Help me spec my next desktop PC

Help me spec my next desktop PC

Over the last few months I’ve been finding more and more limitations of my laptop and I’m wanting to build a desktop for when I need more power. My laptop is 2.1ghz dual core AMD athlon with 4gig ram and 250gig hdd running win7 home prem., it’s a good laptop for the $$$ I paid but I’m working with some heavier things now and It’s a little slow pulling up those 18mp pics from my SLR and just gets worse when you actually start doing any editing.

I want to build a budget do-all machine… Photo editing (good mix of lightroom, PS, and elements), I’m starting to dabble in heavier video editing for church (chromakey and such all in “full HD”)… we’re also dumping the cable TV… we’ve been using the xbox 360 to stream vids from the computer but if I need to transcode on the fly (using tversity) it really hammers the laptop... so this computer will also be a media server… I may even hook it up directly to a TV down the road… but very doubtful it’ll see any gaming action so no need for super crazy vid cards and mega overclocking…

I’ve got the basics covered… no need for the peripherals as those will come from the old desktop (20” LED/LCD, good keyboard/mouse, speakers yadda yadda)

Also have a good fast 7200 rpm hdd for this so no need for that and additional data drives don’t need to be included in price

And the last biggie… I don’t need windows… have a genuine copy for win7 Pro (dad’s shop gets 10 copies a year and only uses 3)

So I’m looking to spend $500ish… the big debate is do I go with intel or AMD…

Beyond that I’m partial to ASUS motherboards… eSATA for sure wouldn’t mind USB 3.0 plan to go with 8 gig of fast ram, video I need DVI, HDMI would be nice… but from what I understand with what I plan on doing a decent on-board or integrated GPU will do what I need case = whats cheap and fits at least 4hdd for future upgradability integrated card reader up front would be nice… or would be added 500watt or so power supply Cheapest DVDRW I can get at the time… no plans for blu-ray at the moment

So what way would you go… intel or AMD?... why?...

I like AMD, far more budget friendly than intel.

Case, look for cooling. A card reader can go into an external drive slot, no need to look for a case with one.

Power supply, get more than you need. Off the top of my head I would go for 650-750. If in doubt, use the power supply calculator on newegg.com, and then go one step higher.

486 DX2/66
16 MB RAM
8 GB HDD
PCI video card
Sound Blaster 16 bit
21" CRT 1600x1200
DOS 6.0
Windows 3.1
10 MBit IPX/SPX-compatible network card
Doom II

If you want, I can try to send you a copy of my wish list build on newegg. Seeing as you already have the OS, it would come to around $500-600

neon... may as well mr2donalson@gmail.com... I have a few speced out on newegg... I may be able to get a few things cheaper then retail online from my dad but for the most part most of these parts (cost + 10%) but lots of times it's just as cheap to get it on newegg or tigerdirect

and AMD vs Intel... AMD has more mhz per $$$ by a long shot... specifically trying to compare for those who do more photoshop type stuff on that... i've read a few things that even some of the numerically slower i3/i5 dual core intels can still outrun the much faster (again numerically) AMD with more cores... but seems most everything I read is a bit dated :-/...

intel imo; always been an intel person.
wife's new i5 is very nice, I'm on my first amd machine right now and am not impressed at all. on paper it's better than my old dv6 with intel dual core, in reality... definitely not.

Anandtech's system builder's guide is a great reference: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4456/sandy-bridge-buyers-guide/3

According to Anandtech (whose reviews seem to be the most thorough of any that are out there), a near top of the line four-core AMD Phenom performs closely to the Sandy Bridge i3-2100 (two cores). That says to me that you should go Intel - because then you leave yourself more potential performance to gain when you can afford to upgrade to an i7.

Anandtech! Thanks szeis4cookie, I'd forgotten about that.

The selection changes every day, but my favorite budget desktop listed right now at delloutlet.com is:

$349 Inspiron Desktop 620 MiniTower
Intel Core i5-2310 processor (6MB Cache, 2.90GHz)
1 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
16X DVD +/- RW Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium

I am going to build my own computer at some point and I am going to go with an Intel i7.

12-core Mac Pro.

/end all computer threads ever.

93EXCivic wrote: I am going to build my own computer at some point and I am going to go with an Intel i7.

being the cheapest is over1/2 my budget I think the i7 is out...

after some more research think i'll be goign with the i5 2500k and a z68 chipset board... the 2500k out preforms even the top of the line amd x6 black in about every catagory... and thats before you overclock which apparently the intel chip is itching to do

nderwater looks like a great value... will have to peak at it

pinchvalve... got one for $500 :)... I could always get the fake mac PC case and go hackintosh if I get a compatable vid card down the road lol...

donalson wrote:

93EXCivic wrote: I am going to build my own computer at some point and I am going to go with an Intel i7.

being the cheapest is over1/2 my budget I think the i7 is out...

There is that. Reviews I have read place the i5 above the AMDs though.

but very doubtful it’ll see any gaming action so no need for super crazy vid cards

There is a difference between having a video card and not having a video card though. You MUST get a video card of some sort, preferably a mid-range model for around $100. This will make a significant difference in your desktop experience, even if not playing games.

Also, only 8 gigs of ram? For what you suggest, the most ram you can run (16 gigs, which is only around $150 or less nowadays) will futureproof you the most. It's funny that everyone screams about cores and processor speeds when it really doesn't matter in this computing age as there is more than enough processing power even in crappy computers. More ram, always more ram. Even kingston value ram with 16 gigs worth will do wonders for ya.

if you want to keep costs down, the integrated graphics solutions of the latest AMD chipsets are actually pretty mean.

You wont need to by an external video card, but when you do, you get one from the same chip family and it will combine forces with the mobo graphics.

I really think you are still going to need an external video card for what you are going.

Yeah, I'd go with a real discrete video card as well. Step down to the i3 to get back in your budget if you need to. I believe the Adobe applications are capable of offloading work to the GPU, and the graphics chips are much better at that sort of math than a general purpose CPU. Either item can be upgraded easily as budget allows in the future - but I think that i3/discrete Radeon 65xx series card will put you at a better starting place than i5/Intel integrated graphics.

Also I would look at the DIY PC combos on newegg. Sometimes they have good deals.

Dated info but JG built a killer Hackintosh to do what you want to do last year for ~$1500: Hackintosh thread

I've read over his hackintosh thread a few times... and thats another draw for intel...

as for additional parts... i'm building this to a price point with plans to upgrade as I have more $$$... spending another $50 in a few months for another 8gig ram is a lot easier then spending less on the processor and needing to upgrade that down the road... same with an SSD... easy to add down the road... no sense in me "saving" $100 now to have to spend $200 down the road to buy the same part again... I just don't see the logic in that

for the video card... you're right a discrete card would be added down the road... the Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated benchmarks better then the ati 4250 i'm dealing with now (and the 5400 series)... to even take advantage of adobe GPU acceleration it's $100 on the low end...

93EXCivic wrote: Also I would look at the DIY PC combos on newegg. Sometimes they have good deals.

ya they have some real good deals... but usually it ends up you basically get a free HDD... and of late it's ALWAYS segate... you can't GIVE me a segate these days... i'm still in my warranty period for one but I won't do it purely because I'd have no use for the replacement as I don't trust them at all...

pinchvalve wrote: 12-core Mac Pro. /end all computer threads ever.

Except I built a 12 core w/ 16GB RAM, 4TB redundant drive array, ATI Radeon 5770 1G DDR5 graphics machine as a Hackintosh for under $2K.

It is awesome.

Newegg rules.

i dont understand the appeal of SSDs for 99% of people.

Unless noise, vibration, or a specific type of access speed difference is needed, its not worth the comprimise you give up in long term reliability and sensitivity, cost to size benefit...

and for the pricepoint you're building to and what you're using it for, i still stand by AMD's integrated graphics enough that I use it for system-critical video playback and handling.

the SSD thing is pretty simple... look at your benchmarks and when the HDD is the bottle neck suddenly the big bad thing is SSD... could go raid0 but then you more then double your chance of a HDD failure... plus you hear about peoples computer starting up in 10sec and instantly popping/starting up crazy programs like adobe PS... size isn't a big deal as most people use them for the OS/programs only not data... prob overplayed but still just like putting a CAI on your car while it may not do much you can say you've got a CAi ;-)

AMDs APU is pretty impressive at what it can do on the vid side... and for gaming it's absolutely a great way to go... but all the benchmarks i've looked at they are just a lot slower when it comes to photoshop and such.... and in general it benchmarks the lowest of all of the other AMD's... overclocked may change that... but the sandy bridge is supposed to be a big deal with photoshop

yeah but I don't trust most benchmarks done by any software approaches after all the political futzing surrounding intel, only real world stuff like tomshardware.

and again on the ssd thing... you specced dabbling in heavier video editing. most 5400rpm hdds are fast enough to fetch/scrub even 720p effects depending on your video editing suite, and a single core above 2.5ghz is enough to use vfapi frameservice scripts in realtime too. After that, consideration of size of video source files is most important to me.

but if your video editing gets any heavier than what the entry level Magix, Vegas, or Adobe around $150 are capable of doing these days (which -are- pretty cool), then you need to move straight to an editing card. That will make a far bigger performance diff than any ssd.

I still dont trust ssds for most people that are going for any longterm use. Its just too unreliable for me for critical storage. The ONLY thing holding that info valid is an electrical charge. You manage to disrupt or stop that electrical charge, you've lost the data forever. On a magnetic drive, the data is mechanically/magnetically etched onto the platter. If some component on the drive fails, it RARELY means complete loss of info.

Its also cheap enough to use redundantly.

I've been video editing since before Athlon name was used, and am just amazed at the processing power that even a cheap system can sneeze out of its bus these days, so my commentary comes from spending lots of my own money on the affair....