Build Advice: Gaming and Image/Video editing

D4RK ONION

After the success of the family build, time to get selfish!

1. What is your budget?
Hoping to spend around €1100 but willing to press up to €1500

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
Gaming, pretty much anything and everything. Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Flash, After Effects. Lots of internet.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows?
No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?
Nope

5. Do you need a monitor?
Yes. 22 - 24" would be preferable. I may look into this as a separate venture because I'd like something with extremely low lag (for Fighting Games, Music Games).

6. Do you need any of these peripherals?
Yes, I will need Keyboard, mouse, speakers and a wireless card.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
Yes, perhaps. Would like some help doing it though, as I'm still new to PC building.

8. How can you pay?
Any which way.

9. When are you purchasing?
Whenever.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?
North Dublin

Tij da feen

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-2600K Box, LGA1155|€266.88
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€32.66
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl|€91.59
Sapphire HD 7870 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€313.52
LG GH22NS50/70/90 bare schwarz|€16.78
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€113.21
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ)|€103.94
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€52.02
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€83.99
LogiLink Wireless LAN 300 Mbps PCI Karte 802.11n 2T2R|€16.42
Thermalright HR-02 Macho|€33.75
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1143.75

Once you add in all of the peripheral's it's going

• Went for the 2600k if you're going to be working with videos. It's a lot faster then the 2500k for encoding.
• I went for the Sapphire 7870 OC as it was the cheapest card that didn't use AMD's reference cooler, (I just don't like the look of it tbh) It's Out of Stock now but it's back on Thursday.

I didn't put the Speakers or the Mouse and Keyboard in as I'm not the right person to ask about these things. Just don't get a keyboard from HWVS, it'll be in German layout.

As for the monitor if you're working with a lot of images etc. it might be worth your while looking into an IPS panel.

Eboggles

Tij's build looks great, but one thing; any point in having that CF mobo? You could drop down to the Pro3 Gen3 for a €30 saving, and maybe put it towards better peripherals.

Tij da feen

Eboggles wrote: »

Tij's build looks great, but one thing; any point in having that CF mobo? You could drop down to the Pro3 Gen3 for a €30 saving, and maybe put it towards better peripherals.

Should of mentioned that I had it in there because the other was Out of Stock, but it should be back in stock in 2 days. I should of copped that haha. Go for this mobo instead Onion.

D4RK ONION

Thanks man, that looks awesome!

Should have mentioned that the photo and video editing isn't professional stuff, and would be just learning and general messing stuff/odd jobs. Like this (most recent video I did)

Would I be best off going with the 2500k or should I still stick with 2600k? What's the price difference?

Also, totally not questioning your skills, but just wondering for other people's opinion on that Graphics card. Looked up some reviews and from what I can tell it's pretty bloody good.

EDIT: just checked the i5, it'd be 188, which is a fair difference.

EDIT 2: Will 550W be enough power? Thought it would need much more, though I am aware that most people on this board, and on /r/buildapc seem to totally over estimate how much power they'll need >_>

Tij da feen

You should go for the i5 2500k if you're aren't doing anything heavy on the video side. The 2600k and 2500k are on par in gaming performance.

The 7870 is in a league of it's own at that price point right now. It's so close to the 7950 in performance that it's kind of pointless to get it. The 7870 I listed comes factory OC'd so no messing around for you. By all means get others opinions on the card to ease your mind as you are dropping a lot of money on this system.

550w will power any single card up to a 7970, it's plenty with overclocking and all.

NTMK

D4RK ONION wrote: »

Would I be best off going with the 2500k or should I still stick with 2600k? What's the price difference?

Also, totally not questioning your skills, but just wondering for other people's opinion on that Graphics card. Looked up some reviews and from what I can tell it's pretty bloody good.

EDIT: just checked the i5, it'd be 188, which is a fair difference.

ive done some rendering through sony vegas on a OC'd 2500k it takes 15-20mins to render a 15min video (joining compressing and converting (40gb-->600mb)) so if that sounds decent (i havent a notion of whats good or bad in terms of render time) to you then go with the 2500k you'll save money which could go towards getting a bigger ssd.

Serephucus

I'd drop to an i5 2500K by the sounds of things, and also swap out the motherboard for this. It's a lot cheaper, and you basically only loose out on multi-GPU support.

With that extra money, you could think about something like this for games.
(Or a bigger SSD, or sound proofing, or better cooling, or or or)

Dreddybajs

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=41354&agid=367

Here's the monitor I have Onion. Pretty much lagless and a pretty decent and cheap 24" to boot. You can feel free to try it out next time you're over for a session.

papajimsmooth

Is it worth getting a 680 for a monitor like that for bf3? Or would it only be a waste of money?

Serephucus

With a 19x12 monitor? Not at all. It can support four monitors, but if you try playing games on three (four doesn't work) it's going to be a lot slower. It's definitely worth it.

papajimsmooth

So if you were to buy a 680 for gaming you would need to be playing on 3 monitors to get your moneys worth. Will the 7870 allow him to max bf3 on the 24" benq?

Serephucus

No... I actually said the exact opposite. If you want, you can choke a 680 on a single 19x12 monitor. As for the 7870, I haven't a clue. I don't own one (or BF3. :P).

D4RK ONION

Think I'll spend it on a bigger SSD. God I love SSDs :P I'm also interested in the idea of sound proofing, so I must do some googling on that.

ScumLord

I don't know how important this is to you but Adobes software uses Nividia cuda features to render out effects on the fly which can speed things up.

Also for video editing the more ram the better, especially for after effects and premiere.

Serephucus

If you're interested in sound proofing, this is the very best stuff you can get. This stuff is a bit lower in price if you want something cheaper.

I have some of both in my case. Dunno if it's worth all I paid for it (I had to get about three 7mm sheets, and one 12mm sheet for my very big case) but it does help. It deadens out the noise. Sort of like what would happen if you put a bit cardboard box over your case.

D4RK ONION

The hard drive that was suggested appears to be out of stock, is the one I've put in okay? And will the 550W still be sufficient? I think I'm happy enough with that build, seems pretty strong.

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€32.50
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl|€91.69
Sapphire HD 7870 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€311.51
LG GH22NS50/70/90 bare schwarz|€16.78
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€56.54
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€142.79
LogiLink Wireless LAN 300 Mbps PCI Karte 802.11n 2T2R|€16.42
Thermalright HR-02 Macho|€33.75
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€81.59
BenQ G2420HD|€140.74
Hitachi DESKSTAR 7K1000.C 1TB, 32MB, SATA II, 8,9cm (3,5")|€100.20
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155|€188.78
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1232.28

EDIT: Perhaps this Hard drive is better?

frozenfrozen

IMHO go nvidia for your gpu since you're going to be working with cuda supported things, just not a 680 as they've been pretty much nerfed for compute tasks.

D4RK ONION

frozenfrozen wrote: »

IMHO go nvidia for your gpu since you're going to be working with cuda supported things, just not a 680 as they've been pretty much nerfed for compute tasks.

Can you suggest a good nvidia card for about the same price/power as the 7870? Cause the 7870 looks pretty excellent for the price range it's in.

marco_polo

D4RK ONION wrote: »

Can you suggest a good nvidia card for about the same price/power as the 7870? Cause the 7870 looks pretty excellent for the price range it's in.

For the closest match performance and price wise you are basically looking at a GTX 570 in that case), it looks like late april early May before we will see any GTX 670/670ti's. And in any case they will have exactly the same nerfed compute performance compared to the 5XXs as well.

This is what frozenfrozen was talking about.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-review-benchmark,3161-15.html

D4RK ONION

Ah I see. Something like this so? Sorry to sound so helpless, my knowledge of computer components and their stats is pretty rudimentary.

EDIT: This looks sexy by the way. I am tempted!

D4RK ONION

Hey looking to order tomorrow, wondering if anyone could offer a bit more advice on the GPU? Is that Nvidia I linked any good? Is the 3GB one worth it at all? Or should I just go with the 7870?

marco_polo

D4RK ONION wrote: »

Hey looking to order tomorrow, wondering if anyone could offer a bit more advice on the GPU? Is that Nvidia I linked any good? Is the 3GB one worth it at all? Or should I just go with the 7870?

Anything more than 2GB isn't nescessary for your intended resolution, as for the GTX570 you linked unless I am missing something obvious that I cannot spot this oneis clocked slightly higher and is 30 euro cheaper.

I have dug out a list of Cuda accelerated effects in Premiere Pro CS5 if it helps make your NVidia or AMD decision.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WSE04091E3-79C1-4014-B4F5-681A65A9AC80.html#WS2bacbdf8d487e582-6906c0e112ecaaa111c-8000

If Premier pro is your most important consideration the GTX 580 would be the best Adobe supported card you can get, with the GTX570 the more budget friendly little brother.

If you decide CUDA is not so important then the HD7870 is more than adequate for single HD monitor gaming and would be the sweet spot IMO, the GTX 680/HD7970 would be (only very slight) overkill just now unless you are looking for an unwavering 60FPS in BF3 on ultra settings, on the other hand of course both these will have a moderately longer useful lifespan than the HD7870 before needing an upgrade.

My personal preference would be to go with the 7870 and replace it in 2 or so years with its successor in the same price range as I think it is the more optimal price performance path, but either are valid options.

You have some tough choices, but definately the good kind, and you are in the nice position where you really can't go wrong no matter what you choose.

D4RK ONION

Okay, final countdown here. Going to go with the 7870 in the end, and switched to the Seagate HDD (better seemingly) and OCZ SSD (cheaper and as good I think?).

The 7870 appears to be out of stock for now on HWVS. Delivery time is more than 7 days... Assuming that's not coming back in, I'm going to get it off dabs for the extra €30 (might be able to use a coupon, so €20 extra plus free delivery). But if you've experience with HWVS does stuff like that usually come back in or what?

Anyway, here's the final build...

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€32.50
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl|€91.59
LG GH22NS50/70/90 bare schwarz|€17.73
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€56.47
LogiLink Wireless LAN 300 Mbps PCI Karte 802.11n 2T2R|€16.42
Thermalright HR-02 Macho|€33.75
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€81.59
BenQ G2420HD|€140.74
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155|€187.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€87.54
OCZ Petrol 128GB SSD SATA 6Gb's|€110.03
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€875.34

Item|Price
Sapphire Technology ATI Radeon 7870 1050MHz 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI OC|€331.14
Shipping|Free!
Total|€331.14

Total: 1206.48

Think I'm good to go with that! Let me know about that HWVS 7870 if you can

Fluffy88

7870's in stock as of this posting
Item|Price
Powercolor HD7870 2GB GDDR5|€306.87
Club 3D Radeon HD 7870, 2048MB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7870, PCI- Express|€308.87
HIS HD 7870 IceQ X Turbo GDDR5 2048MB DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP|€337.21

On the left side menu goto, PC-Components > Graphics Cards > ATI > PCI Express
Then in the search box above the listed products search for 7870 and you will see all the 7870's on hwvs.

The OCZ Petrol SSD is a very budget item, it won't give you the same performance the M4 will and imo it's worth spending the extra ~€30 for the M4.

D4RK ONION

Fluffy88 wrote: »

7870's in stock as of this posting
Item|Price
Powercolor HD7870 2GB GDDR5|€306.87
Club 3D Radeon HD 7870, 2048MB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7870, PCI- Express|€308.87
HIS HD 7870 IceQ X Turbo GDDR5 2048MB DVI/HDMI/2xMini DP|€337.21

On the left side menu goto, PC-Components > Graphics Cards > ATI > PCI Express
Then in the search box above the listed products search for 7870 and you will see all the 7870's on hwvs.

This is really feckin' strange but the OC version is back in stock last night. I am so confused :P I swear it said "out for more than 7 days or whatever

The OCZ Petrol SSD is a very budget item, it won't give you the same performance the M4 will and imo it's worth spending the extra ~€30 for the M4.

I'll take your word on that, switching back to the M4.

SO... Final build... again >_<

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€32.50
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse DEFINE R3 Black Pearl|€91.59
LG GH22NS50/70/90 bare schwarz|€17.73
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€56.47
LogiLink Wireless LAN 300 Mbps PCI Karte 802.11n 2T2R|€16.42
Thermalright HR-02 Macho|€33.75
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€81.59
BenQ G2420HD|€140.74
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155|€187.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€87.54
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€139.64
Sapphire HD 7870 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€308.28
ARCTIC COOLING Wärmeleitkleber G-1|€4.49
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1217.72

My body is ready. Hovering over the order button!

EDIT: Ordered! Thanks so much to everyone who offered advice, I'd have been making a vastly inferior build without you guys.