New Build ~1000e For Architecture and Gaming

kirkfx

1. What is your budget?
~€1000, I wanted to keep the actual cost case and parts inside it, as close to €1000 as possible, i dont mind spending a few extra bob here and there to get better parts, so my try at a build down below has exceeded my original budget. (And I forgot to include a copy of windows)

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
I'm an architecture student and the primary function of the PC will be AutoCAD, Adobe products (Photoshop, InDesign & Illustrator) I think there is going to be a trend to using Autodesks Revit and possibly Rhino from next year on, so I want this build to eat through my workload. But I would also like to be able to play games on it at a reasonably high setting. Id like to be able to play Titanfall, BF4, GTA5 if it ever comes to PC and skyrim.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows?
Yes, I thought students were able to get a free copy of windows from microsoft's Dreamspark programme, but I cant seem to find it on the website.

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?
Unfortunately not, I have a mouse and a PS/2 keyboard from an old gateway *shudder* computer. But I'm not including these parts in the budget anyway.

5. Do you need a monitor?
Im not including a monitor in the cost for this build, as I have a 32in TV with hdmi input at the moment so it will do for the time being but I would like to get two moniters down the road (Dual monitor setup for work, but just using one for gaming) I was thinking a pair of these, HP Pavilion 22xi IPS monitor

5a. If yes, what size do you need.
The monitor above is 21.5in but im tempted to go for the slightly more expensive 23in version

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future?
My TV is 1080p

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.]
I do need these but im not including them in the budget for this build, so i guess the answer is no.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
Not right away, but I can see myself trying it down the road, so Yes.

8. How can you pay? [Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Laser]
Any of these

9. When are you purchasing?
In the next 1-3weeks

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?
Dundalk, but i think ill give it a go myself, been lurking on this forum for a while so i think i know what ill be doing.

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€292.23
Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H, ATX|€146.53
Corsair Carbide Series 300R windowed, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€76.41
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile blau PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27|€142.90
Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M, 600W|€64.61
MSI N750Ti TF 2GD5/OC Twin Frozr Gaming, GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 2GB GDDR5, VGA, DVI, HDMI|€135.20
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€29.69
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€51.92
Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm|€110.01
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1068.49


I know over 16gbs of ram is overkill for gaming but i want it for CAD, photoshop and multiple programmes open at once.

I was looking at cheaper motherboards like the ASrock Z87 Pro3 & Extreme3, but the reviews didnt seem to be very good, flimsy board and horrible sludge colour. I wanted a windowed case and the one I have in my build looks good and has gotten great reviews, Im also certain that it has everything i could possibly want down the road.

If i wanted to add another 2 sticks of ram later on would i be able to use ram slot 1 or would the 212evo be covering it?

Is the power supply sufficient, whats the benifit to a modular PS?

How do crucial SSDs compare to samsung ones?

Finally the graphics card, I think because of the CAD programmes I want to run that Nvidia is the only choice for me, I didnt want to spend too much on it, as it seems like the easiest component to upgrade. I had a GTX 770 in my build first but i took it out to bring the price closer to 1000e. How does the 750ti compare to the 760 and 770, they all have 2gb of ram. Will the 750ti be sufficient to output to dual monitors for work, id only be gaming on one.

What are peoples opinions on windows 7 vs 8.1?

Sorry alot of questions there. Ive been researching this for a couple of weeks and Im at the stage now where im ready to pull the trigger. If anyone has any suggestions or is able to answer some of my questions, I would be very grateful.

Luck100

The Samsung evo ssds are definitely faster than the crucials, but I suspect they're both fast enough that you wouldn't be conscious of the difference. I think crucial has some proprietary power loss protection that the Samsungs don't.

The 750ti can run two monitors with DVI no problem, but it's a bit weak for gaming. It's main selling point is the amazing power efficiency and that it doesn't need any external power connectors (it gets all it's power from the PCIE slot). The 750ti is more for people who want to upgrade an older PC with a marginal power supply.

You'd be a lot happier with a 760 or 770 for gaming. Those will run ultra or near ultra on most stuff at 60+ fps, while the 750ti will need to be turned down to low/medium quality settings in many cases to hit 60+ fps.

justsomebloke

what resolution is your TV?

kirkfx

Ah ok your probably right. If I got the 760 should I get the 2gb one for 230€ or the 4gb for €280, would the extra memory be useful for rendering?

Oh and my tv is 32in and 1080p

Luck100

kirkfx wrote: »

Ah ok your probably right. If I got the 760 should I get the 2gb one for 230€ or the 4gb for €280, would the extra memory be useful for rendering?

Oh and my tv is 32in and 1080p

No clue about rendering, sorry. I did a quick google and all I can tell is extra vram may be useful depending on the type of rendering and textures being used.

For 1080p gaming, extra vram is not worth the money. If you want to spend around 280 euros then get a gtx 770, not a 760 with extra vram.

Luck100

kirkfx wrote: »

If i wanted to add another 2 sticks of ram later on would i be able to use ram slot 1 or would the 212evo be covering it?

Is the power supply sufficient, whats the benifit to a modular PS?

I think you should be okay to use all four ram slots with evo 212. Here's a pic of gigabyte sniper 3 mobo + evo 212, you can see all four ram slots (only 2 in use):
https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/635692/281403.JPG
I suppose it's possible your mobo might have the ram slots closer to the cpu, but I'm pretty sure the evo will sit high enough off the mobo to clear any low-profile sticks.

For your PSU, 600 watts would be more than sufficient even if you overclocked everything or upgraded to a more powerful gpu. I don't know much about the corsair models so I can't say much about that particular PSU quality-wise. A modular PSU has detachable cables so you can wire up all the stuff you need and don't have any unused spare cables clogging up your case. It can help with airflow, especially with smaller cases.

justsomebloke

how much time are you going to spend rendering and how much time are you going to spend gaming especially next year

kirkfx

justsomebloke wrote: »

how much time are you going to spend rendering and how much time are you going to spend gaming especially next year

Well I'll be gaming a lot from now until September, from then on maybe only a couple of times a week. I would only be rendering once every couple of months, but I would be using AutoCAD, (maybe revit and rhino) most nights of the week.

I know a workstation gpu would be better for renderings and viewports but if I got one of those it would totally rule out gaming. As long as a gaming gpu gives me decent viewport times and rendering I'd prefer to go with one of them. They're also a lot cheaper than the quadros.

As for the monitors because I'll be doing a lot of photoshop for projects I need something that's going to have good colour representation, so when I print I'm getting as close as possible to what I see on screen. That and the wide viewing angles offered by IPS was why I'm going for it rather than a TN gaming panel.

Jacovs

Im actually playing around on AutoCad Architecture 2014 myself a bit and doing some rendering. I only have a 600 euro build which was spec'd for gaming. Have the 7870 gpu with a fx6300 and 8gb RAM. An image render of a house at 1920x1080 takes about 5-10 minutes. Doing a WMV video animation of 60 seconds at I think 640x480 and 30 fps and render quality is taking near 12 hours to finish.
So your build can only be better and faster.
Ive only played around on Revit a tiny bit but it worked fine. Didnt do any rendering though so I cant comment on that.

Luck100

Here's a review of the 780ti with some results for rendering. Lots of cards in the table including gtx 760 and 770.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-780-ti-review-benchmarks,3663-12.html

yawhat!

4GB is a waste on the GTX 760, It won't be to able to use it all. It just bottlenecks going over 2GB really. Its just a marketing ploy for people to spend more money.

Stick with the 2GB. Next step up is the 770

justsomebloke

Jacovs wrote: »

Im actually playing around on AutoCad Architecture 2014 myself a bit and doing some rendering. I only have a 600 euro build which was spec'd for gaming. Have the 7870 gpu with a fx6300 and 8gb RAM. An image render of a house at 1920x1080 takes about 5-10 minutes. Doing a WMV video animation of 60 seconds at I think 640x480 and 30 fps and render quality is taking near 12 hours to finish.
So your build can only be better and faster.
Ive only played around on Revit a tiny bit but it worked fine. Didnt do any rendering though so I cant comment on that.

This is were I'm coming from. Truthfully spend the minimum you can get away with on a graphics card this year and save the rest of the money towards a quadro card for next year.

The money invested in a a good dual monitor setup with a decent quadro graphics card is going to save you a ton of time as rendering times can take a hell of a longtime

Calibos

I'm planning a build for rendering and gaming too. Hobbiest rendering however. ie. Modeling our house renovations and furniture I plan to build in Sketchup and rendering in V-Ray 2.0 for Sketchup.

Interesting fact likely only applicable to SU & Vray - My research on those too programmes showed that the top two cards for them were the Titan and........the GTX580 The 580 Architecture was better suited for those two programmes than the 6 and 7 series and only the Titans pure grunt and extra Cuda cores or something put it on top.

Given that side-note it certainly might be wise to google 'Best GPU for.....' the particular programmes you intend to use in case there are any counter intuitive answers like my example.

kirkfx

Item|Price
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€280.92
Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H, ATX|€144.98
Corsair CX Series Modular CX600M, 600W|€61.12
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€48.00
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€27.88
Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm|€98.31
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile blau PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27|€130.95
Samsung SH-224DB schwarz|€12.67
Corsair Carbide Series 300R windowed, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€71.44
EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SuperClocked AX, 2GB DDR5, PCI-Express|€215.92
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1111.18


All prices got by going through Geizhals, managed to save quite a bit!!

So I upgraded the gpu to a gtx 760 as per Luck100's suggestions. (Went for the EVGA rather than the MSI because they are very similar price and performance wise but the EVGA looks alot better [No brown PCB])

Im happy to stick with the crucial ssd as its working out a quite a bit cheaper than the samsung for not much performance difference.

As for the 600W PSU, i get that it is sufficient and will support the build even if i overclock. Is there any negative to getting a 750W? Its only 15e more and if it "future proofs" the build if i wanted to add more cards then would it be worth buying now?

Man trying to find a dvd of windows 8 is difficult and expensive, any thoughts?

Does the PSU from HWVS ship with a UK three pin kettle lead or would i have to get one myself/use a plug adapter.

partyboy690

Is the i7 necessary? I'm not making a statement but I'm asking a genuine question, will Photoshop, CAD etc... take advantage of the hyperthreading. It'd be worth researching to find out if it does and if not I'd go for a top of the line i5 and save a few quid and put it towards upgrading your GPU to a 770 or a 780 because these cards would give you much more power for applications like CAD etc..... Also I think you're right going for the extra ram for the applications you want to run.

kirkfx

partyboy690 wrote: »

Is the i7 necessary? I'm not making a statement but I'm asking a genuine question, will Photoshop, CAD etc... take advantage of the hyperthreading. It'd be worth researching to find out if it does and if not I'd go for a top of the line i5 and save a few quid and put it towards upgrading your GPU to a 770 or a 780 because these cards would give you much more power for applications like CAD etc..... Also I think you're right going for the extra ram for the applications you want to run.

From what I've read on the internet the hyperthreading is used on CPU heaving tasks like Photoshop and CAD, personally I'd rather have it and not need it than not have it and need it. Besides if I went for the i5 and saved 100€ I wouldn't be putting it towards a more powerful gpu, my budget has expanded from my first instinct of 800 and to around 1000 and now I'm at 1200 when I include a copy of windows 8

partyboy690

That's fair enough I suppose, I'm just curious more than anything because I know with applications like CAD the GPU definitely plays more of a part than the CPU for rendering etc.... Also I know you're better off going for Nvidia because it appears their OpenGL performance is much better than AMD's - although this could have changed since I last heard about it - I'm just spitballing here really and trying to make you think about the performance/price ratio. Like if you were doing more CAD and gaming then an i5 would be the way to go definitely but I just read that Photoshop is more CPU intensive so the i7 would be better, as far as I can tell anyway. Just do a bit more research on your processor because hyperthreading can be deceptive. It is good for certain types of threading and other types it can't be used at all. If your threads are out of sync then hyperthreading is good because one thread won't block the other but if the thread's need to be synchronised then it won't use hyperthreads.

SterlingArcher

kirkfx wrote: »

From what I've read on the internet the hyperthreading is used on CPU heaving tasks like Photoshop and CAD, personally I'd rather have it and not need it than not have it and need it. Besides if I went for the i5 and saved 100€ I wouldn't be putting it towards a more powerful gpu, my budget has expanded from my first instinct of 800 and to around 1000 and now I'm at 1200 when I include a copy of windows 8

Drop the I 7 get an Xeon e3 1230 v3.
Price 204 euro using Geizhals.de

That is nearly 70 euro off your budget.

In case you are not aware. This particular Xeon can used in gaming and desktops pc as oppose to server xeons.

Specs

Intel Xeon E3-1230V3

Number of Cores Quad-Core / 8 threads Cache 8 MB Compatible

Processor Socket LGA1150 Socket

Processor Clock Speed 3.3 GHz Max Turbo Speed 3.7 GHz Manufacturing Process 22 nm

Cache 8 mb


Basically without all the mumbo jumbo an I7 under another name. For the price of an I 5.

But of budget no problem go nuts.

kirkfx

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Drop the I 7 get an Xeon e3 1230 v3.
Price 204 euro using Geizhals.de

That is nearly 70 euro off your budget.

In case you are not aware. This particular Xeon can used in gaming and desktops pc as oppose to server xeons.

Specs

Intel Xeon E3-1230V3

Number of Cores Quad-Core / 8 threads Cache 8 MB Compatible

Processor Socket LGA1150 Socket

Processor Clock Speed 3.3 GHz Max Turbo Speed 3.7 GHz Manufacturing Process 22 nm

Cache 8 mb


Basically without all the mumbo jumbo an I7 under another name. For the price of an I 5.

But of budget no problem go nuts.

Hey sorry for the late reply, the house has been having some broadband issues, ie we don't have any at the moment.

I would go for the Xeon but I was going to possibly over clock the i7 at some stage, do you think the cost savings would be worth losing the overclockabilty, if I went for the Xeon would I drop the 212evo from the build aswell?

Sorry for all the questions, it's just because you guys are so helpful!!

SterlingArcher

kirkfx wrote: »

Hey sorry for the late reply, the house has been having some broadband issues, ie we don't have any at the moment.

I would go for the Xeon but I was going to possibly over clock the i7 at some stage, do you think the cost savings would be worth losing the overclockabilty, if I went for the Xeon would I drop the 212evo from the build aswell?

Sorry for all the questions, it's just because you guys are so helpful!!

The evo when overclocking is essential.

When not overclocking a stock fan will do. Might be a tad bit more noise and less efficient. But it will do.

SterlingArcher

There is no doubt the I7 4770k is the better CPU. And nobody would turn one down.

It comes down to currency. And if you can afford the extra. If you would not rather put that extra to a bigger Gpu balance out the gaming/modeling usage.


Well look have a read here.read up, I'm not persuading just giving you other options. If you have the spare cash go for i7 4770k and put your mind at ease

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286605-Xeon-E3-1230V3-Hasswell-Impressive-with-Vray-renderer

BloodBath

To be honest unless you're a professional engineer working on huge projects you don't need a workstation card. The performance difference is insignificant, it's just down to accuracy. Workstation cards use ECC memory which has inbuilt error checking to ensure there are no errors. The likelihood of errors with a normal card is still very low and unless you're designing something professionally where safety and accuracy are the top priority then it's not important either.

From what I've seen the Nvidia gaming cards do outperform their AMD counterparts but only slightly. It wouldn't be enough to swing my decision. The same applies to adobe products but no harm researching it for every piece of software.

I'd probably go with the Xeon as well. Something like this. The case also comes in white with black accents.

Item|Price
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 Bx, LGA1150|€203.96
ASRock B85M Pro4, Sockel 1150, mATX|€54.85
16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|€111.28
Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm|€94.08
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€47.34
ASUS GTX760-DC2OC-2GD5, GeForce GTX 760, 2GB GDDR5|€206.81
Corsair CS Series Modular CS550M 550W ATX 2.3|€68.68
NZXT H440 schwarz mit Sichtfenster, schallgedämmt, ohne Netzteil|€109.89
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€27.89
Samsung SH-224DB schwarz|€12.49
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€956.26

SterlingArcher

Blood, stop recommending that case man I'll never get it in stock ya b....ox

kirkfx

BloodBath wrote: »

To be honest unless you're a professional engineer working on huge projects you don't need a workstation card. The performance difference is insignificant, it's just down to accuracy. Workstation cards use ECC memory which has inbuilt error checking to ensure there are no errors. The likelihood of errors with a normal card is still very low and unless you're designing something professionally where safety and accuracy are the top priority then it's not important either.

From what I've seen the Nvidia gaming cards do outperform their AMD counterparts but only slightly. It wouldn't be enough to swing my decision. The same applies to adobe products but no harm researching it for every piece of software.

I'd probably go with the Xeon as well. Something like this. The case also comes in white with black accents.

Item|Price
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 Bx, LGA1150|€203.96
ASRock B85M Pro4, Sockel 1150, mATX|€54.85
16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|€111.28
Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm|€94.08
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€47.34
ASUS GTX760-DC2OC-2GD5, GeForce GTX 760, 2GB GDDR5|€206.81
Corsair CS Series Modular CS550M 550W ATX 2.3|€68.68
NZXT H440 schwarz mit Sichtfenster, schallgedämmt, ohne Netzteil|€109.89
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€27.89
Samsung SH-224DB schwarz|€12.49
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€956.26

Ahhh that is one sexy case, I'd probably go for the white one, looks so good!!

Where abouts does the optical drive go though, to be honest I'm only getting one for windows install and any game that I could pick up cheap on disk. I couldn't install windows on the motherboard I had because it only had usb3.0 ports.

Is there any other non mATX boards that could go into this build because I can see myself upgrading to another 2 sticks of ram in the future. I considered the ASrock pro3/extreme3 but it's got a horrible brown PCB that I'd like to avoid.

Amazed that you could get the build down to sub 1000€ !!

BloodBath

Derp I forgot that case doesn't have optical drive bays but in fairness do you really need it? DVD drives are the new floppy drives. Pointless old hardware. You can buy 64gb USB sticks for about €20.

You can install windows from USB in a fraction of the time. If you have a decent net connection you will never buy dvd based games, trust me, the downloadable deals online are far better than you will get anywhere else. I haven't had a dvd drive for years.

I forgot to change the board back to atx, my bad. There is an ATX version of that board as well. Same name. Practically all pcb's that look black are in fact a dark brown. The pictures and lighting are changed to make them look darker than they actually are.

You could go for the gigabyte one which looks a bit darker but it's still a dark brown.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=81336&agid=2241&apop=3

SterlingArcher

I can't decide which one is nicer , like them both.
White looks great with the white fans against the black

BloodBath

I'm leaning towards the white one as well.

galwayfellaBETA

Hey

I like the cut if your build. Hope you don't mind me jumping in (the thread has been static for a week).

I'm looking for a FAST work machine for CS6 (Photoshop etc)... it may see a small bit of BF4.

I have a spare case and 2 other HDs & DVD drives.
My monitor runs at 2560*1440

Any issues with the build below??

item|price
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 Bx, LGA1150|212
Gigabyte Z87-D3HP, ATX|106
16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|116
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 WindForce 3X OC, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|216
Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm|95
Corsair CS Series Modular CS550M 550W ATX 2.3|74
be quiet! Shadow Rock 2|38
total|€857

BloodBath

Hi, yes just a small issue.

You don't need a Z87 board for the xeon since it's not overclockable although it may be possible to boost all 4 cores to the max turbo speed.

A B85 board would do the trick or H87 if you want raid.

galwayfellaBETA

Thx Bloodbath.

I want to have a raid in it.

This baby ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX

I'm questioning the Xeon.... for the sake of €56 would I be better off with Intel Core i7-4770 Box, LGA1150 ?
CPU mark 9510 (Xeon) verus 9957 (i7)

BloodBath

Virtually identical performance to be honest. You're paying extra for the igp on the i7.

Not needed if you're using a dedicated g-card.

If you wanted to overclock though you could go for the 4770k and a z87 board + decent cpu cooler like the 212 evo and overclock to around 4.4-.4.5ghz for a decent performance boost.

galwayfellaBETA

thanks again, Xeon it is.

kirkfx

double post

kirkfx

So I finally went ahead, pulled the trigger and ordered my parts the other week.

FINAL BUILD
Item|Price
Intel Core i7-4770K Box, LGA1150|€275.66
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 Windforce 3X OC, 2GB DDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€265.96
16GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|€107.94
Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6GB/s 6,4CM (2,5") 7mm|€90.91
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€47.39
Arctic Cooling Wärmeleitpaste MX-4 Tube|€4.58
Corsair Enthusiast Series RM750, Modular, 80 Plus Gold 750 Watt|€99.98
MSI Z87-G55, ATX, Sockel 1150|€103.53
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€27.98
NZXT H440 weiß mit Sichtfenster, schallgedämmt, ohne Netzteil|€109.89
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1152.81

The shipping was actually only E11.99 and I used a code to get E20 off so it cost E1135 + a digital copy of windows 8.1 from Microsoft which was only E60, because im a student.

Also got a 23in IPS monitor from amazon for E155
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BDBWE0Y/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was very surprised that everything went so well, I had no trouble at all and everything worked first time. Wasn't sure which way the power switch and front LED cable were supposed to be plugged in, but I made an educated guess (worst case scenario would be that id have to unplug them and put them in the other way)

HERE ARE THE PICTURES http://imgur.com/a/Ck4T6

And BTW thank you to everyone on this board, you were all of great help.