I'm building a new PC! Yay!!!

FutureGuy

Hi all,
Having posted a need for a new PC on another forum, I've decided to start the process of deciding exactly what I need. I have had some incredible people offer to even build it!

So the machine in question needs to be able to sail through sound editing and (later) video editing tasks. I decided against buying a PS4 and will instead use that money for a high end grapics card.

The sound cards also needs to be excellent for recording/editing.

I'm alos looking to spec the machine so that it will run VR (Vive etc).

I also need a great monitor.

My budget will be about 1600 for the PC and about 400 for the monitor but I have a little flexability.

I'm not confident about building it just yet but I'd like to know what to buy and where the best places are!

Thanks all!

Digital Solitude

i5 6400 €200
Z170 board €100
16gb DDR4 €90
1tb HDD €50
250gb SSD €90
500w PSU €60
Nanoxia DS1 €90
R9 390 €350

Total €1130

Grab a 1440p monitor

Loads remaining for a soundcard, as I can't recommend one

jamescd

Based on Digital's suggestion

Intel Core i5 6400 4x 2.70GHz - €179.89
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler - €30
MSI Z170-A PRO Socket 1151 - €110.85
16GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4-2400 CL15 - €79.22
Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 G1 8192MB - €333.22
SanDisk Ultra II 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s 240GB SSD - €74.87
Seagate Desktop ST2000DM001 2TB HDD - €68.68
Be Quiet! System Power 7 Bulk 80+ Silver 600W - €69.59
LiteOn IHAS124-04 DVD-RW SATA 1.5Gb/s - €11.73

Total = €958.15 (Delivery will be another €29.99)

The i5 6400 is overclockable with a Z170 board, so I included a Hyper 212 CPU Cooler so you will have that option. Case you will have to get from somewhere else like Amazon as MindFactory will charge you another €30 for delivery. It's just down to personal preference really, just have a look at cases on Amazon and pick what you like the look of. MindFactory only seem to do gaming sound cards, not the audio production one's you're looking for so you'll have to source that elsewhere too.

That only comes to around ~€990 inc. delivery, so you have about ~€1,000 left over for a case, sound card and monitor (and mouse + keyboard + Windows too if you don't have those)

Gehad_JoyRider

Digital Solitude wrote: »

R9 390 €350

where are you getting the price from for a R390 ? as I need a new gpu too.

jamescd

Gehad_JoyRider wrote: »

where are you getting the price from for a R390 ? as I need a new gpu too.

MindFactory

I already linked it there in my previous post

8192MB Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 G1 - €332.82

Gehad_JoyRider

jamescd wrote: »

MindFactory

I already linked it there in my previous post

8192MB Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 G1 - €332.82

thank you now the question is which gpu do i get

FutureGuy

Hi all,
Thanks a million for the suggestions. I'll be honest, when i posted this I had absolutely no idea about PCs. They turn on and they work - that was it.

Cince then, I have done a fair bit of reading which has alowed me to ask a few questions...

1) In the builds above, the AMD cards have been favoured over GTX970/980s. There there a reason for this selection that I am unaware of or is it just down to personal preference?

2) It seems that for gaming, an i5 combined with a GTX980 is preferred to an i7 and GTX970 if the budget is tight. I was thinking of getting an i7 and a GTX970 but having the option to add a second and go the SLI route maybe next year. Is this a good option? I heard there were issues with SLI 970s last year...have they been resolved?

3) Both builds have recommeded an i5 6400 which is about 180. An i7 6700 is about 320. Would the extra 140 not be well spent on futureproofing the machine? I also asked in a few stores and was told an i7 is better if you are going down the video editing route. Opnions?

4) If I go down the avenue of actually buying a specced pc, are PCspecialist decent?

Thanks all!

SterlingArcher

FutureGuy wrote: »

Hi all,
Thanks a million for the suggestions. I'll be honest, when i posted this I had absolutely no idea about PCs. They turn on and they work - that was it.

Cince then, I have done a fair bit of reading which has alowed me to ask a few questions...

1) In the builds above, the AMD cards have been favoured over GTX970/980s. There there a reason for this selection that I am unaware of or is it just down to personal preference?

2) It seems that for gaming, an i5 combined with a GTX980 is preferred to an i7 and GTX970 if the budget is tight. I was thinking of getting an i7 and a GTX970 but having the option to add a second and go the SLI route maybe next year. Is this a good option? I heard there were issues with SLI 970s last year...have they been resolved?

3) Both builds have recommeded an i5 6400 which is about 180. An i7 6700 is about 320. Would the extra 140 not be well spent on futureproofing the machine? I also asked in a few stores and was told an i7 is better if you are going down the video editing route. Opnions?

4) If I go down the avenue of actually buying a specced pc, are PCspecialist decent?

Thanks all!

The amd cards have more ram 8gigs compared to 4 on the 970/980. Going amd gives you the option for getting a freesync monitor. Which are alot cheaper than an nvidia g sync monitor options.

I wouldn't recommend sli or crossfire. Can be quite a pain. You'd be better off getting a 970/390 in short term and getting a Pascal /Polaris when they drop.

If the i7 thing is playing on your mind so much you could opt for an xeon 1231 v3. Costs around 253. Does same as the i7.

What resolution are you planning to game at.

TerrorFirmer

With a budget that large and your intended uses, yes an i7 is a good investment.

The Xeon 1231 v3 is about 250 and excellent value for money, it's socket 1150/DDR3 however.

I would just pony up for the i7-6700 and Skylake, might as well on that budget as get the benefit of a more modern platform and DDR4 ram. However you've said video editing 'later', so if later means two years, can just get an i5 for now which will still be an excellent performer for all tasks. An i7 is better than an i5 for editing/rendering, not so much for games.

At 1440P a 390, 390X or even Fury are the best value-for-money buys on your budget. A 1440p monitor will be 300-350 for a standard, a bit more if you want a freesync 1440p monitor. If you are doing a lot of editing you can also consider 4K as it's brilliant for that, but it's a massive GPU killer.

Sound card I would be clueless about but that really depends on what you'll specifically be doing. Could range from sub 100 euro to several hundred.

Forget Sli/Crossfire, agree with the above. More hassle than it's worth, some games won't support it, some games will have crap scaling, bugs, etc. It's a total headache, I find it's worse with Crossfire than Sli though.

Serephucus

My advice: Decide on the audio gear first. That's the main differentiating factor here. Once that's done, work with what you've got left over.

grindle

Solid soundcard for ~E130. If you don't need MIDI input/outputs the UR12 shaves E40 off.

If you're doing a lot of audio sequencing and editing I'd heavily recommend either two monitors or an ultrawide. Much better workflow when you're not constantly flipping between views/plugins.

You need a second HDD for backup also. If your projects have many tracks you'll be wanting 2x2TB in RAID 1. Will you be using any plugins with large sample libraries? If so, you'll want a second larger SSD for those as instrument patches are huge nowadays and can take a bit to load into RAM.

I'd go for an 1150 build to save money which can be put towards the monitor(s?). 4790k is no slouch.