume it'll fit matx cases

should be fine

this doesn't seem to be on storage review yet, I'll investigate.
SR rates these highly:
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 NCQ 320GB
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD
will be for swap disk, running windows, programs etc and I'll store elsewhere.

Its all about seek time and RPM....so the faster the seek time and the RPM the better the drive....however having said that WD raptors are noisey...so be warned.....the seagate is a good all round bang for buck HDD...

sounds good. easy to make region free?

Are they all not region free to begin with? If not then yes if you know where to look....

The gfx card is again bang for buck at that price there isnt anything better.....so its the best to go for....it will do the job for you as long as your into gaming at high resolutions...I cannot see any problems with you using that card...

Overall its not a bad spec at all

 

[xirokx]

gigabyte p965 ds3

would that board fit into the case?

 

[jezscott]

Replace mainboard by a gigabyte p965 ds3, overclocks a lot better, repalce ram with geil 800 mhz not 667 mhz, hdd by a wd raptor and cooler with a scythe ninja.
With the stuff i stated it'll clock a lot better ( to 3.2 ghz approx) and a raptor is faster as a baracudda.

With this mainboard I'd need a full ATX case, which is a shame.
According to sites I've come across, an E6400 at 3Ghz will be fine and there is little benifit going higher.
Is this outside the limit of mATX boards such as the Asrock?

If I'm really limiting myself with overclock potential I'll get an ATX case, eg?
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU
prefer mATX though

To over 3ghz or close for each cpu...
I cant see you ever needing to utilise the 4mb cache to be honest

I'll stick to an E6400 then

Its all about seek time and RPM....so the faster the seek time and the RPM the better the drive....however having said that WD raptors are noisey...so be warned.....the seagate is a good all round bang for buck HDD...

If it is noisy it could be distracting, I'll stick to the Seagate unless there is something faster without the noise?

The gfx card is again bang for buck at that price there isnt anything better.....so its the best to go for....it will do the job for you as long as your into gaming at high resolutions...I cannot see any problems with you using that card...

The monitor is 1920x1200 and it would be ashame not to use its native resolution.

 

[Quixote]

For the 3D modelling & rendering, CPU speed will be by far the most important consideration. Here's how it breaks down :

Rendering : CPU only, unless you run out of RAM (ie more RAM won't speed it up but if you don't have enough you may get out of memory errors or slowdown). Graphics card has no effect.

Viewport Display Speed : CPU, RAM & Graphics Card

- CPU will speed it up generally, especially where the viewport has animation, deformers, particles etc.

- Graphics card will speed up polygon handling & shading ie if you are a hardcore modeller who doesn't do much animation or rigging but uses loads of polys then the Graphics card is more important.

- Ram will speed up handling very complex files with many ovects, large textures, many keyframes etc in other words handling complex scenes.

For your 2D photoshop stuff :
-Graphics card is irrelevent.
- CPU is very important esp for calculating filters etc
- More RAM is better, simple as. Worth having more value RAM vs less high -speed stuff.
- A fast sata 2 hard disc will improve spped a lot too.

I hope these generalisations are useful in choosing which components to focus on.

 

[Darg]

For the kind of work you'll be doing concentrate on RAM and CPU. 2GB of RAM is a minumum. If it's possible to find a mobo that can take 4GB I'd go with that. The RAM is where those massive raw files will be going when you're using photoshop so the more RAM you have the larger the files you can work on.

The CPU will be used during 3D rendering so a Dual core would really be beneficial here.

Optimal setup would be 4GB of RAM with a E6600 overclocked to it's fullest. That 4mb cache has only really made any kind of difference in the work that you'll be doing and not in games.

For a graphics card even a 9800Pro would work fine for displaying viewports. Mine could display very high poly stuff in blender and 3DS Max without slowing down until you got into the 100,000s of polys. If you are going to be working on even more detailed scenes then maybe a 7600GT or similiar would be better for you.

 

[jezscott]

- Graphics card will speed up polygon handling & shading ie if you are a hardcore modeller who doesn't do much animation or rigging but uses loads of polys then the Graphics card is more important.

My architectural models can be huge, the textures and animations are simple and the renders are high resolution. I'd also like to experiment with live walk throughs, this would require a bit of 3D power.

- A fast sata 2 hard disc will improve speed a lot too.

I am tempted by the 150Gb raptor, it might come down to cost rather than noise.

For the kind of work you'll be doing concentrate on RAM and CPU. 2GB of RAM is a minumum. If it's possible to find a mobo that can take 4GB I'd go with that. The RAM is where those massive raw files will be going when you're using photoshop so the more RAM you have the larger the files you can work on.

I'll get a 4Gb capable motherboard, but can only afford 2Gb memory this month.

The CPU will be used during 3D rendering so a Dual core would really be beneficial here.

Optimal setup would be 4GB of RAM with a E6600 overclocked to it's fullest. That 4mb cache has only really made any kind of difference in the work that you'll be doing and not in games.

£60 over the e6400 seems a lot, I understand these aren't far apart once overclocked and stable.

For a graphics card even a 9800Pro would work fine for displaying viewports. Mine could display very high poly stuff in blender and 3DS Max without slowing down until you got into the 100,000s of polys. If you are going to be working on even more detailed scenes then maybe a 7600GT or similiar would be better for you.

There is a great value 7900gto in the sale, which I can't resist.

 

[jezscott]

1. If I go ATX:

• Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W PSU
  £78.71

• Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
  £108.09

• Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 2.40GHz - Retail
  £230.29

• Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler
  £35.24

• GeIL (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Kit
  £193.86

• OcUK MSI 7900 GTO SILENT 512MB GDDR3
  £158.61

• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
  £59.91

• Akasa SATA-2 60cm Silver Data Cable
  £5.28

• NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW DL (Black) - OEM
  £23.44

Total £893.43

Have I missed anything, eg cables screws etc?

2. If I go Micro ATX
then I'll use one of these mainboards:

• Asrock Conroe945G DVI mATX - seems well specified and cheap, allowing me to upgrade should something significantly more overclockable come out in the future.

• Asus P5L VM 1394 mATX - someone here seems to have overclocked this quite well

with a suitable MATX case:

• Antec NSK1300 mATX Cube & 300W PSU - Is 300W enough and will the CPU cooler fit?

• Silverstone Sugo SG-01 without PSU - takes any ATX PSU, not sure which one for this setup? the PSU calculator seems to think 270W is ok without overclocking not sure how much I'd need with overclocking.

and a suitable CPU cooler:

• SilverStone Nitrogon NT06 CPU Cooler - this fits the sugo, not sure how it compares to a Scythe Ninja

I'll post in the mobo forum too.

 

[jezscott]

I bought the following:

£144.99 - OcUK MSI GeForce 7900 GTO SILENT 512MB GDDR3 VIVO
£50.99 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB
£91.99 - Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3
£164.99 - GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Dual Kit
£29.99 - Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler
£3.99 - Akasa SATA-2 45cm Silver Data Cable
£66.99 - Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU
£4.95 - ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover and Surface Purifier - 60ml Kit
£5.99 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
£107.99 - Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 1.86GHz

Sub-Total: 672.86
Shipping: 9.95
VAT: 119.5
Total: 802.31

I'll overclock it by a safe amount and it leaves plenty to upgrade in the future. First will be another 2Gb memory and maybe an unlocked conroe when they're cheap.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[xirokx]

no worries...

look forward to seeing what you get from that chip