Originally Posted by
Saracen999
Here's an example of the kind of issue I really need advice on, and some of my own comments (like future-proofing) probably aren't helping. I'll come back to that in a minute.
Suggestions so far include :-
R5 3600 £180-ish
R7 3800X £320-ish
R7 5800X £424-ish (currently).
So clearly, there's a whopping difference in price between first and last, but my concern (mentioned it earlier) is "sweet spot", and not paying high end for it's own sake. That's not what I meant by future-proofing.
What I do mean is perhaps better explained by saying :-
- first priority = good (but not necessarily stellar) spec for my needs
- second priority = "don't spoil ship for a h'appeth of tar".
That is, if I spend £x on, in this case, CPU, do I get significant gain by spending, say £x+10%, or £x+£50?
So if I need to go as far as 5800X and in my actual usage, there are real gains not theoretical or benchmark performance gains, then I can and will spend what it costs to do that.
But, if the undoubted speed benefits of 5800X over, say, 3600 aren't going to make £250-ish difference to my day-to-day experience, then I'm happy (happier, even) at £180 than £430.
I'm still not sure I'm explaining what I'm after. Video-editing, or photo-editing, when it's large files on a grossly under-powered machine can be frustratingly slow, to the point it becomes unpleasant. I will throw that extra £250, or £1250 extra at it to avoid that if it makes a real difference to me, in use. But I'd rather not, because that difference will probably constrain my camera purchase to what will do, not what I really want.
The overall budget is pretty decent, but not bottomless and I'm after camera, a variety of accessories, some software, and the PC. It'll fit, but there won't be a lot of breathing room.
So .... I'm after optimum bang-for-buck to get a good enough PC for that photo and video stuff. I certainly don't care about clock speeds, or even cores/threads, or even benchmarks other than in when they point to real world usage benefits. I'm not, for instance, after a CPU for willy-waving purposes (not suggesting anyone here is recommending that) but for differences to my real world experience.
I will pay significantly more to change my usage experience to avoid frustration, but not to get a task to finish in 18 seconds rather than 20 seconds. My guess (and this is where real world advice would be really helpful) is that either the 3600 or 5800X would be entirely usable.
I might, however, benefit from 64GB of RAM rather than 32GB and I think 32GB rather than 16GB has already been suggested. But I don't know. That is the kind of future-proofing I meant. Maybe adding a second SSD. That can be done for moderate cost, without wasting anything already installed. But I don't want to be changing mobo or CPU (hopefully, ever, because I don't see my requirements rising drastically in the future).
Very much the same logic applies to video card/gpu. I will want to drive two monitors. I doubt that's a problem. If I end up adding a third, I'll add another card if I need to, but don't want to take out a fairly expensive card to put a bit more expensive card in. Again, I'll spend a bit more, if need be, to future-proof that.
One thing I absolutely don't want is hassle. Taking bits out, selling them, and upgrading is hassle.
So I'm after that sweet-spot of powerful-enough, versatile-enough to avoid mucking about with cpu/gpu changes in a year or two, and will spend what I need to to take reasonable precautions against it. I just don't know where it is.
For a comparison between £x and £x+50 for a processor, I'm not really bothered. If the extra is justified, fine. It's a trivial difference. But while £430 as opposed to £180 is doable if I need to, that's not so trivial so it needs to make a very real difference to my actual usage experience.
Oh, and this is entirely a home, hobby project. There is no business case, ROI, commercial justification, etc., to think about.
I hope that narrows down what I'm after from this.