New system, what should I build?

[canuckamuck]

I am going to have a second system assembled.

It needs to do some video editing, some Photoshop, and maybe some limited gaming. Other than that it won't be working too hard.

I am thinking a 3+ Ghz i5 with 8 GB ram and a 240Gb SSD plus another drive.

I don't have much of an idea which way to go to match up a good MB, ram and CPU these days. Can anyone make some suggestions.

My last MB was an ASUS H87 Pro setup which suited me fine. But that was last year and things change.

Thank in advance

[ukrules]

Get as much RAM as your budget will allow, I always push it with the RAM. I have 16 GB and 32 GB in my windows systems.

I went with the i7 3.4 GHz on my most recent system. I would suggest 16 GB as the minimum amount of RAM these days, preferably on a motherboard that has 4 slots and use 2 x 8 GB DIMMS, that way there's always room for upgrading in the future.

I have 32 GB in one of mine but one of the motherboards I have (Gigabyte Z87-D3HP) has issues when all 4 slots are filled with 8GB dimms and exhaustive testing of the RAM for days at a time in different motherboards leaves only one possibility for the problem - there is something wrong with this motherboard when using 32 GB of RAM in all 4 available slots.

For disks I tend to have two SSD drives setup as a software RAID mirror for the system (D:) drive and then a RAID data drive but if your data is not that important and you are backing it up and can tolerate a random crash / disk failure / loss of everything then just one drive will be fine and you can recover from it by getting a new disk when needed.

[canuckamuck]

So lots of ram then, that should be easy.

[Duindam]

I would not spend that much on large amounts of ram or a expensive processor. You didn't specify the video editing software you going to use so not much I can say about that, but Adobe Photoshop is still 32-bits software, and most games are 32-bits and use not more than 2-cores from the processor.

Recently I build for a friend a computer with a Asrock Z97 mainboard and a Intel Pentium G3258 processor, 8GB (DDR3 1886Mhz) memory, and a Nvidia GTX660ti graphics card. The Intel G3258 processor is unlocked so you can run it basically at any speed. We run it at 4.4Ghz, with the standard CPU cooler, and the CPU temperature did not got over 65c degree, which is well within Intel's specified maximum temperature of 72c degree.

I was amazed that this budget computer could beat my Intel i7-4790 (3.6Ghz), 16gb (DDR3 1600Mhz), and similar graphics card....

[crabdog]

Indeed extra RAM is good for photoshop. I think a Z97 mobo and i5 should suit you pretty well. As for graphics it depends how much you want to spend on the card. Also you might want to wait until CES 2015 (Jan 6-9) as Nvidia is rumored to be announcing their GTX 960.

[robblok]

I would not spend that much on large amounts of ram or a expensive processor. You didn't specify the video editing software you going to use so not much I can say about that, but Adobe Photoshop is still 32-bits software, and most games are 32-bits and use not more than 2-cores from the processor.

Recently I build for a friend a computer with a Asrock Z97 mainboard and a Intel Pentium G3258 processor, 8GB (DDR3 1886Mhz) memory, and a Nvidia GTX660ti graphics card. The Intel G3258 processor is unlocked so you can run it basically at any speed. We run it at 4.4Ghz, with the standard CPU cooler, and the CPU temperature did not got over 65c degree, which is well within Intel's specified maximum temperature of 72c degree.

I was amazed that this budget computer could beat my Intel i7-4790 (3.6Ghz), 16gb (DDR3 1600Mhz), and similar graphics card....

How exactly did it beat it ? Ghz don't mean much. Did you run any benchmark programs ?

I build a high end computer and yesterday a lower end AMD one I got an I75820 CP with a real expensive motherboard (think 7-8k) and 16gb of ram.

The other one is an AMD with 16gb cheaper motherboard good too but no way will it beat the Intel processor even though it has higher Ghz.

If i was building a new computer an SSD would be priority nr 1 and a bit more expensive case and power (expensive cases last forever and usually are more silent easier to build the computer ect.) A expensive power helps too with stability.

[canuckamuck]

Thanks guys, I see now that I should really have put forward more info. I will be at the shop today and I will get an estimate on what I would build, and then post the details back here.

As for Photoshop, I seriously doubt the computer will be taxed in any way, I no longer do much for large scale graphics, mainly just improving photos, and as for video we use Adobe Premier but not many effects, so the renders are reasonable.

For games I can't say, every once in a while a game comes out I have to try, and usually they have high requirements. But I am tempted to go with the onboard video from an i5 CPU, because this computer is mainly a secondary system. No video card saves a bit of baht eh?

Mostly what I want is a computer that will still be able to run new software 3 or four years from now.

[robblok]

Thanks guys, I see now that I should really have put forward more info. I will be at the shop today and I will get an estimate on what I would build, and then post the details back here.

As for Photoshop, I seriously doubt the computer will be taxed in any way, I no longer do much for large scale graphics, mainly just improving photos, and as for video we use Adobe Premier but not many effects, so the renders are reasonable.

For games I can't say, every once in a while a game comes out I have to try, and usually they have high requirements. But I am tempted to go with the onboard video from an i5 CPU, because this computer is mainly a secondary system. No video card saves a bit of baht eh?

Mostly what I want is a computer that will still be able to run new software 3 or four years from now.

Yes onboard video saves a lot of money, however you loose performance too and use part of your ram. However as its a secondary system (like the one i build yesterday) going for cheaper components is good.

But don't skimp out on an ssd, it really helps a lot.

I normally build my computers myself but when the computer that was a backup broke down a few days ago I decided to let them make it at JIB. The reason being that I was not sure if all old components were still good and my parents were here. So i brought my old parts to the shop bought some new parts and let them fix it. They told me a few parts did not work (tested it for me) and started building the computer. It went great was doing other shopping with my parents till the computer was done.

If you buy all new stuff then that is not really a problem of course.

[kkerry]

AsRock H97 (no overclocking) Intel i5, 250GD SSD, 8GB RAM is my latest build. Does all you require. Who knows, might even be my last ever desktop build the way tech seems to be headed lately.

[robblok]

AsRock H97 (no overclocking) Intel i5, 250GD SSD, 8GB RAM is my latest build. Does all you require. Who knows, might even be my last ever desktop build the way tech seems to be headed lately.

For some people like me there will always be the need for a desktop. If you work behind a computer a desktop is just superior. You can do a lot on a ipad or laptop or tablet.. but just not everything.

[Duindam]

Another test you should see, and remember with an additional graphics card you not use the internal Intel graphics....

Price difference:

Intel Pentium G3258......... 2220 Baht

Intel i7 4770K...................11900 Baht

Intel i7 4790K...................11690 Baht

Edited December 9, 2014 by Duindam