What Desktop PC Should I Buy?

ShaneMcEntee

I am a multimedia student and require a powerful desktop machine but unfortunately my computer has an old 1.6 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core and Intel Integrated Graphics. The PC CPU is too old to bother upgrading so I am thinking of just replacing the whole thing with a newer model. I want a decent graphics card for video editing, 3D rendering, Photoshop etc. I don't really game on PCs but I need graphics power for all of the above and a lot of HD video viewing and editing. My monitor is also full HD. I also want to future proof the CPU so I will nedd one of the new Intel iCore chips or the AMD equivalent. At least an i3 2.93GHz.

So my questions is is there a good desktop machine at a good price (€500 to €800) and any good retailers or websites. Komplette and Pixmania seem to be more about laptops and PC World redirect to the UK site with UK prices.

VenomIreland

ShaneMcEntee wrote: »

I am a multimedia student and require a powerful desktop machine but unfortunately my computer has an old 1.6 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core and Intel Integrated Graphics. The PC CPU is too old to bother upgrading so I am thinking of just replacing the whole thing with a newer model. I want a decent graphics card for video editing, 3D rendering, Photoshop etc. I don't really game on PCs but I need graphics power for all of the above and a lot of HD video viewing and editing. My monitor is also full HD. I also want to future proof the CPU so I will nedd one of the new Intel iCore chips or the AMD equivalent. At least an i3 2.93GHz.

So my questions is is there a good desktop machine at a good price (€500 to €800) and any good retailers or websites. Komplette and Pixmania seem to be more about laptops and PC World redirect to the UK site with UK prices.

I'll start off with the obvious response, you should build it yourself
EDIT: BTW, there is no such thing as "future-proof".

ShaneMcEntee

VenomIreland wrote: »

I'll start off with the obvious response, you should build it yourself
EDIT: BTW, there is no such thing as "future-proof".

I have consider that but am afraid I might not know enough about the hardware and might muck it up. If I can't find a decent OEM I may build it myself.

I mean Future proof for as long as possible. My current PC doesn't even have a Core 2 It has a Pentium Dual core so is useless in upgrading. Since Core 2 Duos and Quads are on their way out I'd like an iCore as they are pretty new and I can't see Intel making a new line for at least 2 years (apart from making upgrades and adjustments to their current Core 2 and iCore lines). In two years time I want to be able to slap in more RAM or a new graphics card without it seeming pointless like it does now due to the rest of the hardware.

Deano12345

ShaneMcEntee wrote: »

I have consider that but am afraid I might not know enough about the hardware and might muck it up. If I can't find a decent OEM I may build it myself.

I mean Future proof for as long as possible. My current PC doesn't even have a Core 2 It has a Pentium Dual core so is useless in upgrading. Since Core 2 Duos and Quads are on their way out I'd like an iCore as they are pretty new and I can't see Intel making a new line for at least 2 years (apart from making upgrades and adjustments to their current Core 2 and iCore lines). In two years time I want to be able to slap in more RAM or a new graphics card without it seeming pointless like it does now due to the rest of the hardware.

New sockets will debut at the start of next year IIRC, called ''Sandy Bridge''

And a Pentium Dual Core is not useless, and if your worrying about breaking stuff when you build then start your build by upgrading your motherboard to something that can overclock, the Exxx series are very good overclockers. I actually could have my E2200 at 4.4 GHz @ 1.55v. It was a very good little chip (still is technically, its under my bed). Now the architecture wasn't the newest but it was no slowpoke !

Computer hardware is not worth procrastinating over, you'd never buy a PC if that was the case. So just buy something that will do what you need it to do and stop worrying about what might happen in the computer world in x years. I mulled over changing to 1366 before I bought my Q9550 and I'm glad I got the Q9550 as its more than fast enough to handle anything I throw at it and I require a lot of my PC.

OEM's are rubbish compared to the quality of what you will build yourself. The difference between my (fujitsu siemens) Asus board and my Asus P5Q3 were startling, the P5Q3 was so much better built. Reason being that OEM's cheap out on everything.

What I would do if I was you, go to adverts and find some of these parts and build you own computer. Buy parts like your case new.

Q6600 - Very quick CPU still, wont bottleneck any graphics card at all. theres one for 90 quid on boards right now.

Solid motherboard that will be able to be expanded on in the future, this DQ6 is excellent at €110 (http://www.adverts.ie/220142/hardware/gigabyte-ga-x48-dq6/)

4 GB of DDR2 ram, will do you fine unless you do LOTS of Photoshop.

Pick up some Samsung F3 1TB's and RAID0 them for serious speed. RAID1 them if you need security.

Get an Nvidia card with CUDA, some multimedia apps can use this to improve encoding. A GTS250 can be found new for about €100. I'd go with one of them.

Case - Personal preference really, Antec 300 is a solid budget case.

Power supply, a quality 450Watt will do you, Antec and Corsair offer 550W units which I would check out ( the Antec is called the Basiq (IIRC) and the corsair is the VX550)

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get all my points across

ShaneMcEntee

Deano12345 wrote: »

New sockets will debut at the start of next year IIRC, called ''Sandy Bridge''

And a Pentium Dual Core is not useless, and if your worrying about breaking stuff when you build then start your build by upgrading your motherboard to something that can overclock, the Exxx series are very good overclockers. I actually could have my E2200 at 4.4 GHz @ 1.55v. It was a very good little chip (still is technically, its under my bed). Now the architecture wasn't the newest but it was no slowpoke !

Computer hardware is not worth procrastinating over, you'd never buy a PC if that was the case. So just buy something that will do what you need it to do and stop worrying about what might happen in the computer world in x years. I mulled over changing to 1366 before I bought my Q9550 and I'm glad I got the Q9550 as its more than fast enough to handle anything I throw at it and I require a lot of my PC.

OEM's are rubbish compared to the quality of what you will build yourself. The difference between my (fujitsu siemens) Asus board and my Asus P5Q3 were startling, the P5Q3 was so much better built. Reason being that OEM's cheap out on everything.

What I would do if I was you, go to adverts and find some of these parts and build you own computer. Buy parts like your case new.

Q6600 - Very quick CPU still, wont bottleneck any graphics card at all. theres one for 90 quid on boards right now.

Solid motherboard that will be able to be expanded on in the future, this DQ6 is excellent at €110 (http://www.adverts.ie/220142/hardware/gigabyte-ga-x48-dq6/)

4 GB of DDR2 ram, will do you fine unless you do LOTS of Photoshop.

Pick up some Samsung F3 1TB's and RAID0 them for serious speed. RAID1 them if you need security.

Get an Nvidia card with CUDA, some multimedia apps can use this to improve encoding. A GTS250 can be found new for about €100. I'd go with one of them.

Case - Personal preference really, Antec 300 is a solid budget case.

Power supply, a quality 450Watt will do you, Antec and Corsair offer 550W units which I would check out ( the Antec is called the Basiq (IIRC) and the corsair is the VX550)

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get all my points across

Thanks for the info (even though I don't understand some of it like RAID0 and that(that's why I don't know about building)). I will look into it more when (if) I have the cash in a few months.

ShaneMcEntee

VenomIreland wrote: »

Ignore this post and please delete it.

I don't really have a budget at the moment. I have to wait till I start my second year of college and get my grant. I'm hoping to get something decent for around 650. Maybe if I get a summer job soon I could go higher.

Deano12345

Thats what were here for, ask anything your not sure about.

RAID0 is basically when you get 2 identical hard drives and run them as one to increase the speed

ShaneMcEntee

Deano12345 wrote: »

Thats what were here for, ask anything your not sure about.

RAID0 is basically when you get 2 identical hard drives and run them as one to increase the speed

Oh I heard of that before didn't know what it was called. Sounds cool for expanding storage without having several storage locations for all your media files and programs.

I've been browsing around and came to the conclusion that I need a custom build. i3 machines come with awful graphics and even the Core 2 Quads come with integrated NVidea graphics. Not many OEMs have a dedicated card. I could also over-clock if I custom build as I hear all OEM BIOS' restrict that.

At the moment my PC has a Pentium Dual Core @ 1.6GHz, Itel graphics and 2 Gigs of very slow RAM. I need an upgrade. I can barely run Photoshop CS3 and CS4 is impossible.

Deano12345

ShaneMcEntee wrote: »

I've been browsing around and came to the conclusion that I need a custom build. i3 machines come with awful graphics and even the Core 2 Quads come with integrated NVidea graphics. Not many OEMs have a dedicated card. I could also over-clock if I custom build as I hear all OEM BIOS' restrict that.

Well, i3 was designed for that purpose (For the OEM market) so most OEMS will take advantage of the fact that it comes with a built in GPU (H55/57 chipset)

The C2Q's have had the venerable (but utterly useless ) 6150 GPU on them for years. This is why building your own is better, your not stuck with graphics that are older than time itself !

Not all OEM's are locked down. Dell's XPS series has limited overclocking options, but no OEM will come near a board like the UD3

Noodleworm

Hey, A multimedia student too. Im gonna be doing a build soon but Ive saved up enough for about 1500 budget.

Having a proper graphics card over an integrated one will make a big difference, but you should be good with 4gb ram. Overall just look for the best processor you can afford. intel i5 maybe.

Theres quite a few laptops and desktops around these days that seem pretty damn powerfull, Even the ones in aldi have good specs.

ShaneMcEntee

Deano12345 wrote: »

Well, i3 was designed for that purpose (For the OEM market) so most OEMS will take advantage of the fact that it comes with a built in GPU (H55/57 chipset)

The C2Q's have had the venerable (but utterly useless ) 6150 GPU on them for years. This is why building your own is better, your not stuck with graphics that are older than time itself !

Not all OEM's are locked down. Dell's XPS series has limited overclocking options, but no OEM will come near a board like the UD3

Any good Intel based motherboards you would recommend for an i3 or an i5?

What would be the better option out of the

Core i3 540 / 3.06 GHz for €130
Core i5 661 / 3.33 GHz for €187

There is also an i5 660 at €3 less that seems the exact same as the 661 .

So far I have an idea of the RAM sticks I'm gonna buy, the PSU, graphics, case Hard Drive and I already have a DVD burner so I just need to know a really decent motherboard for around €70 and the perfect chip for it. Thank you for all the help so far. I'm brand new to these forums and didn't expect such helpful responses so fast.

ShaneMcEntee

Noodleworm wrote: »

Hey, A multimedia student too. Im gonna be doing a build soon but Ive saved up enough for about 1500 budget.

Having a proper graphics card over an integrated one will make a big difference, but you should be good with 4gb ram. Overall just look for the best processor you can afford. intel i5 maybe.

Theres quite a few laptops and desktops around these days that seem pretty damn powerfull, Even the ones in aldi have good specs.

With €1500 you should be able to build an amazing machine. Considering you can build the equivalent of a Mac Pro for half the price of a Mac Pro you should be able to build something pretty powerful. Definitely recommend you getting a Core i7 or at least the top end i5 if you're gonna over-clock. Yeah those Aldo machines do be powerful at a cheap price but they only come around every so often. I find their laptops to be a bit dear for what you get but the tower PCs are amazing (on paper at least).

Lu Tze

Bare in mind shane you might be able to get a few quid for your current machine selling it, if this might bump your budget?

If you post up the specs somebody might give you an extimate of what you might get here

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054853497

ShaneMcEntee

I'll give it a go but it's pretty old I'll give it a go though.

ShaneMcEntee

I found a Asus ATI Radeon 5670 HD 775Mhz 1GB PCI-Express HDMI for €95 at http://www.dabs4work.ie/products/asus-ati-radeon-5670-hd-775mhz-1gb-pci-express-hdmi-6KTF.html?refs=417440000. I don't know much about graphics cards but have been looking around and this seems like a steal? Is it? 775MHz clock speed is pretty high for as sub €100 card isn't it?

Jonny7

ShaneMcEntee wrote: »

I found a Asus ATI Radeon 5670 HD 775Mhz 1GB PCI-Express HDMI for €95 at http://www.dabs4work.ie/products/asus-ati-radeon-5670-hd-775mhz-1gb-pci-express-hdmi-6KTF.html?refs=417440000. I don't know much about graphics cards but have been looking around and this seems like a steal? Is it? 775MHz clock speed is pretty high for as sub €100 card isn't it?

Stats on graphics cards don't mean much.. its the overall performance.. which you check by looking at reviews..

Graphics cards are designed to trick new users, so go with recommendations

For 100 euro find an ATI 5750 or second hand ATI 5770

ShaneMcEntee

Jonny7 wrote: »

Stats on graphics cards don't mean much.. its the overall performance.. which you check by looking at reviews..

Graphics cards are designed to trick new users, so go with recommendations

For 100 euro find an ATI 5750 or second hand ATI 5770

I checked out a video review of the 512MB model on YouTube and it got a 5 out of 5. Watched a screen cast of it running Cod4, Burnout, Crysis and the new Battlefield and it looked great, most at highest settings.

I've been looking at the 5750s 5770s too.

Does the model number relate to general performance (ie a 5750 is better than 5670 and a 5770 is better than a 5750)?

Monotype

Yes, 5770 > 5750 > 5670.
If you've got one of those new pentium dual cores, and money is tight, they can overclock quite far if you have a decent board. It also might be a good idea to check AMD out with a low budget.

In your OP, you mention that you need a good graphics card for video editing, photshop and 3d modelling. Video editing (with adobe) and photoshop, don't utilise GPU power that much (but are using it more with each new version). Even when you're at 1920x1080 resolution, many graphics cards will cope with that. As for 3d modelling, what programs are we talking about here?

ronan0

Here's a nice DIY project using high value / performance components.

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+DIY7+Intel+Core+i7+with+Vista+64/0xe07f65920351fbf3ed8f9892355dfda0.aspx

Jonny7

ShaneMcEntee wrote: »

I checked out a video review of the 512MB model on YouTube and it got a 5 out of 5. Watched a screen cast of it running Cod4, Burnout, Crysis and the new Battlefield and it looked great, most at highest settings.

I've been looking at the 5750s 5770s too.

Does the model number relate to general performance (ie a 5750 is better than 5670 and a 5770 is better than a 5750)?

The 5670 is quiet, modern, draws low power, but in terms of speed its a little slower than a 3 yr old card the 8800GT which can be bought for 40 euros online now.

Right now, ATI are better than Nvidia, and the current best budget gamer card is the 5770 and the current enthusiast gamer card is the 5850.

Check below graph to give rough idea how they all stack up.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_5670_1_GB/30.html

For 95 odd euros you are v close to a 5750 which is a much better card than the 5670.

ShaneMcEntee

So I should be getting my student grant soon and will be building a PC. I'm stuck to a €400 budget.

Not sure what I should go cheap on and what I should go all out on. Keep in mind that graphics aren't too important as if I even do use this for gaming it won't be alot although I will be working heavily with HD video, but I hear HD video crunching is mostly done processor side.

Here is my first possible spec.

Board - ASUS M4A78LT-M LE - AM3 SOCKET - 760G - MICRO ATX CHIPSET - €63

Processor - 1 x AMD Athlon II X4 640 / 3 GHz - €104

Graphics -Gainward GeForce GT 240 - Graphics adapter - GF GT - €75

RAM - OCZ GOLD LOW VOLTAGE 2 X 2 GB DDR3-1333 PC3-10666 PC MEMORY MODULES - €103

Case - Cooler Master Gladiator 600 - Mid tower - ATX - €58

PSU - XIGMATEK NRP-PC402 400W PC POWER UNIT - €55

Total: €458



Already have DVD Burner and 2 x 250 GB HDDs.


So will all these parts work together?

Do you think I should go for a cheap case/PSU cobo and use the savings on a better CPU? I hear your better off getting a really decent PSU so as your parts don't get damaged.

Tea_Bag

id change the PSU to a corsair CX400 watt first of all, should be cheaper too depending where you go.

where did you get these prices?

ShaneMcEntee

Tea_Bag wrote: »

id change the PSU to a corsair CX400 watt first of all, should be cheaper too depending where you go.

where did you get these prices?

These are all from Komplett.ie and pixmania.ie. I'll be collecting some stuff from Kompletts warehouse but the Pixmania stuff will be shipped so I included the deliver fees. The PSu is actually €40 with €15 delivery.

Tea_Bag

Try pricing www.ebuyer.com and www.hardwareversand.de before putting down any money. (ebuyer is cheapish delivery charges and (in my own personal experience) very good to deal with, including refunding money)
HWVS has a flat €30 delivery charge, but it is bank transfer only. many many many people on this forum would reckomend them without quibble.

I'd personally change the CPU to this (i bought one, and it unlocked its 4th core with full L3 cache.)
and the RAM to this
and spend more on the GPU.

Tea_Bag

Just threw this together there, but you have to budget a little bit on delivery and exchange rate.

also, i think were pushing that 400W to the limit, so i'd wait for a second opinion on that.
thats pretty much on par with my rig, which eats gaming for breakfast.



this is from www.ebuyer.com btw.


EDIT: i left out a CPU cooler there..
EDIT2: i honestly cant recommend the MoBo, i know nothing about it except for AM3, just coppied your one.

ShaneMcEntee

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Try pricing www.ebuyer.com and www.hardwareversand.de before putting down any money. (ebuyer is cheapish delivery charges and (in my own personal experience) very good to deal with, including refunding money)
HWVS has a flat €30 delivery charge, but it is bank transfer only. many many many people on this forum would reckomend them without quibble.

I'd personally change the CPU to this (i bought one, and it unlocked its 4th core with full L3 cache.)
and the RAM to this
and spend more on the GPU.

That processor is lesser than the one I'm getting. That's a triple core. The one I'm getting is quad. I don't really need very good graphics either.

ShaneMcEntee

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Try pricing www.ebuyer.com and www.hardwareversand.de before putting down any money. (ebuyer is cheapish delivery charges and (in my own personal experience) very good to deal with, including refunding money)
HWVS has a flat €30 delivery charge, but it is bank transfer only. many many many people on this forum would reckomend them without quibble.

I'd personally change the CPU to this (i bought one, and it unlocked its 4th core with full L3 cache.)
and the RAM to this
and spend more on the GPU.

I might get that power supply though. 5 stars off 23 reviews! I was looking for a good one for cheap. Its got 8 Plus too! Nice one man. Supposed to be whisper quiet too.

ShaneMcEntee

I got most of the parts off Ebuyer but got

RAM: 4GB (2 x2GB) OCZ Gold Memory 1333MHZ for a bargain €66 off Pixmania Graphics: along with a Sapphire ATI 5770 for a mre €120. Everything else was cheaper on Ebuyer.

CPU: An AMD Phenom II 955 @3.2GHz with an

Motherboard: ASUS M4A785T-M 785G

PSU: Coolermaster GX 550W

Case: Casecom Black Mid Tower Case and I bought a 2 LED fan to go on side panel of the case as there is a place there for it. It comes with one at the back and a 120mm in the front but they just give a 4 screw holes on the side panel.

All came to €490 including taxes, shipping, currency commission and all that.

Getting some stuff on Friday and some on Monday. Should be built by Tuesday. I'll post pics.

Thank you to everyone in this thread who has helped me get along the way on choosing parts and even on deciding to custom build in the first place.