Discussion
I would like a new pc, well when i say new i mean a PC!
i have been looking for days at cheap pc's as in second had business desktops and workstations but scope creep is very much in full effect here
Started looking at hp elitedesk 800 g1's for like £80-100 Then ended up looking at dell precisions 3620's with i7 7700 at £600 to 700 and tbh they are all ok but have s
t graphics cards
at that price surely its getting to the point im better off building something, but what?
needs, photo editing and general pc based stuff i dont want it for gaming but i know i will end up wanting to use it for that!
has to be able to drive 2x4k displays obviously not wanting to be gaming at on dual 4k's
Any suggestions
i have been looking for days at cheap pc's as in second had business desktops and workstations but scope creep is very much in full effect here
Started looking at hp elitedesk 800 g1's for like £80-100 Then ended up looking at dell precisions 3620's with i7 7700 at £600 to 700 and tbh they are all ok but have s
t graphics cardsat that price surely its getting to the point im better off building something, but what?
needs, photo editing and general pc based stuff i dont want it for gaming but i know i will end up wanting to use it for that!
has to be able to drive 2x4k displays obviously not wanting to be gaming at on dual 4k's
Any suggestions
Budget there is the issue i dont have one its all behind the wifes back 
so sneaky sneaky but lets say 600-700 for now dont need storage except boot nvme oh and no led's
monitors i already have. Gaming at 1080 most likely as well that scales better than 1440 on a 4k panel
Mainly i will still use xbox for gaming
so sneaky sneaky but lets say 600-700 for now dont need storage except boot nvme oh and no led'smonitors i already have. Gaming at 1080 most likely as well that scales better than 1440 on a 4k panel
Mainly i will still use xbox for gaming
Edited by Trustmeimadoctor on Wednesday 22 April 15:24
With that amount of budget creep, you might as well go straight for a top-spec i9 based Alienware Aurora @ £4k
Although you could also get a lower spec New Insperon for £520.
Although you could also get a lower spec New Insperon for £520.
Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 22 April 15:34
Depends how much photo editing you want to do vs gaming to determine the specs you need. Running two 4K monitors can use 1070Ti or 1080Ti if only editing for most of the time but even then that's a bit overkill.
If Adobe is your main editing program, probably Intel for the single threaded speed (9700k or 9900k) but if you are using more multi threaded stuff like rendering in Blender then a Ryzen 7 3700k would be a good shout as it's cheaper than the Intels. A Ryzen 9 would be over the top for this sort of thing.
I would invest more in the motherboard as more features and expandability makes for a longer lasting system. I would look for 4 ram slots with 16Gb of RAM as a minimum and lots of M.2 slots to add more SSDs for quick loading of files. M.2 SSDs are getting cheaper and in high capacities so little excuse not to use them for OS and often used programs.
Lastly make sure you get a case and power supply able to fit the graphics cards and the cooling required if going with air cooling of the CPU.
If Adobe is your main editing program, probably Intel for the single threaded speed (9700k or 9900k) but if you are using more multi threaded stuff like rendering in Blender then a Ryzen 7 3700k would be a good shout as it's cheaper than the Intels. A Ryzen 9 would be over the top for this sort of thing.
I would invest more in the motherboard as more features and expandability makes for a longer lasting system. I would look for 4 ram slots with 16Gb of RAM as a minimum and lots of M.2 slots to add more SSDs for quick loading of files. M.2 SSDs are getting cheaper and in high capacities so little excuse not to use them for OS and often used programs.
Lastly make sure you get a case and power supply able to fit the graphics cards and the cooling required if going with air cooling of the CPU.
For photo editing i use capture one pro
I have no real desire for an intel machine they really dont seem to be giving a flying fk these days except for enterprise markets
To be honest most of the time it will likely be turned off but saying that since i havent had a machine in ernest since my athlon x2 and was playing alien vs predator! i may end up using it more than i think
I have no real desire for an intel machine they really dont seem to be giving a flying f
k these days except for enterprise marketsTo be honest most of the time it will likely be turned off but saying that since i havent had a machine in ernest since my athlon x2 and was playing alien vs predator! i may end up using it more than i think
mmm-five said:
With that amount of budget creep, you might as well go straight for a top-spec i9 based Alienware Aurora @ £4k
Although you could also get a lower spec New Insperon for £520.
Dell outlet have a slightly lower spec Aurora at £820Although you could also get a lower spec New Insperon for £520.
Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 22 April 15:34
I've typically purchased a few years old workstation then put in a modern graphics card (Currently running a dual xeon HP Z800, 96GB, SSD with a RX5700).
Watch this the other day an 11 year old vs a 2 year old workstation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZjGS3BTbY0 pretty interesting with regards graphics performance
Watch this the other day an 11 year old vs a 2 year old workstation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZjGS3BTbY0 pretty interesting with regards graphics performance
Trustmeimadoctor said:
yeah could use my server but it uses 300w at idle and is stupidly loud dual e5 2670s so 16 cores 32 threads and 256gb ram but its slow 
Passmark ComparisonThe 3600 (@65W) isn't quite x2 as powerful as the Xeon (in passmark) but pretty close.
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