A friend is after a PC for programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and Sony Vegas and has given me a £400-500 budget but given he wants a decent 19-22" monitor too I think only the upper end is reasonable. He wasn't too sure about budget so if that is impossible he might go higher. This is what I've come up with so far (rounded prices from Scan):
Case: I have a decent case he said he might have for a tenner
Motherboard: Gigabyte P55 board - £75
CPU: Core i5 760 - £146
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3 £62
HDD: Seagate 7200.12 500GB: £30
ODD: Standard DVD-RW jobbie £13
PSU: Corsair CX400: £35
GPU: Not too sure about this one, I've heard programs like Photoshop can use the GPU but I've also heard it doesn't do much, just helps render the on-screen image and doesn't make much difference.
Monitor: Also pretty clueless but there's a 22" Iiyama on Scan for £110 and I'm very happy with my Iiyama...
So, what do you think/what could I improve on? I think Intels tend to give better performance for Photoshop and such and the i5 760 is at a decent price point but maybe I could save a bit more by going for a H55 board? Or maybe scrap the discrete GPU altogether and go for a 32nm CPU with on-board GPU? He said he doesn't want to play games but I get the feeling he'll be expecting it to handle some so some GPU power would probably be appreciated.
Thanks