Computer build help

granturismite

granturismite

489
Australia
Central Coast,
Hello, and thanks for reading my thread.

I have got $800 AUD (also same in $US, 600 Euros, 530 GB pounds) to spend on building a PC, basically from scratch, and am a little rusty (i.e, not great) at the hardware side of computing. I'm not useless, I know what does what, etc, but have no idea what specs, etc, I'll need in this modern age.

I haven't settled on an Operating System to use yet, but probably Win 7 or XP. Ubuntu and Linux versions are not out of the running either.

I want to use it for gaming, and also to run the Adobe CS5 suite on it. It doesn't need to be a beast, but I need more power then my current laptop (2GB RAM on Windows 7. Does not compute!?!). I am currently studying Web design and programming through a technical colledge (TAFE NSW), and the current curriculum is heavy with the Adobe suite, so I would dearly love to have a computer that can run Adobe products without significant loading/processing times.

any help, or even nudges in a helpful direction would be much appriciated!

EDIT: Also, the room it's going be in has no air con, and in summer, can reach over 40 degrees C in the afternoon. any cooling issues beyond normal?
 
Last edited:
What resolution monitor are you running?

Go for an i5 2400, 6gb of G-Skill RAM (great bang for the buck). (about $360)
GPU- ATI 5770 or, if budget allows, a 6850. ($175)
WD Black 2tb Drive ($120)
Get a 600 watt PSU ($100)
DVD ($25)
Case (about $75)
That's it.

Oh, and go for Windows 7. It rocks. (IMO)
 
If you are getting an i5 core then you would want to go for the i5-2500. I built a computer for my Uncle with a i5-2500, ATi HD 5770, 40GB SSD(boot drive), 500GB WD Blue Caviar HDD(for file storage), and Antec 430D PSU(you might want to go for the 500watt green series by Antec just to safety power the video card), and an Antec 200 case(if you can, get the 300, very nice and easy case to work in). You see some pictures here of it. I also have a few pictures of my Antec 300 build here.
 
To my mind, with a 40 degree ambient temperature, you must buy additional cooling for your processor. An air fan would be good enough, like the Noctua NH-14.

Don't skimp on the power supply. You'll need 6GB RAM to run CS5 on Win 7.

tomshardware.com do good "by price" graphics cards reviews.
 
thanks for the advice guys.

It appears 6GB RAM is a popular option for my budget.

Toronto122
What resolution monitor are you running?
Click to expand...

I don't have a moniter for it yet, will probably salvage from the family PC graveyard.
 
granturismite
thanks for the advice guys.

It appears 6GB RAM is a popular option for my budget.



I don't have a moniter for it yet, will probably salvage from the family PC graveyard.
Click to expand...

6GB will be more than enough. I use Photoshop CS5 and Illustrator enough and I've rarely had issues with RAM, even using my three monitors for a ton of stuff.

If you want to be serious about colors and photos in designs, an eIPS display like the Dell Ultrasharps will make a world of difference. I honestly could not back to a standard TFT display after using these.

The 5770 is an excellent value as well, I'm using one in my setup with a tri-core Phenom and have had no issues with gaming at 1920x1080.
 
Wow, im doing the same thing with my friend! Our budgets $1,000 though. We've got the parts we need including case and everything for the actual computer, but no OS, and we've spent $900. If you'd like I could send you a picture of what we're buying so you have a rough idea of good parts to use.
 
Sandy Bridge boards are dual channel, so unless you can find 3GB DDR3 RAM sticks then I'd suggest 8GBs of DDR3 (that is if you're going for the latest i5's) and a 64-bit version of Windows. The 5770 is a fantastic little card though. :)
 
dice1998
Weird, as I have 3 gigs of RAM and have the ability to run the CS5 suite perfectly fine.. :indiff:
Click to expand...

There's running it, and there's running it...

over1gb.png



That was snipped from my computer a few days ago.
 
Last edited:
Ahh... Reviving my own thread. Well, come the 24th of September, I will be purchasing parts for my new PC. I am trying to budget myself in each hardware point, referencing with online articles, forums, and manufacturer sites.

The main items I have picked out are (subject to availiblilty, thus no real specifics):
-an i5 processer (or equivilant AMD), around $200
-appropriate motherboard/chipset, $150
-4GB DDR3 RAM (will upgrade later), $50
-a 600-700W power supply, $100
-graphics card, $200
-smallish hard drive (250-500GB) $50. I have a 2TB external drive for backup
- a case (can pick up a basic one for about $40)
-peripherals (DVD drive, keyboard, etc) $50
-monitor, $150

this all comes to around $1000, which is my actual budget, as my original budget did not include a monitor. Plus, I'm pretty sure I can haggle a bit of a discount with the vendor.

As mentioned previously, it can get quite hot here, so overclocking is not an option. I also found out that as a student, I can get Windows 7 Professional for free! 👍
 
dice1998
Weird, as I have 3 gigs of RAM and have the ability to run the CS5 suite perfectly fine.. :indiff:
Click to expand...

I think he was talking about how CS5 is only 64bit and windows 7 needs 2GB minmium to run 64bit as CS5 uses at least 2GB of RAM when running that is 4GB, but lets not forget other little things like plug ins, web browser that may be running, anti-virus, preloaded programs in RAM.i would say get 2x 4GB moudels or 4x2GB moduels since the sandy bridge is dual core and i do also recommend the intel i5 2500k cpu.

Motherboard i would go for an Asus.
 
granturismite
Ahh... Reviving my own thread. Well, come the 24th of September, I will be purchasing parts for my new PC. I am trying to budget myself in each hardware point, referencing with online articles, forums, and manufacturer sites.

The main items I have picked out are (subject to availiblilty, thus no real specifics):
-an i5 processer (or equivilant AMD), around $200
-appropriate motherboard/chipset, $150
-4GB DDR3 RAM (will upgrade later), $50
-a 600-700W power supply, $100
-graphics card, $200
-smallish hard drive (250-500GB) $50. I have a 2TB external drive for backup
- a case (can pick up a basic one for about $40)
-peripherals (DVD drive, keyboard, etc) $50
-monitor, $150

this all comes to around $1000, which is my actual budget, as my original budget did not include a monitor. Plus, I'm pretty sure I can haggle a bit of a discount with the vendor.

As mentioned previously, it can get quite hot here, so overclocking is not an option. I also found out that as a student, I can get Windows 7 Professional for free! 👍
Click to expand...
For $200, in US at least, you can get a 2500k.
For $50 you can get 8gb of ram
Which graphics card?
You said you had the same amount in $US/$AUS but are prices, the same? I thought you Aussies get overcharged for everything?

bergauk
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=17306305

Something I threw together about a week ago. Swap out the HDD's for what you want. Subtract one GFX card. Put whatever kind of Disc drive you'd like in there, and you're good to go. If you're going to be running at high ambient temperatures go with a better-than-stock heatsink like.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103055

That leaves you with a budget to go pick a monitor as well.
Click to expand...
Is there a reason for suggesting CF 5670s? Pretty bad cards and not nearly as good as a single 6870 which costs about the same.
 
Last edited:
For a little more you can have this ram. Well worth the extra money for an extra 4GB and save yourself from upgrading. Good looking case for the price(just add a rear fan and you should be good unless you can buy three in total to use as two top fans and a rear fan if that's your preference or any other way as the case has 4 places[side panel, bottom, rear, and bottom] where you can add extra fans). i5-2500 for $220 since it does not hurt to have the K version with the MoBo I selected below. 500GB Hard Drive and ASUS Z68 MoBo(4 DDR3 slots which allows up to 32GB of RAM. So plenty of room for upgrades if needed on memory). Blu-ray drive. 620Watt Antec Power Supply(good brand I use a lower wattage version in my parents computer). Radeon HD 6850. Total so far total is $880.68, with this monitor plus the $19 rebate, the total is now $1016.68(does not include the fan I listed). You can save $26 if you use this motherboard which keeps the parts plus monitor under budget at $990.68.

The graphics card I selected before is just a bit biased(I'm a fan of ASUS) but you can save about $14 with this card or upgrade to a 6870 for $5 more. I'll have to add that all of the GPU's I listed here support HDMI 1.4a, which means you can play 3D Blu-Ray content with the Blu-Ray drive(comes with the proper software for that).
 
eSZee
For $200, in US at least, you can get a 2500k.
For $50 you can get 8gb of ram
Which graphics card?
You said you had the same amount in $US/$AUS but are prices, the same? I thought you Aussies get overcharged for everything?


Is there a reason for suggesting CF 5670s? Pretty bad cards and not nearly as good as a single 6870 which costs about the same.
Click to expand...

No real reason to be honest. Just something I made up real quick. It's a good baseline, and everything in it should work together with no problems whatsoever.

A single card could be switched out for a better one though.
 
I honestly can't get my head around that suggestion.
I'm just going to chalk it up as a tremendous brain fart on your part.
 
How does a $1.1K USD price let him get a monitor? His budget limit is $1K AU. That cpu cooler makes it $1.2K USD. Some of those parts are misguided and I would not rely on the PSU or the hard drive(they are important parts and you can't skimp on good reviews).
 
Re-read the post.
bergauk
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=17306305

Something I threw together about a week ago. Swap out the HDD's for what you want. Subtract one GFX card. Put whatever kind of Disc drive you'd like in there, and you're good to go. If you're going to be running at high ambient temperatures go with a better-than-stock heatsink like.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103055

That leaves you with a budget to go pick a monitor as well.
Click to expand...


There are THREE drives in the cart. It's a personal build of mine and is designed for redundancy. It can be changed to only use one of the drives, or have a hard drive of his choosing.

I'm not sure how your mind works, but apparently it doesn't work very well. How are you going to assume a drive from a reputable company is bad? Western Digital has GREAT RMA service. Rosewill as well have a great RMA department. They are also a reputable company.

What in the world do you mean by "misguided" anyways?
 
Sorry I never noticed the three hard drives. I do see your point now. But I don't think he will be having such a large hard drive(up to 500GB personal limit). I would not rely on a hard drive that has a high possible chance of dying. I do know WD and Rosewill are Reputable companies. I've had two 640GB laptop drives fail on me from WD and it's annoying to have to send a hard drive back, install a new hard drive from WD, and reinstall Windows every time a hard drive goes bad. We are talking about a everyday user here, not a hardware nerd who works in the IT field.
 
I think a 6850 should do his job. It will run games like Crysis 2 on Max at 1080p. Remember, games take up around 13gb each, so don't go small on the HDD.
 
Yes if he does not do more than Starcraft 2 then he should not be worried and stick with a 6770. But if he's interested into playing new games throughout several years I'd imagine he'd grab a higher performing card and that would last him longer before an upgrade.
 
I said it isn't going to be solely used for gaming? I'm sorry, are you and Nick09 unable to read?

Crysis is what.. 2 years old now? I can run that smoothly on my PC with a Radeon X1950.

Any card from this year could run it at 1080p.
 
If he's going to be gaming, he's going to be gaming. There's no "sole" part to it. Also, it seems like YOU are the one who can't read:
NissanSkylineN1
I think a 6850 should do his job. It will run games like Crysis 2 on Max at 1080p. Remember, games take up around 13gb each, so don't go small on the HDD.
Click to expand...

Sit down.
 
Last edited:
Well, there seems to be a bit of hostility here. Can we please just calm down and talk rationally?

My primary use will be for gaming, then for web development, then normal media use.

eSZee
You said you had the same amount in $US/$AUS but are prices, the same? I thought you Aussies get overcharged for everything?
Click to expand...
yeah, things are more expensive for Australians, even when buying online (postage).

nick09
Yes if he does not do more than Starcraft 2 then he should not be worried and stick with a 6770. But if he's interested into playing new games throughout several years I'd imagine he'd grab a higher performing card and that would last him longer before an upgrade.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this. I don't have any demanding games right now, because it would have been useless to try on my current computer, but I will be playing more recent games, like F1 2011 (once I buy a pheripheral), and maybe Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crysis 2.
 

Latest Posts

Back