This build look ok for 2D graphics work?

evil-onion

evil-onion

evil-onion

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Ok i currently have a rock gaming laptop, spent a fortune on it and the thing blew up, and they have quoted roughly 3 month waiting time before they will try and fix it!

So, sadly im going to have to buy another machine as i can't work on this 9" eec netbook anymore!

I develop websites and also do a lot of heavy photoshop work on modelling portfolio's etc so the machine is mainly being used for those two things.

I have an xbox 360 for playing games, and the only games i have for the pc that i like playing are neverwinter nights etc, and unreal tournament 3004 online.

Spec i thought about getting after reading custom pc reviews and other website reviews:

Intel core 2 duo E8400 3.0ghz

Asus P5Q deluxe motherboard

Cosair dominator 4GB ram 1066mhz

Antec 300 case (i already have a huge antec tower case but its too big really)

I already have a 500watt psu

I have a dvd drive and a usb dvd burner i bought for the netbook so wont be needing those.

As for graphics, as im doing mainly 2d work i was just going to get a cheap as chips one around £40-50

The reason i was looking at the E8400 was that custom pc got thiers to 4.4ghz, and the asus motherboard they got to 550mhz fsb which was the best results they have had. Combining the two i figured would give me good results.

I was going to keep it all cool with either the freezer 7, or preferably the fenrir as its had great write ups.

Any advice with this build? budget is around the £500 mark.. would prefere not to spend more as the rock laptop cost me 2500 and its just a bloody big paper weight :( Im basically trying to get as much bang for buck as i can.

i7 quad core etc doesnt interest me as its no quicker for 2d graphics work. (and expensive)
 
oh, forgot the hdd...

for speed i was considering the raptor 10,000 rpm drive... fast load times for both windows and photoshop etc, plus working on files would be quicker?

i know i can get a 1TB drive from samsung for the same money but it would be a lot slower wouldnt it?

Storage isnt an issue really as i burn work to dvd's and also have several usb backup drives.
 
Cheers for the reply :)
what sort of real world speeds would i be looking at with regards to my 2d work?

The E5200 is 2mb cache and 800mhz fsb where as the E8400 is 6mb cache and 1333mhz fsb.
Thats the main reason i went with the 8400, but does this see much of a difference?

Its hard to find information that isn't gaming related on the internet...


edited to add: didnt really consider amd as they seem to get poor reviews with benchmarks compared to the intel chips for 2d work.
 
certainly looks like a good system! £100 cheaper as well.

Last time i used amd was my old tower which is a amd 2700+ with 128mb graphics... so a few years ago. I take it they dont run as hot as they used to? i always found amd chips ran hotter thann intel for some reason...
 
I really won't be playing games on the pc, well, its not the plan anyways lol. i'd like to keep it focused on work, that way i won't start spending silly amounts of money.

Right build so far:

motherboard: Asus M4A78T-E AMD 790GX

CPU : AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz

Ram : OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz

GPU : Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Case : Antec 300

Cooler : Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (fenrir says am2 but not am3)

Hdd : Either raptor 74gb from another site, or 150gb raptor from here, or go cheaper and get a normal hdd.

Raptor has a seek time of 4.2 compared to about 8.9 of the other hdd's out there.

So far with the 150gb its sat at £480 so i've already saved enough to have everything under budget which is great, if i went for a samsung hdd id be looking at a budget of around £450 delivered (plus i can claim vat back) so i wonder what the real world difference is between the samsung spinpoint and the raptor.
 
reflux said:
Obviously there's the extra cost to consider, but it's worth going for a quad if you're doing graphics work, as Creative Suite is multithreaded and so are quite a few other apps. Not to mention the fact that you'll be switching between lots of different apps at once.
Click to expand...

Tbh, it's only really photoshop and dreamweaver i use at the same time... I then have firefox, ie and filezilla running in the background which get used every now and then to check my work.

I dont use any of the other CS programs as i have corel draw for my vector work and i dont have time to learn actionscript 3 to make it worth while getting flash up and running.

Does photoshop make use of quad now then?
All the reviews i was reading yesterday seemed to point to an overclocked dual core being just as good as a quad when it came to 2d work?

Cost is also a really big issue as ive just paid out for a high spec pc, now im having to buy another :(
 
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Audigex said:
AM3 has the same socket as AM2, so don't worry about the fenrir if you want it?

74gb isn't a lot of space, I'd get the 150gb version if that's your only internal drive.

With regards to the temp of the phenom IIs, my tri-core in the same case, same cooler as you have specced is VERY cool - don't worry about that :-)

That should be a very nice system, quick on its feet and excellent for 2d work.
Click to expand...

I was looking at the fenrir as it had the best reviews? when it comes to cooling i want the best, omitting water cooling of course ;)
 
Tbh im not sure i wouldnt notice a huge difference with the kind of work i do... although that said, any ideas if the motherboard that was picked could support a quad core amd at a later date?

as upgrading would always be an option later on... never know, might end up frying the chip when i overclock it lol
 
only prob there though is that i know absolutely nothing about raid :/

just a thought, but do i actually need a graphics card when all im doing is photoshop etc?
i always figured the gpu was for 3d games etc...?

So if i got a motherboard that could accept a dvi input that would do away with the need for one to start with?
 
Thanks for the great input folks, really asppreciated.

The laptop was bought a year or so ago at a big budget, at the time i was visiting a lot of clients and working freelance in house etc etc so a powerfull laptop was perfect for me. Unfortunatly rock then claimed bankruptcy and my chances of getting anything back were zero.

They are honouring the repair warrsanty but thats all, and they are fobbing me off with excuses about fixing it. so far its had a new screen twice, 4 new touchpads, new ram, new motherboard, new motherboard cables, new control module (???) new case, 2 new gpu's and i cant remember the other bits.

They have said its not thier policy to replace a buggered laptop, only fix it, and as its now rock/stone and i bought it from rock, i have to go whistle :(

I wasnt going to buy the machine origionally but i had been using an alienware laptop and found it great for my work, i went with rock as they used similar machines built with clevo, but didnt have the annoying bright blue leds that alienware were using at the time on the cases.

i should get around £500 when the machine finally gets built so at least that will help a bit towards pc budget.

I may havee to look at either upping the budget then, or maybe even look at the finance options available. Unfortunatly i live in the world of having lots and lots of bills each month and spending 1k on a pc isnt in the direct budget at the moment.

Maybe im better off starting with a lower spec intel dual core to start with, then move to quad core at a later date... or, possibly up the budget a bit and get the i7 bundle that overclockers sell?

I may go with the 4850 gpu then... ive been put off totally by nividia since having endless driver problems with the laptop and the laptop cooking 2 gpu's in a year.
 
I have a 500watt psu which is faily new... well its years old but was only used for a couple of months as the hdd in my pc died.

The case i already have cost me over a hundred quid when new, its some huge antec tower case, not sure of the name but it comes with removable hdd cages and has 4 90odd mm fans in the front and back, so i could make use of it for now.

I have a 19" monitor for now that i can use, failing that i still have my trusty 19" mitsubishi diamond flat.

for os, i will need to use windows vista home premium as i want to stream movies etc from the pc to the xbox and this can only be done effectively through windows media centre.

i have dvd drives and rewriters etc so i dont need those.

really its just hdd, cpu, m/b, and gpu.

if i was to get a cheap hdd for now, how easy is it to copy the entire drive to a better drive later on? ie, operating system, files, everything, complete copy...

would something like this be a good option for cpu etc:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-002-OB
 
right ive had a look through, and going for a lower spec hdd for now and quad core intle only takes me £50 over budget if i re use my old case and psu for a few months.

screengrab.jpg
 
or, the amd price comparisson.
but i dont know which would perform better.
From what im reading the intels over clock better, but the amd's are not exactly slow... and the amd has ddr3 and the boards are more compatible with furture releases.

screengrab1.jpg
 
whats the score with windows i7 though?
it doesnt come with windows media centre so i wont be able to sync the pc with the xbox360... also, are drivers compatible from vista driverss? for example, i run a vinyl graphics cutter machine from my pc, it uses a usb-serial adapter with windows vista drivers.

also, will my waccom tablet work with windows 7? being new i dont want it to be like vista was when it was released... as nothing worked lol
 
cool. i think i'll go with that then rather than a board ive never heard of.

Ive also decided that i will buy a decent psu and im a bit paranoid about mine now... i bought it from pcworld for about £50 its 600w but im not sure what the make is, its just a silver box witht he wattage info so im abit paranoid about it.

Id prefer something quite, so possibly the bequiet range? is 550w ample for this sort of system?

i was considering using the credit card, biting the bullet and going for a 920 i7 spec but its 64bit id need and im not convinced things would run smoothly as i have a vinyl cutter and other hardware
 
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