Design/Gaming/video editing Rig (for a mate)

Afternoon folks,

A mate is looking at buying a new pc for web design, programming, photoshop, sketchup, video editing and gaming. Basically a good all round machine.

Not terribly specific right now so its open to suggestion. so far he has said he wants the following:

Budget £800-900 (closer to £800 is better)

Case:?
PSU: ?
CPU: i7/i5 (not amd)
After market cooling: ?
Ram: 6Gb+ triple channel
Motherboard:?
Hdd: 1Tb sata
GFX: AMD Radeon 6950
OS: Windows 7 home premium retail

Monitor: (~£180) 23"

Any comments and suggestions welcome, we're going to sit down and order all the parts on sunday evening.

Thanks!

Budget £800-900 (closer to £800 is better)

Hdd: 1Tb sata Samsun F3 £40
GFX: AMD Radeon 6950 £190
OS: Windows 7 home premium retail £75
After market cooling: 212+? £15
Ram: 4gb £40
PSU: Check today only and get a seasonic unit for £60

380 remaining (if this includes the monitor you're going to be cutting it a bit tight; if it =s for photos an IPS will be needed). If it is a work machine is he going to OC it? Unlocking shaders on the 6950 may not be much better. CUDA currently is the CPUGPU software of choice until openGL (or is it CL) catches on.

Case:? Down to preference
CPU: No AMD means SB 2500k @160 or 2600k @240
Motherboard: no idea

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zadock

CPU: i7/i5 (not amd)

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Any particular reason for no AMD? The Phenom II X6 1090T is only £160 at the minute, which is ridiculously good bang-4-buck...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zadock

Ram: 6Gb+ triple channel

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Again, any particular reason for specifying triple channel? If it's essential then you're limited to X58 motherboards which start at £110 for a cheapy XFX model, and that realistically locks you into one of the i7 950 or 960 for ~ £215 - £230, so well over £300 just for the CPU and mobo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Any particular reason for no AMD? The Phenom II X6 1090T is only £160 at the minute, which is ridiculously good bang-4-buck...

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Indeed and for any decent video editing package the more cores the better.

At this budget, you'd be nuts to look towards an X58-based motherboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Any particular reason for no AMD? The Phenom II X6 1090T is only £160 at the minute, which is ridiculously good bang-4-buck...



Again, any particular reason for specifying triple channel? If it's essential then you're limited to X58 motherboards which start at £110 for a cheapy XFX model, and that realistically locks you into one of the i7 950 or 960 for ~ £215 - £230, so well over £300 just for the CPU and mobo.

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Hi guys

Sorry for the crap post it was the result of a quick phone call at lunch time and then a quick post in the final minutes of my lunch break.

Just had a look myself and you are right! i7 is not terribly realistic with the OS and monitor requirement to. I have suggested the 1090T but his preference is intel.

I'll speak to him again and probably suggest something like below, see what he thinks. This is just a rough idea based on suggestions thus far so still open to suggestions esp on the motherboard, cheers guys!

Probably trim a few quid off on the PSU?

Oh, case wise he doesn't want something massive either. I know the 300 can cope with a pretty big card but I think I will need to check just how big.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_F...s640/build.png

1) Don't rule out an i7.. AMD is better for his uses, but if he insists then it can be done:
2) Go for more hard drive space if he's doing anything with images/videos
3) I've picked a slower GPU, but it's still fast enough to run most modern games at full whack. The price of the MSI in yours has already gone up 11+ quid.
4) Still needs OS and monitor, as yours does.

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8025/scan1q.jpg

Corsair Builder series isn't great from what I hear... also you'd be much better getting 2x Spinpoint F3s than the Spinpoint F4, it's slooooow :P

I've emailed him a link to this thread, he's on a late so I may not get his opinions until tomorrow. I will also mention the cash back you can get when you pair up amd cpu and gpu.

Just spoken to my friend.

He is happy to go with the amd option. So I know roughly what he will go for now! Will post final spec on sunday, not sure if he will be ordering from scan ot ebuyer yet.

*update*

Final build was as follows:

Case: Antec 300
PSU: 550w Coolermaster (scan today only)
Motherboard: Gigabyte 880, hybrid x-fire, usb3 (can post exact model if anyone is interested)
CPU: Phenom II X6 1090T (retail)
Ram: 8Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 (1600) (scan today only)
HDD: 500Gb (initially, he will be adding nore storage later)
GPU: XFX Radeon 6950 2Gb (I think this is an unlockable one but he isn't bothered)

Total was about £720

He has a DVDRW already and he has just bagged an LG LED monitor off the shelf from PC world

We're going to put it together on saturday.

Thanks again for input guys.