Custom Pc Build For Games And Photo/video Editing

[MonsieurMonkey]

Hi chaps, I just went searching for the Tech Support thread but it's been locked, so my apologies if there's somewhere more appropriate than this, but I know Muel knows his shit.

A friend asked me about building a comp as he knows I've done my own in the past, but I don't know the score anymore really, he has about £500 to spend and he wants to be able to play games and edit videos/photos too, I've had a little look around and I've seen comps with 32gb of RAM, back when I built mine 4gb was a lot so I feel I should get some extra advice on this one. If anyone has any ideas or specs it'd be much appreciated. Thanks guys.

[AndrewEH1]

32Gb of RAM? I'm running 12Gb and that can cope with anything you I throw at it.

If he can afford it he might want to think about an SSD, would make everything run faster.

You could probably pick up a reasonable graphics card for about £150-£200. I can't advise on a card, but someone will be along soon!

[MonsieurMonkey]

I thought 32gb seemed like an insane amount, but even seeing it made my mind bend a little. Same with some of the SSDs I've seen, I remember 64gb SSDs being big, like the old Raptors etc, now there's 320gb ones. It hurts my brain to even think about the sort of power a computer could have these days.

[Muel]

Aww shucks... Nah I'm a noob really compared to most people I know, listen to me if you want but I'd recommend going to a forum instead. (OCUK is my favourite).

32gb is a silly amount, 8gb is pretty much standard now where 4gb used to be. an 8gb kit is around £30-50, not many people bother with 16gb but a few do. 32gb is only needed if you're doing a lot of rendering though IMO.

128gb for an SSD is about right IMO, paid £90 for mine recently.

When you say about £500, is that the limit or can he go to £650-700? That's where I believe the best value is for a high end system, after that they get silly expensive.

My only piece of strong advice atm is to avoid AMD at all costs. 1-2 years ago they were churning out decent chips that offered good value, which is why I have one, but their latest line (Bulldozer) has been a monumental failure. Their 8 core flagship chip (FX-8150) will overclock well to around 4.8ghz, but still gets beaten by an i5 in most tests, whilst using a lot more power. The i5-3570K would be my "chip of choice" at the moment, or if that's too rich, the i3-2120. Just used one in my Dad's new system and it out-performs my 965BE by quite a margin.

The one thing I can't advise you on is motherboards though. I've always stuck to Gigabyte as I've had two Asus boards and they were shit. I've got an MSI board in my server at the moment but only because it was the cheapest. I heard about the new Z77 Gigabyte boards weren't up to much these days, they like to set on fire apparently so no idea what I'd team with a 3570k.

Is he into system building/overclocking at all or does he just want something to work? Any chance at all of him wanting multiple graphics cards or anything?

Edited July 19, 2012 by Muel

[MonsieurMonkey]

To be honest I'm not sure what he wants spec wise, as he knows less than me. I'm not sure how fixed his budget is either, but I reckon he'd be willing to move it up especially if you think for an extra £100 or so he'd gain a lot. If there was any building involved I'd probably be helping him out, so there's no biggy about buying parts and building, but I've got to say I'd prefer somewhere that could do a custom build so I'm not to blame for anything going wrong lol. Again on the multiple graphics cards I have no idea, is it worth while? When I did my last build Crossfire and SLi etc was really new so I don't know how well it works etc.

Just belled him to see what he thinks, he said if £600 is a good improvement on £500 he doesn't mind going to there, but £700 would be pushing the budget to it's limit, again, not arsed if he gets a big improvement but if it's only marginal he isn't too bothered I don't think. I have no idea what he quantifies as a big improvement though lol.

I might chuck a post up on OCUK and see what they say. But I know there's normally a lot of good info on here and I know who knows their fields too, so I know that information is reasonably reliable Cheers mate.

[Muel]

I'd say that the extra to push it up to £700 makes a big difference in quality, not performance though. A nice case, some quieter fans etc matter a lot to me, might not to him.

As for Crossfire/SLI, I'd steer clear personally. I have crossfire cards and probably won't be doing for my next build. They're OK but too much hassle with micro-stutter and all that fun for me.

If you really don't want to build then places will build it for you, but they seem to be a very good option right now.

I'm playing with specs, can't even get it below £750.

EDIT: Out of interest, what is he coming from? Any idea what kinda difference he wants to see?

Edited July 19, 2012 by Muel

[MonsieurMonkey]

Worrying that you can't get one for less than £750 lol, he did say he didn't want a noisy beast of a thing, and I said that I didn't think that would even be an issue nowadays but I doubt he'd mind spending a bit more for that type of thing. He's currently got a laptop that wouldn't play anything really. So I don't think he's expecting anything amazing and I don't think he's played any games apart from console stuff. I don't even know what PC games are like currently? I know he's a big fan of FPS games, so I'm sure he'd want the next CoD to run very well if possible? Like 12xx by 10xx or whatever it is if not better on max graphics?

[Muel]

I starting to wonder if he needs something that fast to be honest... I think he could get away with an i3 based system, they're certainly enough for any single GPU based gaming system at the moment IMO.

When you say video editing, is he rendering films etc? How is he doing it now?

EDIT: Does he have an OS or does it need including?

Edited July 19, 2012 by Muel

[MonsieurMonkey]

I don't think it's something he's super serious about, I just think he wants the ability to do so himself, probably not even the level of editing some videos see on here, and for photos it's probably just touching them up a bit but again nothing major. He uses his parents comp at the moment, but I think it's a combination of not living there and it being a shop bought desktop from a few years ago that he's wanting the comp he's buying to be able to do it. To be fair, I'd say it's more for the gaming side of things now, but I know he wants it to be reasonably future proof.

Just rang him again to try and extract more info, he confirmed the stuff about editing, he said he'd like it to be able to do it well in case he does start doing it a lot more. But he said the main focus of it will be gaming, he named a few games but I remember BF3 and the new Black Ops, he said that he wants them to run super smooth on high graphics if that's possible within his budget. But also so that in a years time, a new game will run well too, so he's not having to upgrade for a while.

[Muel]

OK, on that basis I just scrapped it all and specced this.

The GTX570 might be a bit overkill... It's a last generation card but good value IMO at £220. But, you can pick them up a lot cheaper than that second hand.

I haven't added an SSD in there, but I would strongly recommend one. My Crucial M4 128gb was £90, but the best £90 I ever spent on my system.

All the stuff above should be fine for a "bolt together and game" system, but it won't overclock at all. The sandy bridge i3 chips don't have overclocking available, and that RAM definitely won't manage it. The cooler is probably overkill but it'll be quiet. The only other thing I'd add in would be a couple of intake fans for decent air flow, but as you will probably choose a different case I didn't add them in. I love Shinobi's (I have the XL version in white), so stuck it in because it's £50, which is standard for a mid-tower case.

EDIT: Not that motherboard actually, it's only SATA2 so won't give the best performance with SSDs. I recommend this board instead (on the basis of almost no research). http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-386-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1965

Edited July 19, 2012 by Muel

[MonsieurMonkey]

Cheers mate, much appreciated, I don't think he'll be overclocking or anything. As long as it'll still be decent in a year's time I think that's his only concern really. Is there anything in there that could be changed to make a big improvement or is it a pretty good all round spec with no bottle necks?

[Muel]

I'd say with an SSD in there (that'd be the big improvement I'd make), the bottleneck would be the CPU, but to be honest having seen one of those chips in action I think it'll be up to it, certainly for gaming on a single GPU.

[MonsieurMonkey]

So how much difference would an i5 make over an i3? Like would it be a worthwhile upgrade? And would that require a new MoBo too? I seriously need to get myself back into this I feel like a retard asking these questions, seems a few years makes a huge difference lol.

[Muel]

Roughly 30% more processing power for almost 100% more money. If he doesn't need the power, it's basically wasted money, but no doesn't require a new motherboard, both on the 1155 socket. Unless you want a 3570k because I think that requires a Z77 socket motherboard so would need a posher motherboard, so would cost about £130 extra to go to an i5.

[manuel]

I got one of the first i7s out (insider at intel ) quite some time ago now 3x 2GB ram sticks (triple channel) and it is absolutely fine for video processing. It can do full 1080p video with a few layers of adjustment pretty darn rapidly. I imagine that the current processors must be pretty darn epic also. 6GB seems plenty, occasionally if Im using after effects I would prefer more for longer RAM previews but hey whatever, for just editing video its fine.

I was lucky to get the processor for £100, but the whole system was pretty cheap and I think memory prices have dropped quite a bit. I just want an SSD as an upgrade now, as prices have dropped and sizes got to a decent level.

[forteh]

I use my machine for gaming mostly, some 3d cad modelling (solidworks) but never video editing, my machine spec is old now and it plays most things 1920x1080 without a hitch and with nice smooth frame rates.

i3 530 overclocked to 4.02Ghz / 4 ghz ram /Gigabyte mobo (pre-overclocked bundle from ocuk)

Geforce gtx260 216

Slow old sata hard disks

I don't know if ocuk do an equivalent bundle but I paid about 300 quid for the cpu/mobo/ram and just dropped it in with my existing kit, its been rock solid and super fast.

It's never going to win any benchmark tests but it plays bf3 in 1080p with settings on high (not max, that kills it a bit) with consistent framerate s of around 50

[MonsieurMonkey]

Cheers guys, I'll keep looking around, I've been browsing the net and I think I'm getting a bit of a better idea of what is good etc. My mate is thinking about buying something off eBay regardless of how much I advise against it.

[MonsieurMonkey]

Sorry for double post, how much required is an OS? As in, can you use an acquired one as well as a proper one, or should a proper one be purchased?

[Muel]

Cheers guys, I'll keep looking around, I've been browsing the net and I think I'm getting a bit of a better idea of what is good etc. My mate is thinking about buying something off eBay regardless of how much I advise against it.

Sorry for double post, how much required is an OS? As in, can you use an acquired one as well as a proper one, or should a proper one be purchased?

I'd say buy a proper one. I have several W7 licenses through uni that are all legit, if I didn't I'd buy it though.