Out of practice looking for new pc

hunnymonster

It's time for a new home pc to be used by my husband and I. It has been years since I took a screwdriver to the inside of a pc - I think 2gb as 4x512 was the best ram last time I opened a tower (and a bag of tayto cost 2 and 6 pence). I would be reasonably happy to slit things together but I'm way to far out of things to know what is compatible with what and which components perform best. The machine will primarily be used for home office applications. We have quite a lot of media (movies, photos, documentation) so a minimum of 3 Tb hard drive space and my husband likes to work with lots of documents open symultanrously (8th ram maybe?) the applications will be office, photoshop and academic software. I have licences for all the software but would need an os (windows probably). We dont play games at all and rarely watch movies on pcs so sound graphics less importsnt. have at the moment are laptops so essentially I'm looking for everything from scratch. Budget is absolutely limited at €1500 ideally to include a descent sized monitor (or 2 smaller ones for dual screens) but if this is unfradonale I have an old monitor I can use until budget increases.

Thanks for any suggestions for what we should be looking for.

Leman

€1,500 is a pretty big budget!

I am not savvy with Monitors unfortunately beyond telling you that Dual/Triple Monitor is beyond excellent. I could never go back to one!

Here is a suggestion for just the tower:
Total build cost: €678.56 + €30 shipping
8GB-Kit Kingston ValueRAM PC3-10667U CL9 €45.89
3 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB, SATA II (HE103SJ) €54.59
Intel Core i5-2500 Box, LGA1155 €167.36
Gigabyte GA-Z68P-DS3, Intel Z68, ATX €84.79
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6450 OC, 1024MB GDDR3, PCI-Express €44.87
3R Systems Design Gehäuse K400(+) Schwarz €23.16
Super-Flower SF550P14P, 550Watt €36.70
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €94.38
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 13 (Sockel 775/1155/1156/1366/754/939/AM2/AM2 +/AM3/AM3+/FM1) €17.64

I know there is "integrated" graphics, but you can't run two monitors off it iirc, hence the GPU. The SSD is there to install windows and to keep critical applications like Word or Photoshop on, while the three 1TB disks will be for storage and media. 8GB of ram will be More than enough unless you are doing some Seriously high resolution image edition (aka 10k x 10k or more) or heavy 3D stuff, in which case spring for the full 16GB. And of course feel free to pick out a case you like the look of.

I'll leave it to someone to suggest a good monitor setup for you.

the untitled user

Leman wrote: »

€1,500 is a pretty big budget!

I am not savvy with Monitors unfortunately beyond telling you that Dual/Triple Monitor is beyond excellent. I could never go back to one!

Here is a suggestion for just the tower:
Total build cost: €678.56 + €30 shipping
8GB-Kit Kingston ValueRAM PC3-10667U CL9 €45.89
3 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB, SATA II (HE103SJ) €54.59
Intel Core i5-2500 Box, LGA1155 €167.36
Gigabyte GA-Z68P-DS3, Intel Z68, ATX €84.79
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6450 OC, 1024MB GDDR3, PCI-Express €44.87
3R Systems Design Gehäuse K400(+) Schwarz €23.16
Super-Flower SF550P14P, 550Watt €36.70
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €94.38
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 13 (Sockel 775/1155/1156/1366/754/939/AM2/AM2 +/AM3/AM3+/FM1) €17.64

I know there is "integrated" graphics, but you can't run two monitors off it iirc, hence the GPU. The SSD is there to install windows and to keep critical applications like Word or Photoshop on, while the three 1TB disks will be for storage and media. 8GB of ram will be More than enough unless you are doing some Seriously high resolution image edition (aka 10k x 10k or more) or heavy 3D stuff, in which case spring for the full 16GB. And of course feel free to pick out a case you like the look of.

I'll leave it to someone to suggest a good monitor setup for you.

In terms of storage, Samsung f4 2TB drives are only 62 on dabs.ie at the moment. Order two and you get free delivery. Put the saved cash into a larger SSD perhaps? (there is a performance drop so you wouldn't want to be putting programs on them).

edit: nevermind, didn't realize the f4 is still cheaper on HWV.

deconduo

@Leman

Few problems with that build. Bad case and Bad PSU. Z68 board without a k processor.

I would go with something more like this:

Total build cost: €957.68 + €30 shipping
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version) €73.47
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 €176.60
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL9 €46.05
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ) €44.09
Samsung EcoGreen F4 2000GB, SATA II (HD204UI) 8,9cm (3,5") €60.89
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €94.38
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl €89.75
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W €53.70
ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX €86.69
Cooler Master Hyper TX3, alle Sockel €16.59
2 x LogiLink SATA 0.3m Kabel mit Sicherungslasche €0.60
Samsung SH-222AB bare schwarz SATA €17.06
Gigabyte Radeon HD 5670 OC, 1024MB DDR3, PCI-Express €55.43
BenQ G2420HD €141.78

Would a 24' monitor be enough for you or would you need something bigger?

the untitled user

deconduo wrote: »

@Leman

Few problems with that build. Bad case and Bad PSU. Z68 board without a k processor.

I would go with something more like this:

Total build cost: €957.68 + €30 shipping
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version) €73.47
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 €176.60
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-10667U CL9 €46.05
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ) €44.09
Samsung EcoGreen F4 2000GB, SATA II (HD204UI) 8,9cm (3,5") €60.89
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €94.38
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl €89.75
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W €53.70
ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX €86.69
Cooler Master Hyper TX3, alle Sockel €16.59
2 x LogiLink SATA 0.3m Kabel mit Sicherungslasche €0.60
Samsung SH-222AB bare schwarz SATA €17.06
Gigabyte Radeon HD 5670 OC, 1024MB DDR3, PCI-Express €55.43
BenQ G2420HD €141.78

Would a 24' monitor be enough for you or would you need something bigger?

That's the German version of windows you've linked to btw.

Btw, why not get a passive GPU to keep things a bit quieter? Fractal should have decent airflow.

Burgo

the untitled user wrote: »

That's the German version of windows you've linked to btw.

Btw, why not get a passive GPU to keep things a bit quieter? Fractal should have decent airflow.

AFAIK, you can buy the german version, then download the english version, burn it to disk and just use the key from the german copy.

Only problem with your build decondou is the cooler master hyper tx3 doesnt support 1155 (well its not listed as such.) Any need for a cooler in any case? I think the stock fan would be fine.

deconduo

Burgo wrote: »

AFAIK, you can buy the german version, then download the english version, burn it to disk and just use the key from the german copy.

Only problem with your build decondou is the cooler master hyper tx3 doesnt support 1155 (well its not listed as such.) Any need for a cooler in any case? I think the stock fan would be fine.

Its supported. LGA 1156 is the same as LGA 1155 from a heatsink point of view.

hunnymonster

24" would be fine for us
We happen to be bilingual so having german versions is not a problem.

Thanks for all the suggestions. My weekend task is to do a bit of reading.