Multimedia Work PC Build

I Dropped My Yop

I'm looking to get some advise on building a PC for my job, any help will be appreciated!

The PC will be used for quite a few things...
Primarily word/excel/powerpoint as well as Photoshop/Illustrator.. lots of things at the same time. Prefarably a dual monitor setup in the office itself.

As well as above, I'll be looking to run several displays from it, running hd advertisements. 3 or 4 screens in addition to the 2 in the office.

My budget was around the €800 mark. I built the PC below which goes over it a bit, have to run it by the boss to see if he'll go for it, so the more i can shave off the price the better.

I think I've covered all my bases with this build.. lots of ram for the graphic design, good cpu for multitasking, motherboard + graphics card give 6 display outputs if i'm not mistaken.

Is there any room for improvement here? I'd like to get it as cheap as I can, as long as I meet my requirements.

Item|Price
2 x BenQ GW2255|€198.00
BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil|€
Rechner - Zusammenbau|€
Gigabyte H87-HD3, ATX|€
Intel Core i5-4570 Box, LGA1150|€
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€
be quiet! Pure Power L7 430 Watt|€
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€958.38

justsomebloke

I Dropped My Yop wrote: »

As well as above, I'll be looking to run several displays from it, running hd advertisements. 3 or 4 screens in addition to the 2 in the office.

Can you just explain this part a bit further? Will you be running public facing displays while still working on the machine yourself?

I Dropped My Yop

Yeah, that was my plan. I was assuming I could play the ads on the 3 screens, and have them run in the background while the pc was used for other things.

justsomebloke

would you not split into into 2 separate machines as I can't really see this working as well as you think it will.

I Dropped My Yop

I was hoping to use 1 PC for it all to make it easier to use, and for costs.
I'll need fairly high specs anyway for the graphic/video editing, so I dont know if we can budget in a second PC.
While I am pretty tech savvy (altho I lack multiple monitor experience), the rest of the staff are not, so I need to make it fairly foolproof.

The content being shown on the screens will be created on the main PC daily. They will display static images in the afternoon, and later in the day will display videos. I like the idea of everything working from 1 PC, with all the needed software and files in one place.

What issues would I face with my planned setup?

As an alternative, could I get a cheap graphics card with multiple outputs for the current PC we have. Set up a small network to access the required files from the new PC and use a VGA switcher to share one of the new monitors in the office.
This way seems pretty troublesome in itself too.

justsomebloke

truthfully if you are doing HD video and picture editing on the computer while simultaneously running 3 HD video displays off it you are running the risk of having the displays just buffering like mad and it will look like crap.

I'd personally use a second machine on the network and remotely log onto it to start the video playback. I haven't used vnc in years but as far as I know that let's you log onto a machine without giving a locked user screen

Luck100

You're much better off with two separate machines, a (cheap) dedicated display PC and your editing workstation. No need for a switch, you can access the display PC remotely with Radmin:

http://download.cnet.com/Radmin-Server-and-Viewer/3000-7240_4-10032262.html

We use Radmin at work all the time, it's excellent.

Luck100

Ok, I just realized you said you want to run 6 screens for your display. Will some or all of them be showing the same picture? In that case, you could use a splitter box to drive multiple displays with a single feed. I.e., your PC outputs one screen and the splitter clones it to multiple monitors:

http://www.tvtrade.ie/hdmi-splitter-1-in-4-out.html

That would let you get away with a cheaper PC / graphics card for the display.

I Dropped My Yop

Thanks for the help guys.

It'll be 6 screens total. 2 for the office itself and 4 for display. All will be showing different pictures.

Yeah, listening to the advise and doing a bit more research, 2 separate machines looks a lot more practical.

What kind of spec would i be realistically aiming for with the display PC?
It'll be running 4 independant screens. At the very least itll be 4 HD slideshows, but I'd like to be able to play video too if its not out of the question.

Luck100

Not sure what spec machine you will need to run 6 simultaneous HD videos. I suspect it's ok with your proposed card as a single HD feed will run no problem with any integrated graphics. Any decent graphics card will easily have more than 6x the processing power of integrated graphics. But I've certainly never tried it.

Have you thought about all the cabling required? You're going to have to run 3 DVI, 2 HDMI, and one display port cable to feed 6 screens. If they run more than a few feet, you'll need to buy additional cabling. If they run a lot longer (say 50 feet) they can get quite expensive. Actually I'm not even sure how far you can run display port.

I Dropped My Yop

Yeah, I looked into cabling already, and have factored it into the overall cost.
Cables.ie does lengths of up to 10m for all different types, for less than €20 each, which would be more than enough.

The display PC will only be using 4 screens, one of which is already wired up.

I Dropped My Yop

I'll prob move the display pc behind the displays anyway and just run an ethernet cable to it, seeing as I'll be using remote access

justsomebloke

what are the specs of the current system and what motherboard is in it

I Dropped My Yop

Just checked it now:
Acer Aspire x1430, with 1.6Ghz AMD E-350 with Radeon HD Graphics
2 Gb Ram.

justsomebloke

Given the machine specs, in that it only has space for one low profile pci express card off a 220W PSU I'm not sure you would be able to use it to power 4 independant HD video displays