New computer - price range e1000 - e1500

sam_hain

Hi guys,

We are currently building a new computer for college work and recreation, which will be primarily used for the Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects) but also would be used as a gaming rig for games such as Skyrim, Starcraft 2, Fallout 3/New Vegas and Total War which we would like to run on high details but not necessarily maxing it out.

We would eventually want to have dual (HD capable) monitors for the college work but for now are happy enough with one.

We have built the following from the Komplett.ie website (using help from one or two other posts on the fourms here) but are not restricted to these components.

Here is the list

Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4GHz 8MB S1155 Quad core -Includes Cooler
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 - Socket 1155 - ATX Intel Z68 - 4x DDR3 - USB3.0/FW/SATA-600
Corsair Vengeance - 8GB 1600MHz PC3-12800 DDR - 240 pin - 1.5V - CL9 - Kit
Cooler Master - Silent Pro M700 - 700 Watt ATX12V 2.3
ASUS GeForce ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS -1.5GB -PCI-E DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort
Samsung 2TB 3.5" SATA-300 5400rpm 32MB Spinpoint F4EG
Corsair Graphite Series 600T - Mid Tower - No PSU ATX - USB/FireWire/Audio - White

Total Price e1300

We realize that we have left off the OS (more than likely Windows 7 but that is not included in the budget as it will be bought for us), monitor (we were hoping for suggestions within the e250), keyboard/mouse (we can get them for free from a friend) and DVD disk drive (planned only spending about e100).

It seems to us that the graphics card might be too expensive so any suggestions on that would be helpful.

Any other help would be greatly appreciated as well and we welcome any questions or suggestions regarding it.

Sam and Jonesy3110

Serephucus

How's this look?

Item|Price
Total build cost: €1,546.82 + €30 shipping
Intel Core i7-2600K Tray, LGA1155|€281.07
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 13 Pro(Sockel 775/1155/1156/1366/754/939/AM2/AM2 +/AM3/AM3+/FM1)|€22.25
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€119.33
Gainward GeForce GTX 580 Phantom, 3GB GDDR5|€499.16
8GB-Kit Corsair XMS3 PC3-12800U CL9|€34.15
Cooler Master Silent Pro Series - 600 Watt|€83.42
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€97.64
Samsung EcoGreen F4 2000GB, SATA II (HD204UI) 8,9cm (3,5")|€114.90
Dell UltraSharp U2412M (schwarz)|€241.47
Samsung SH-222AB bare schwarz SATA|€16.01
BitFenix Outlaw Midi-Tower - black|€37.42


Slightly over budget, but well worth it, IMO. The GTX 580 is a placeholder for the 7970. Honestly, that's the card you want. Gives you anywhere up to 20% more performance than the 580, and uses a lot less power to boot. Particularly at idle (3W vs 60W).

I've thrown in a 64GB SSD for snappyness, as well as an after market CPU cooler for overclocking. I've also dropped the PSU to a 600W, as you won't need the 700W model for a 580 - certainly not for a 7970. It's a lovely PSU though, I have the 700W model, and it's excellent.

I'd given you the U2412M as a monitor. It's the newer revision of the U2410. While many see this monitor as inferior, the fact remains it's probably the best IPS monitor you can buy for the money.

Hope that helps.

sam_hain

Hi Serephucus,

Thanks for your reply. You have given us a lot to think about. We won't be actually building/buying the computer for about another month so we might hold off for the 7970 card.

Just something we forgot to mention, we wouldn't be too interested in overclocking our machine (have never done it before as we have never needed to). So with that information (prob should have mentioned it before) would we need the cooling components?

The monitor does look nice although it is a shame about the lack of HDMI input.

I've thrown in a 64GB SSD for snappyness...

not too sure what you mean here? What would be the reason behind having the SSD?

Finally I have never heard of this www3.hardwareversand.de site before reading through some of the previous posts here. How reliable are they? We normally get stuff from Amazon and Komplett and never had a problem but I have heard recently that buying electronics from Germany/Austria is the best option.

Thanks again,
Sam and Jonesy3110.

Serephucus

It depends how much the work you're doing is CPU-dependent, and if it would benefit from CPU overclocking, but if it would, I'd sincerely suggest you look into it. With Sandy Bridge CPUs, overclocking is criminally easy. CPU multiplier: 45, vcore 1.35, and you're done. 4.5GHz overclock in five minutes.

As for the monitor, I haven't really looked into monitors much myself recently. There's also the U2311, which a lot of people like. As far as I know though, DisplayPort also carries audio, could a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter be used?

If you're not sure about SSDs, I've have a Google and a read up on them. They're essentially (and this is dumbing it down a bit, but) big USB memory sticks, without the USB port. They offer very quick boot times (twenty seconds or less, usually), quicker shutdowns as well, and much faster opening / closing of any folders or applications that are on the drive, which makes for an extremely fast feeling computer.

I've never used HWVS myself, but everyone here does, and I've heard very few complaints. The only pain-in-the-hole thing is that they only accept bank transfers from Ireland, but from other peoples' experiences they're usually very fast with payment confirmations, shipping, and all the rest.

Jonesy3110

Just wanted to thank you for your help with this :-) we took most if your suggestions on board, also decided to wait for the 7970 card. It should all be here next week.

Thanks!

ShadowHearth

*cries

I love happy endings!

Peter8

I used hardwareversand.de for the first time a week ago (ordering parts for build organized here!) took 48 hours with permanent TSB to transfer the money to HWVS but people say that for them it only took 24-36 hours with AIB (and maybe some other bank, I forget ).