Help! Totally confused mother seeking advice for desktop build!

rachaich

Hello all. Please be kind to me, I am a complete novice to this! I would like to get a desktop pc for my daughter who wants to do gaming, digital animation and a bit of video editing. I think we could start at a basic ish level and upgrade as we go, or would it be better to get something up to date from the off?
I have a budget of 500 - 600 euro. Does this sound feasible? Also is it possible to use a TV as a monitor?
Any advise from you lovely techies much appreciated!

EoinHef

Derp,thought i was on the ~PC gaming forum for a second:o

Can you fill this out?

1. What is your budget? [€xxx]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming/Video editing/3D Modelling/HTPC/Internet] (If gaming include which games)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [Yes/No]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [Hard drive/DVD Drive/Case/PSU/etc.] (If possible state brand and model of the parts to ensure compatibility)

5. Do you need a monitor? [Yes/No]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [19'/20'/22'/24'/etc.]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1920x1080/1440x900/etc.] [Yes/No]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes/No]

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

9. When are you purchasing? [In x days]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [South Dublin City/Cork City/Kerry/etc.]

SterlingArcher

Maybe get in touch with bloodbath.

EoinHef

Supplementary to the above,to answer a few of your questions:

Your budget would may be a little tight for video editing/animation work imo,what sort of level would she be doing it at? eg Work,college,hobby etc
If its just a hobby/college the budget should be fine.

TV can be used as a monitor no problem,but i would say there are drawbacks to that if she wants to do the editing/animation work,a dedicated monitor would be better. For gaming and just general web browsing,emails etc the TV would be fine though

rachaich

1. What is your budget? [€600]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming/Video editing/3D Modelling/HTPC/Internet] (If gaming include which games) Gaming, digital animation video editing

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [Yes]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [Hard drive/DVD Drive/Case/PSU/etc.] (If possible state brand and model of the parts to ensure compatibility) No

5. Do you need a monitor? [No] Plan on using a TV if connection works?

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [19'/20'/22'/24'/etc.]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1920x1080/1440x900/etc.] [Dont know yet]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.] Speakers possibly? Or is internal speakers good enough?

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Not at this stage!]

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

9. When are you purchasing? [ASAP]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [South Dublin City/Cork City/Kerry/etc.][Cavan]

Gone West

Nobody will be able to answer you unless you can provide the TV model number.
Realistically you will almost definitely need a monitor, as video editing etc on a TV is probably not going to be doable.

rachaich

EoinHef wrote: »

Supplementary to the above,to answer a few of your questions:

Your budget would may be a little tight for video editing/animation work imo,what sort of level would she be doing it at? eg Work,college,hobby etc
If its just a hobby/college the budget should be fine.

TV can be used as a monitor no problem,but i would say there are drawbacks to that if she wants to do the editing/animation work,a dedicated monitor would be better. For gaming and just general web browsing,emails etc the TV would be fine though

Thanks for info about the TV. She has just finished jnr cert, and is into art so a starter machine to start to create a portfolio of work going forward along with reasonable gaming capabilities is what we are after. Already has a drawing tablet that she uses with a very small basic school laptop. Hobbying at the moment I guess...?

I found a machine on dabs.ie but i cant add the link because I am new! It is a PC Specialist Infinity for €567. Briefly this is the spec:
CPU - AMD A10- 7700K
MOBO - ASUS A58M - E - FM2
RAM - 8 GB Kingston Hyper X Fury
GPU - Integrated AMD Radeon HD 8000
HDD - 1 TB 3.5" SATA III 6 GB
DVD / BluRay drive
POWER- Corsair 350 w VS Series
SOUND - on board 8 channel
USB - 6 x ports
OS - Windows 8.1

What is your opinion on the spec? And would it connect to a TV? I think it needs a HDMI or VGA connection doesnt it?

Thanks again in advance for all your expertise!!

EoinHef

No problem.

I wouldnt go for that machine ,its not the best spec or value. How would you and you daughter feel about building the PC?

If not a pre built with a warranty etc may be the way to go,should be able to get one for a similar price to above but with better performance.

Does the television have a hdmi port? If so the PC can be hooked up to it

Sterling archer above mentioned bloodbath,hes a contributor here and has started building PC's for people using adverts. Good spec for a good price in fairness. If you go to adverts.ie and put in bloodbath the ad should come up for custom PC's. Have a look there as well.

I shall do a list of parts in the morning after work for a PC you would build yourself and also have a look for a decent pre built PC so you have a few options

EDIT: Just had a look on adverts myself. The €649 model is the one you should be looking at

rachaich

That's awesome info and advice! Will check out the TV now and have a look at adverts.ie.
that would be amazing if you have the time to have a look at a spec and possible pre-built for me! What brilliant forum members you are!

uncle_sam_ie

rachaich, if you want to get a pre built then get in contact with forum member Bloodbath. He's a respected poster on here and will build you what you need at that price.
http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/brand-new-custom-gaming-pc-s-2-free-games/6009091

rachaich

Fuzzy wrote: »

Nobody will be able to answer you unless you can provide the TV model number.
Realistically you will almost definitely need a monitor, as video editing etc on a TV is probably not going to be doable.

Just looked up the spec. It's a 19" LED Technika. Model 19-248. Resolution 1366 x 768. It has 1x video,1 x component and 2 x HDMI inputs.
Will it be ok do you think? Even if it is half ok it may suffice till we decide to upgrade? ??

Gone West

it may suffice, but not even being HD it won't be much use for animation, graphics, games, etc.

EoinHef

As fuzzy said it wouldnt be ideal,small screen with a low resolution,but if you were able to soldier on with it for a bit it may help spread the cost out.

Get the PC now then monitor in a month or two

riclad

Every pc has vga out,
Connect to tv thru vga ,
some graphics card have hdmi out.
Some have video and audio thru hdmi ,
audio thru hdmi may need to enabled,in audio,or hdmi,out,
Some cheaper cards have just vga out.
I don,t know what tv you have ,
my tv hd samsung 1080 tv, manual says, on pc ,
go to graphics settings advanced ,
settings, click, refresh rate ,set to 60 mhz,
otherwise There,s a risk of Damage to THE TV circuits.
Standard graphics card, on windows 7, 8, is 75 mhz.
http://www.full-windows8.com/2012/02/change-screen-refresh-rate-in-windows-8.html

change rate to 60 hertz for tv use.

70 htz 0r 75htz for new monitors,
All the monitors i have use 60mhz.
eg older vga monitors.
i have 2 laptops, i use an old pentium 4 pc with vga monitor,for data backup .
the radeon 8000 may not have hdmi out.

You could buy an old vga monitor 19 inch on adverts ie.
if you are on a tight budget.
cex shops ,sell monitors ,vga,hdmi,inputs, eg 19 inch widescreen,90 euro,approx

see cex.ie,

syklops

rachaich, How old is your daughter and ask her what games does she want to play. This answer is crucial to spec'ing up the build.

EoinHef

syklops wrote: »

rachaich, How old is your daughter and ask her what games does she want to play. This answer is crucial to spec'ing up the build.

Most of the time id agree with you,if this were just a gaming rig.

But the need to do a bit of video/animation work put slightly different slant on the requirements.

Minimum of quadcore cpu with 8gb of decent 1600mhz ram will be a big benefit for that type of work.

Use whats left of the budget for a gpu

john the one

If the budget for the GPU is tight, would it be worth her while buying a pretty owned one from adverts or are the chances of getting a bad one too high?

syklops

EoinHef wrote: »

Most of the time id agree with you,if this were just a gaming rig.

But the need to do a bit of video/animation work put slightly different slant on the requirements.

I would agree for the most part but, we still need to know the age of the daughter.

Video editing for a 12 year old is different to video editing for a 19 year old.

That the mother is doing the research suggests to me the daughter is sub-18.

From the OP:

wants to do gaming, digital animation and a bit of video editing

If serious video editing is to be done, we need the daughter on here to talk about her requirements. I still think we need the age before we go to the trouble of recommending specs.

EoinHef

With a self build should be able to squeeze in fx-6300,8gb 1600mhz ram and decent case,psu,optical drive etc etc and still have enough left for a r9 270,which is no slouch so dont see much point going second hand.

Purely because of the risk associated with it and no warranty/comeback,basically at the seller discretion. Thats excluding bloodbaths builds though,if a pre built is what the OP decides to do his builds should definitely be looked at,as he will offer some after sale support for the PC.

Self build all the parts are covered by warranty also

EoinHef

syklops wrote: »

I would agree for the most part but, we still need to know the age of the daughter.

Video editing for a 12 year old is different to video editing for a 19 year old.

That the mother is doing the research suggests to me the daughter is sub-18.

From the OP:



If serious video editing is to be done, we need the daughter on here to talk about her requirements. I still think we need the age before we go to the trouble of recommending specs.

She is just finished the junior cert so 15-16 years old would be my guess

I understand where your coming from,i just dont think the specs will change dramatically based on the extra bits of info. Basically the budget will decide the spec in this case imo and should be enough to cover everything she wants to do on it.

syklops

I wouldnt recommend a second hand for the simple reason that you don't know what may be wrong with it. Random, hard to troubleshoot power fluctuations which cause random graphical issues. a badly put together self build which occasionally shorts the motherboard.

I think its reasonably rare for an experienced gamer to sell his entire rig in one go. Parts here and there, but a fully working gaming machine? Bad juju. Even a good one might be stolen and you have no guarantee or comeback.

syklops

EoinHef wrote: »

Basically the budget will decide the spec in this case imo and should be enough to cover everything she wants to do on it.

Thats all that matters then. :pac:

EoinHef

syklops wrote: »

Thats all that matters then. :pac:

?

That comment doesnt really make sense to me,should recommend a PC that doesnt do whats needed?

Its late though i could have taken that up wrong!!

AJZein

CPU: AMD FX6300 - €86:19

Mobo: Asrock 970 Extreme 3 - €65:09

RAM: 8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport €62:92

Case: Corsair Carbide 200r - €50:26

PSU: Super Flower Amazon 450w - €46:63

HDD: WD Blue 1tb - €57:51

Optical Drive: Asus DRW - €15:90

GPU: Sapphire DualX 270x from Amazon (Same price as 270 from Hardwareversand) - £119:00 ~ €150

Total €565 (excluding HWVS delivery and OS)

If you run the whole thing (except gpu) through a website called skinflint (somebody else will have to give you the link) you could save a bit

I'm not sure on shipping costs but there is a website with coupons (again somebody else will have to provide the link).

Somebody else might also know where to get the OS cheap so I haven't included it in the build.

If your daughter has headphones she could use them and save on the speakers.

Finally if you're worried about building it yourself, don't be! Its quite simple, most of it is just plugs that can only go in one way. I used this video tutorial from YouTube (by newegg) when I first did it

PS: As a new user I can't post links, sorry.

EoinHef

AJZeins build above is pretty similar to what i had in mind

All these prices have been gotten on hardwareversand.de(HWVS) using geizhals.de. Its a german price comparison website,usually knocks a few € off each item to help reduce the overall cost. You go to geizhals.de,enter the product you are looking for(you can copy paste the item name from HWVS) and select it. Then scroll down to where HWVS is on the list and click it. That link will bring you back to HWVS site to the products page and should have the reduced price. Pop the item in the basket and rinse repeat for the rest of the parts. Nice way of saving a bit of money. The site mentioned above(skinflint) does the same thing.

At the moment a script boards.ie uses for supplying links to items on HWVS is down so the build below is basically a screen shot of the parts i picked off the site. You can use it for reference to help you find the products on HWVS

I have not included speakers,can pick up a set of 2.1 speakers fairly cheap these days.




This has everything you need bar the speakers

Delivery is not included in that price,add €11.99 for that.
Total incl. delivery: €593.64


This is the self build option,may be a bit daunting but if your any way technically inclined you should be ok. Plenty of video tutorials knocking about as well. This is the tutorial referenced above,part 1 is about picking your parts,part 2 and 3 focus on actually building the PC:

Have a look at the videos and see if its for you,if not and you want to buy a pre built PC in my opinion adverts.ie(BloodBath)represents good value. He has discontinued the €650 build so the one for €619 would be the one to go for,also add in €15 for delivery. If you do go this route when you message him mention what you intend to use the pc for,he may have other suggestions for you. Hes a nice chap:)

rachaich

syklops wrote: »

I would agree for the most part but, we still need to know the age of the daughter.

Video editing for a 12 year old is different to video editing for a 19 year old.

That the mother is doing the research suggests to me the daughter is sub-18.

From the OP:



If serious video editing is to be done, we need the daughter on here to talk about her requirements. I still think we need the age before we go to the trouble of recommending specs.

Hi again. She is 15 having done jnr cert. only just starting out to do video editing, and animation but this is the direction she wants to go in. Currently gaming on Xbox and 3ds but wants to get a bit more serious on pc.
I think one of the comments above regarding ensuring it can manage the video and animation side along with some relatively basic gaming sounds about right. We can always improve the graphics cards later can't we?

Oops! Just read the subsequent posts after I replied to a earlier one! I am half tempted to get daughter to build it herself (good experience I'm thinking) as she is probably quite able as she's good at following YouTube instructions! But I'm worried that it could be a expensive exercise if it goes wrong or there's problems in a couple of months and we would no clue what to do? Think I will contact mr bloodbath (sounds like a friendly name!!) and see what he suggests for us.

Again, thank you everyone for amazing feedback. I didn't understand some things of what you said but I know it was all good! I know where to come in future, or it will probably be my daughter next time...

john the one

Speakers can be bought for 15-20 euro from Argos, I got some HP ones a few weeks ago and I'm very impressed, use it for all my gaming and use a headset when I want yo get submersive.

Does the cheap windows copies only sply yo college students does anyone know?

The beauty of building your own PC Op is that everything can be upgraded as and when you need, you will know how to do this from building yourself. Its great fun. That's a disadvantage to getting it built for you.

Is the computer going to be beside the router in the house or will it need WiFi?

rachaich

john the one wrote: »

Speakers can be bought for 15-20 euro from Argos, I got some HP ones a few weeks ago and I'm very impressed, use it for all my gaming and use a headset when I want yo get submersive.

Does the cheap windows copies only sply yo college students does anyone know?

The beauty of building your own PC Op is that everything can be upgraded as and when you need, you will know how to do this from building yourself. Its great fun. That's a disadvantage to getting it built for you.

Is the computer going to be beside the router in the house or will it need WiFi?

It would need wifi. Forgot about that one!

john the one

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=49559&agid=271
Luckily thats the inexpensive part.
€15 or so. sorry hyperlink button doesn't seem to be working..working

Steviemoyne

john the one wrote: »

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=49559&agid=271
Luckily thats the inexpensive part.
€15 or so. sorry hyperlink button doesn't seem to be working..working

(Hopefully not adding to confusion) You could also pick up a set of homeplugs such as these. Put simply you plug them into your power sockets (one by router and one by PC) and it gives you wired internet.

EoinHef

The builds on adverts all have wifi,no need to get a wireless adapter if you get one of them.

Powerline adapters do offer a good speed boost over wireless though