New Build - Suggestions would be very welcomed

sticker

Hi All,

I am a full time web developer running windows and am looking to upgrade my machine. My main tolls are Dreamweaver and some Photoshop but nothing terribly heavy to be honest. That said, I am tried of the lag of my current machine. I would like to use this as a gaming PC also - Huge Division fan but stuck on PS4!

Any ideas would be very helpful... Thanks.

1. What is your budget? [€1500]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Work/Gaming

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? No, have dual monitors already

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Not 100% sure...

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Not particular, but open to suggestions

8. How can you pay? Credit/debit card - Can do cash also.

9. When are you purchasing? Early Jan is fine

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Clonee. I need this built fully, I have no experience in building PCs. Would probably need to have further discussions prior to build to look for suggestions.

Digital Solitude

Building is pretty easy, 1080p monitors is it?

i7 6700 €350
H110m board €60
16gb DDR4 €90
2tb HDD €90
500gb SSD €150
Case €100
600w PSU €90
If 1080p, RX 480 at €300, if higher, GTX 1070 at €500
Total 1250-1450

Windows is about €100 on top of that

Serephucus

Might be worth waiting until January when some more concrete info on AMD's new CPUs is due to show up. Could give you quite a bit more CPU for your money. Otherwise build looks good. (though maybe an extra €20 towards a CPU cooler wouldn't hurt, noise-wise)

sticker

Thanks guys. Very helpful!

I'm looking for someone with experience to build it entire - I would obviously pay for their time.

Digital Solitude

Have a look at a few build tutorials on YouTube, it's genuinely very simple, just connecting plugs and screwing stuff together. No technical know how or skills etc needed. I suppose reading is useful but that's about it.

Sere is right on waiting, you're better off waiting for the month to see what the gains are, after that it'll be easier to tell if it's worth waiting for or not.

sticker

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Have a look at a few build tutorials on YouTube, it's genuinely very simple, just connecting plugs and screwing stuff together. No technical know how or skills etc needed. I suppose reading is useful but that's about it.

Sere is right on waiting, you're better off waiting for the month to see what the gains are, after that it'll be easier to tell if it's worth waiting for or not.

I will wait then, but honestly I would prefer to pay someone do advise and build - I've zero experience in putting one together and would worry about a costly mistake or layout etc.

Anyone recommendations for build help or idea of a rate for such a job?

Serephucus

It is pretty easy, to be fair (if you can put something from Ikea together, you'll be grand), but if you really want someone to do it, I'll do it for you if you keep me hydrated with Bulmer's along the way. (Assuming you're around Dublin somewhere, as I don't drive)

Digital Solitude

Clonee is Meath I think?

Could have a look at TerrorFirmer on adverts, hes normally got a heap of PCs up, he's a boardsie

sticker

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Clonee is Meath I think?

Could have a look at TerrorFirmer on adverts, hes normally got a heap of PCs up, he's a boardsie

Cheers. Saw him on adverts but looks like he's rooted in Galway. Will reach out anyway.

But there must be a builder here in Dublin worth his salt also?

Lu Tze

I dont think there are too many around who would build to spec for selling on a regular basis, there isnt much of a margin (if any) in it. And computer components can deprecate quite quickly as new hardware is released. There typically would be no warranty (other than the warranty on the individual parts) or support if you run into issues.

Most of the time PCs on sale on adverts from builders are when they have upgraded, or done a new build for themselves and selling the older one.

Lu Tze

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Building is pretty easy, 1080p monitors is it?

i7 6700 €350
H110m board €60
16gb DDR4 €90
2tb HDD €90
500gb SSD €150
Case €100
600w PSU €90
If 1080p, RX 480 at €300, if higher, GTX 1070 at €500
Total 1250-1450

Windows is about €100 on top of that

The markup isnt massive on the likes of Pcspecialist, might be worth a look if you dont fancy building yourself or cant find anybody to help. Similar to the spec abov for around €1300 plus shipping

sticker

Lu Tze wrote: »

I dont think there are too many around who would build to spec for selling on a regular basis, there isnt much of a margin (if any) in it. And computer components can deprecate quite quickly as new hardware is released. There typically would be no warranty (other than the warranty on the individual parts) or support if you run into issues.

Most of the time PCs on sale on adverts from builders are when they have upgraded, or done a new build for themselves and selling the older one.

Good points - thanks. Might I be better off buying from Dell or a large highstreet seller then?

You can see my spec below. I'm not sure if a 100% custom build might be required. What are your thoughts? Is there a far better saving buying off adverts from guys like TerrorFirmer?

sticker

This is my current spec...

sticker

Lu Tze wrote: »

The markup isnt massive on the likes of Pcspecialist, might be worth a look if you dont fancy building yourself or cant find anybody to help. Similar to the spec abov for around €1300 plus shipping

Many thanks for taking the time to put that together - would this run spec the Division at top spec speeds? - with new Direct X version?

Serephucus

Serephucus wrote: »

I'll do it for you if you keep me hydrated with Bulmer's along the way. (Assuming you're around Dublin somewhere, as I don't drive)

Every time you buy from Dell, a puppy dies.

Lu Tze

sticker wrote: »

This is my current spec...

Is it possible the lag you mention in you first post is due to running nearly everything off USB drives? When its lagging is it maxing out CPU, ram or anything else in task manager? Your storage could be your only bottle neck, the machine is still decent

sticker

Serephucus wrote: »

Every time you buy from Dell, a puppy dies.

I agree with their phone support alright - Jesus its bad.

I want to look at all viable options, TerrorFirmer has been good enough to contact me and his first thought might be to upgrade my existing setup as another option, I'm open to all options, what do you guys think?

My PC dopes feel quite laggy, my C drive is only 119gig...

Serephucus

Lu Tze might well be on to something though. There's no reason that PC should feel anything but snappy. Are you running things off all of those USB drives? Or is everything on the 128GB SSD or 5TB storage drive?

sticker

Serephucus wrote: »

Lu Tze might well be on to something though. There's no reason that PC should feel anything but snappy. Are you running things off all of those USB drives? Or is everything on the 128GB SSD or 5TB storage drive?

My main windows drive is the SSD (I think!!) - Any way of knowing the properties of a drive?

I do have some external USB drives in place (3) and powered USB Drives also - just containing MP3/movies/photos/junk - but would be rarely accessed.

Would the fact that the C drive is so small have a bearing on performance? 8Gig free on it.

EDIT - Is it drawing power to have portable USB drives plugged in all the time (even if rarely accessed???)

Serephucus

Size won't matter. As long as everything you're working on is on C:\[something] you're fine.

Could you describe the "lag" a little more? When does it happen, and what happens on-screen at the time?

sticker

Serephucus wrote: »

It is pretty easy, to be fair (if you can put something from Ikea together, you'll be grand), but if you really want someone to do it, I'll do it for you if you keep me hydrated with Bulmer's along the way. (Assuming you're around Dublin somewhere, as I don't drive)

Just seeing this post now - many thanks indeed for the offer.

I'm driving so maybe we could arrange something alright. Where are you based?

sticker

Serephucus wrote: »

Size won't matter. As long as everything you're working on is on C:\[something] you're fine.

Could you describe the "lag" a little more? When does it happen, and what happens on-screen at the time?

Open widows white out and are obviously then unresponsive until they naturally return to normal - this happens a LOT.

Dreamweaver (my web app) hangs often too.

Serephucus

Sounds like what happens when you're waiting for a hard drive to spin up.

Try unplugging all your USB drives. Do whatever you can without them plugged in, and see if it still lags at any point.

Also, no harm to do this either, to prevent your drives from spinning down when idle.

Xenoronin

Seriously sounds like something is going seriously wrong with your install and/or hard drives. Try a complete reinstall of windows.
OR
Install CCleaner (clean up unused files), Install MalwareBytes (clear out any malware from the web), Install BitDefender (clear out any viruses). Run all of those one after the other.
Make sure to uninstall any programs that you don't need. Run the registry cleanup on CCleaner, and make sure that only necessary programs are running at startup.

I have your spec almost exactly. No reason for it to be running as slow as it sounds.

sticker

Serephucus wrote: »

Sounds like what happens when you're waiting for a hard drive to spin up.

Try unplugging all your USB drives. Do whatever you can without them plugged in, and see if it still lags at any point.

Also, no harm to do this either, to prevent your drives from spinning down when idle.

I'll try - windows 7 I have. Absolutely hate the tiled look of windows 10 (what I've seen of it anyway)

Would you rate windows 10? Seems to have had some bad press...

sticker

Xenoronin wrote: »

Seriously sounds like something is going seriously wrong with your install and/or hard drives. Try a complete reinstall of windows.
OR
Install CCleaner (clean up unused files), Install MalwareBytes (clear out any malware from the web), Install BitDefender (clear out any viruses). Run all of those one after the other.
Make sure to uninstall any programs that you don't need. Run the registry cleanup on CCleaner, and make sure that only necessary programs are running at startup.

I have your spec almost exactly. No reason for it to be running as slow as it sounds.

Thanks, will try these over the Christmas break. I do think at the very least the (E) Drive - my website root file drive is misbehaving though.

Serephucus

I like the task manager, and it's got some nice subtle animations for opening/closing windows, but honestly, if it weren't for DX12, I probably wouldn't have switched.

What is that E: drive labelled as, out of interest?

sticker

Serephucus wrote: »

I like the task manager, and it's got some nice subtle animations for opening/closing windows, but honestly, if it weren't for DX12, I probably wouldn't have switched.

What is that E: drive labelled as, out of interest?

Not following you there - Do you mean file system? Local System - NTFS.

I'm heading out now for the afternoon but will be back later this evening.

Thanks again all... The help is much appreciated.

TerrorFirmer

I was about to reply to your PM with this but I might as well just post it here!

I think the issue there is probably a bad hard drive, or something else, because a 3570K is a pretty decent processor still - not as fast as Skylake i7 for example, but not slow enough that it should be giving problems.

That said, if you're editing a lot, a jump to an i7 is a big step as they excel at that.

But all in all, for general editing and gaming, I think the 3750K is strong enough that you don't need to worry about that. I see you have a HD7850/7870 graphics card, these are pretty old now, so around €200 would get you a huge improvement in graphics performance (GTX1060 3GB/RX470 4GB).

I see you have a lot of hard drives, so it's possible one of those causing the issues. I'd probably reinstall windows on the SSD, and then add drives one by one and see how you fare. It's probably something relatively simple to fix.

I suppose it's a matter of how much you want to spend but generally speaking I don't think need you need to put big money into that machine to bring it up play the latest games at 1080p high/ultra without any problem.

Around €200 - GTX1060 3GB/RX470 4GB
Around €250/280 - GTX1060 6GB/RX480 8GB

Those are the two best upper mid range cards, after that it's the GTX1070 for an eye watering €450 or so.

Swapping the SSD for a 240 or 500GB one if you have the money isn't the worst idea either, if you find that you're constantly stuck for space.

There is also the option of swapping out the i5-3570K for an i7-3770 for around €150, and the 3570K should get you around 100 of that back, so it's a small price for a fairly hefty processor increase, in terms of games, but especially editing.

Bringing the ram to 16GB is also relatively inexpensive...so in principle, an RX480 8GB, i7-3770, and 16GB ram would cost you about €450....but you would get back about €200 of that from selling the 3570K, 8GB and HD7850/70. You'd easily be able to play all the latest games at 1080p ultra.

sticker

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I was about to reply to your PM with this but I might as well just post it here!

I think the issue there is probably a bad hard drive, or something else, because a 3570K is a pretty decent processor still - not as fast as Skylake i7 for example, but not slow enough that it should be giving problems.

That said, if you're editing a lot, a jump to an i7 is a big step as they excel at that.

But all in all, for general editing and gaming, I think the 3750K is strong enough that you don't need to worry about that. I see you have a HD7850/7870 graphics card, these are pretty old now, so around €200 would get you a huge improvement in graphics performance (GTX1060 3GB/RX470 4GB).

I see you have a lot of hard drives, so it's possible one of those causing the issues. I'd probably reinstall windows on the SSD, and then add drives one by one and see how you fare. It's probably something relatively simple to fix.

I suppose it's a matter of how much you want to spend but generally speaking I don't think need you need to put big money into that machine to bring it up play the latest games at 1080p high/ultra without any problem.

Around €200 - GTX1060 3GB/RX470 4GB
Around €250/280 - GTX1060 6GB/RX480 8GB

Those are the two best upper mid range cards, after that it's the GTX1070 for an eye watering €450 or so.

Swapping the SSD for a 240 or 500GB one if you have the money isn't the worst idea either, if you find that you're constantly stuck for space.

There is also the option of swapping out the i5-3570K for an i7-3770 for around €150, and the 3570K should get you around 100 of that back, so it's a small price for a fairly hefty processor increase, in terms of games, but especially editing.

Bringing the ram to 16GB is also relatively inexpensive...so in principle, an RX480 8GB, i7-3770, and 16GB ram would cost you about €450....but you would get back about €200 of that from selling the 3570K, 8GB and HD7850/70. You'd easily be able to play all the latest games at 1080p ultra.

Thanks so much for the options. Some sound very viable.

I need to check if my windows is upgradable. Do I need windows 10 for latest direct x?

I'm going to plan to get this rebuild done early in new year before my busy time with work...

Cheers again. Really appreciate the help and advice.