Spec Me £600-700

Cd1986

Cd1986

Cd1986

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Joined
8 Feb 2012
Posts
120
Hi All,

I'm going to purchase a new system this week and am looking for some suggestions. I need a new office PC for emails, browsing, office docs, etc. The most demanding application i use is photoshop.

I'm thinking of the following:

3570k
Arctic Cooling freezer 13
Asus P8Z77-V (Maybe an alternative would be better here)
8GB Corsair Vengeance low profile RAM
Fractal Design Core 3000
Corsair 430M PSU
128 SSD - Not sure which one (No HDD needed as i use a microsverver)
DVD drive
Windows 8
 
Seems a bit overspecced for a office/PhotoShop pc.

Any chance of it being a gaming pc? If not take a look at trinity. The A10 5800k is more than enough for your uses.

On the ssd front, the ones you should be liking at are the crucial m4's, Samsung 830/840 and plextor. The vertex 4 us also good, but can be pricey.
 
Thanks for your reply. It does seem a bit overkill but i fancy giving overclocking a go and the 3570k seems to be highly recommended. I won't be using it for gaming
 
I would suggest a gigabyte board, due to great overclocking, UK RMA and good reliability. I would suggest something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £79.99
1 x Seasonic G series 450w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £69.98
1 x Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £62.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CML8GX3M2B1600C11) £44.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £701.95 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Looks like a good spec.

I struggle to understand the differences in motherboards though. A lot of people recomment the Z77-D3H and it has two monitor ports (which are needed).

Is the Z77X-D3H worth considering? Or the Asus P8Z77-V? Do these boards offer anything extra that is worth the extra money?
 
The Dh3 is the best reveiwed sub £100 1155. motherboard due to the bios features and UK rma.

The 3570k still feels a bit overkill in my eyes.
 
The X board does look much better but i quite like the Fractal Core 3000, which doesn't have a window (shame). I think i'll go for Gigabyte over Asus though, thanks.

The crucial M4 is a good price. Is the V4 a new model to the M4?

Doomedspeed: I agree, the 3570k will probably be overkill but i'm hoping to not need a GPU so the onboard graphics will be useful. I wan't this PC to last
 
Pretty pricey for an office computer....lol

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £97.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD120BW) £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £76.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £64.99
1 x Cooler Master Centurion 5 II Midi Tower - Black £54.98
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 430W '80 Plus' Power Supply £39.95
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £35.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £557.87 (includes shipping : FREE).



Just picked a case I liked, Mobo + CPU combo is pretty common and that RAM is damn good for the buck. £700 is way too big of a budget, for that price you can get an i5 system capable of doing some serious gaming or i7 for some decent video/photo work.

Hell even this spec is more than enough, you could get away with an Intel G640, cheaper motherboard, same RAM and a 340watt PSU. Probably half the price again. Good thing about the Trinity CPU is the fact if you did want to play games...just perhaps...you can without having to splash out on a discrete card.
 
Last edited:
More than adequate.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £143.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £79.99
1 x ASRock B75M Intel B75 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £52.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black £49.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £39.98
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £35.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B5ST SATA ReWriter - Black (OEM) £18.98
1 x Alpenföhn Sella CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £17.99
Total : £552.46 (includes shipping : £10.50).

 
There is quite a lot to think about there.

I was just thinking a 3570K setup would be pretty much instant for everything i need as well as be future-proof. Maybe it's time for a re-think.
 
Cd1986 said:
There is quite a lot to think about there.

I was just thinking a 3570K setup would be pretty much instant for everything i need as well as be future-proof. Maybe it's time for a re-think.
Click to expand...

What is your current system spec and how intensive or demanding is your work with photoshop?
 
The PC it's replacing is a 7 year old Dell Dimension E520 (Can't even remember the exact spec). My laptop is a Sony Vaio Core i3 2.4Ghz, 4gb RAM.

Photoshop isn't too intensive at all but i tend to run a few programs at once. I also use the PC for wide format printing on an HP designjet. This involves high res pdf's, which slow the PC to a crawl
 
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