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Thread: £500 media build

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    £500 media build

    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

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    Re: £500 media build

    6 amd cores are surely appealing for the same price?
    For photo editing an IPS monitor is really what you need (I think) but it'll really eat your budget.
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    Re: £500 media build

    I'm not really sure about AMD vs Intel TBH, I'm going off a few possibly biased opinions and the Anandtech benchmark comparison but I don't use or know much about these programs or how they scale so I couldn't argue.
    And you're right about the monitor, an IPS would probably be better but at £500 total I don't have much to play with. Do you think it's an unreasonable budget? I could try shopping around but I doubt I'd save that much and I could drop down a tier in performance but I don't want to cheap out on the build, I'm sure he could be convinced to up the budget if it would make a difference to performance.

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      • 1GB 6650M
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    Re: £500 media build

    There's a 22" IPS monitor in the FS section for £190 I think. Not sure if that's workable. Maybe if you don't bother with much of a GPU?
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    • Cheapy's system
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      • CPU:
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    Re: £500 media build

    Could go with the Phenom II X6 and a intergrated graphics motherboard like the 880G or the older 785G for the same price as the intel route. Probally wont handle any gaming but be fine for general use.

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    Re: £500 media build

    I take it GPU acceleration doesn't make much difference then? And the Phenom II X6 is pretty epic for the price (I have one myself)!

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    Re: £500 media build

    Not sure on the GPU acceleration. I think Cat might know a bit about that.
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    Re: £500 media build

    Make sure that you get one of the 880G based motherboards with the SB850 southbridge which has SATA 3.0 natively.

    Also,I would also consider the BenQ VW2420H which has an A-MVA screen with LED backlighting and is around 175 quid:

    http://forums.hexus.net/graphics-car...0h-review.html

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    Re: £500 media build

    Or that Dell with a superHD resolution with a TN panel which actually fooled bit-tech into thinking it was PVA.
    AKA http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mon...nitor-review/2
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    Re: £500 media build

    Quote Originally Posted by nibbler View Post
    Not sure on the GPU acceleration. I think Cat might know a bit about that.
    Some more information:

    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html

    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405711.html

    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/831/cpsid_83117.html

    CUDA can be also used to accelerate some filters in Photoshop IIRC.

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    Re: £500 media build

    They look like some pretty decent monitors! Bang4buck has changed a fair bit since I bought mine, I might have to get one myself now. xD

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    Re: £500 media build

    Any more ideas what I could use for CPU/motherboard. I think the £150 price range CPU might be a bit much to fit this budget correctly.
    Thanks

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    Re: £500 media build

    Then AMD phenom II 955?
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    Re: £500 media build

    Or the next step down from the Phenom II X4 955 BE that Nibbler suggested is a Athlon II X4. After that were out of quad cores

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    Re: £500 media build

    Thanks. Hmm it's not just me thinking the 32nm Intel chips are overpriced then?
    Oh and that VW2420H monitor looks great and about the right price but according to Google shopping not many places are stocking it, the cheapest being here, does anyone know what that shop is like. Alternatively do you know where else I could get it from?
    Last edited by watercooled; 14-10-2010 at 08:10 PM.

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