I've been pretty out of the loop but a friend has just asked me to build him an £800 machine, to be used to photograph editing, soundstuff and gaming.
This includes monitor/keyboard/mouse too.
Any help would be appreciated!
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I've been pretty out of the loop but a friend has just asked me to build him an £800 machine, to be used to photograph editing, soundstuff and gaming.
This includes monitor/keyboard/mouse too.
Any help would be appreciated!
So you are look for a £600 pc ? - I will have a go.
I'm £100 over(onlu £75 over if you don't need scansure), gpu sorta broke the budget. and its missing a good cpu cooler too.
http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/8b...8b626a683114a1
A cooler like the cm hyper 212 would be ideal.
Going with a 660 Ti seems a bit controversial when you are on a budget, and I'm a bigger fan of that card than most on here.
Seems a 7850 makes much more sense at this budget, especially if you don't know what games he plays.
Also not sure why you have gone for the Caviar Black, save a few quid, get the Blue and maybe an SSD later on.
I guess so but I thought its only an extra 50 - 60 ish, for a card that will crush any game on 1920x1080. Same with the HHD really I though an extra 20ish for a faster hdd build with better quality components would be better.
I did that build for someone a month ago with a 560ti and its amazing.
Also might want a asus zonar in there.
That's part of the problem with the 660ti, nvidia seem to be pushing up the spec and price of their mid range cards, for around £150-160 you can pick up a gtx560ti and for £180 one of the very good gtx560ti 448core both of which still perform really well and should do for a good while yet.
Which is actually a binned gf110 one less stream block than the gtx570, not a gf116 gpu that the other 560's use, it should of been called the gtx565 but I sure nvidia avoided that after the dismal performance of the 465 which gave it a very bad reputation. (it performed no better than the gtx460 1gb and cost a chunk more)
What are the games which are going to be run on the computer?
I would not go for a GTX660TI TBH and even on even on other UK forums,many people are not really that happy about the current pricing either(the same with the HD7870 too) . Either get a GTX670 for £30 more or if you are overclocking get an HD7950(if it is under £250 though),as both would be sound choices in the long run IMHO if you are spending £250 to £300. There are supposed to be some price drops for the HD7870,in the next few weeks and many of the HD7950 3GB cards will have boosted clockspeeds too.
The HD7850 at its current price makes the most sense if you overclock IMHO and is around HD6950 level speed(a bit faster in more modern games). However,with the HD7870 dropping in price and maybe the HD7950 V1,I would probably leave £200 for the GPU and build the rest of the computer and see the price of graphics cards in a month. The HD7870 might drop in price under £200 and its around 90% of a stock clocked GTX660TI on average.
For around £155,Scan sells both the HD6950 2GB and GTX560TI 448 1.28GB which are great choices for the price IMHO,if you want to buy the graphics card now.
Good advice so far guys, especially on the graphics card front. Anything else I should be looking for? Are XFX trustworthy regarding PSUs?
i would get a 6950 or a 560ti and the money saved, put towards a SSD for the system drive.
A half decent monitor is essential too! The Asus PA238Q should be great for this job although early examples were known to suffer from backlight bleed. Also calibrating it is important.
What type of music stuff is your friend doing?? It might require a sound card. Also is he CPU being overclocked?? This would mean a more expensive CPU and motherboard.
The XFX PSUs are made by Seasonic so are decent IMHO.
I came up with the following build using parts from Scan. Parts might be cheaper on the Today Only webpage or from other retailers.
http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/s...ormatbuild.png
Adding as SSD at a later date will also be useful IMHO and perhaps a dedicated sound card?? AFAIK,the sound cards orientated towards music can be over £100,although perhaps someone like kalniel will be more knowledgeable about such things?!
Does your friend want an internal or external (USB) soundcard?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
is it just me or there really isn't CPU in that build?
I wouldn't get B75 board, but Z77, different PSU, that XFX mentioned is good, different case (Bitfenix Merc Alpha or Coolermaster Elite 431 or Antec 300) and 2GB version of HD7850.
That will teach me to be a rush when doing that - thanks for spotting it and I thought I had added the 2GB version. If the OP is not overclocking,the B75 will be fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by mtxd
PSU is perfectly fine. The ZS 550W uses a decent enough OEM and has decent enough construction,unlike some of the previous units they sold. It is probably the best unit of the ZS range. The XFX PRO 550W would be fine too.
Case,is perfectly fine. It can take over 12" graphics cards and has a docking bay for HDDs. The Merc Alph used to be recommended by me until it disappeared from UK retail. The Beta is inferior for similar cost. The CM Elite cases seem to have reverted to thinner steal according to Pob,the Antec 300 version 2 can take longer cards too,but I prefer the layout of the Dokker.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
I am not sure about the ASUS monitor. I ordered one when it was launched. Everything seemed great by it has serious backlight bleding problems at all corners! Very bad when you watch movies in a dark room. I did some search online and found quite a number of ppl complaining about it. I had to return it at the end.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/473508/pics..._PentaxK20.JPG
Except that, it is an excellent monitor for its price range.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
I did mention that,so the OP knows,but the main thing is that it uses an 8 bit panel with a 10 bit LUT which is good for image editing as the monitor is quite colour accurate. The backlight bleed is worse especially at higher brightness levels.The other alternatives are the Dell U2312HM and Viewsonic VX2336S-LED which use a 6 bit panel with A-FRC but are not as colour accurate from what I gather, but have less of bleeding issues and still seem fine for under £200. Ideally,for photography you would want something a bit better, ideally one of the £250 to £400 range monitors(8 bit panels).Quote:
Originally Posted by leonc
However,its a moot point now,as I need to re-adjust the build list due to my mistake!!:p
Now,the updated build list with added CPU!!:p You might be able to get some bits cheaper shopping around,but I have included parts which are on offer at Scan this weekend. Without postage,the total comes to around £800.
http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/s...ldversion2.png
The monitor has been downgraded to the Viewsonic VX2336S-LED - however for the price it is not a bad monitor for image editing and uses a 6 bit IPS panel(with A-FRC IIRC).
The build is not orientated for overclocking. OTH,if you are building this for a friend,you will have to support this and any problems with overclocks might cause you issues in the long term.
If you want to overclock the CPU,I would add another £70 at least for a Core i5 3570K,budget Z77 motherboard and a reasonable cooler if buying from Scan. However,overclocking the graphics card probably makes more sense.
If you are looking at overclocking a decent amount,look at this HD7850:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-g...l-dvi-hdmi-mdp
The cooler is better than the XFX HD7850.
You might be able to save some money going for a cheaper keyboard and mouse,although you do want a reasonably accurate mouse IMHO.
Other things you will need to consider is storage too. More might be required especially if you are using uncompressed sound files.
AFAIK,kalniel is involved in music(among other things) so he probably knows these sorts of things better than I do,especially with what sound cards you might need.
Double post!!