Spec me a PC build please.
Discussion
My wife needs a new machine as her Apple Mac remains a slow piece of garbage.
I've looked online at the likes of Chillblast and it seems that with a budget of £750 to include Windows 10 and a monitor, I can probably build a better machine for the same money.
Ive done this a few times in the past, so no worries there, but I'm not familiar with the latest kit and need some help from anyone kind enough to assist.
Here is what I do know/want:
Primary use is Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign plus the usual web/email stuff.
I'll want the OS and software on an SSD - 512Gb Samsung should do fine.
Other storage, whatever is reliable, 2Tb more than enough. Could even be skipped for now, the SSD will be big enough and she'll be running cloud backups.
Not noisy
16Gb RAM with space to add another 16Gb
A reasonable case and PSU, nothing flashy though.
Windows 10
I suspect onboard GFX will be fine, but am happy with suggestions
Basic MS wired keyboard and wireless mouse
Mobo and CPU is where I have no idea. Intel or AMD? Best bang for buck?
Monitor will be a 24" IPS panel, they seem to cost £200 for something very good.
I don't mind going over budget, I just want to build a machine that will breeze through Adobe applications and represent better value than I can buy already built.
A brief look suggests £750 buys an i3 with 8Gb and no SSD, but for the same figure I should manage SSD, i5 (or AMD chip) and 16Gb.
Thanks in advance.
I've looked online at the likes of Chillblast and it seems that with a budget of £750 to include Windows 10 and a monitor, I can probably build a better machine for the same money.
Ive done this a few times in the past, so no worries there, but I'm not familiar with the latest kit and need some help from anyone kind enough to assist.
Here is what I do know/want:
Primary use is Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign plus the usual web/email stuff.
I'll want the OS and software on an SSD - 512Gb Samsung should do fine.
Other storage, whatever is reliable, 2Tb more than enough. Could even be skipped for now, the SSD will be big enough and she'll be running cloud backups.
Not noisy
16Gb RAM with space to add another 16Gb
A reasonable case and PSU, nothing flashy though.
Windows 10
I suspect onboard GFX will be fine, but am happy with suggestions
Basic MS wired keyboard and wireless mouse
Mobo and CPU is where I have no idea. Intel or AMD? Best bang for buck?
Monitor will be a 24" IPS panel, they seem to cost £200 for something very good.
I don't mind going over budget, I just want to build a machine that will breeze through Adobe applications and represent better value than I can buy already built.
A brief look suggests £750 buys an i3 with 8Gb and no SSD, but for the same figure I should manage SSD, i5 (or AMD chip) and 16Gb.
Thanks in advance.
I've built my own for image manipulation and video work in the main, plus a lot of writing and book production. I run Premier Pro and Power Director with no problems. I have an old version of Photoshop, but hardly use it, preferring the superb Affinity Photo. I have a couple of DTP programmes, but they require little power. I expect to buy Affinity Designer, along with Affinity Publisher, when the latter comes out of beta and I expect no problems.
Ryzen 3 2200G with 32GB RAM. It has on-board Radeon Vega Graphics but these gave problems with 2 x 27" VDUs, frequently, or at least too often, hanging, so I put in an old NVidea 2 GB video card as a temporary fix some months ago now, probably 6, and it has proven more than adequate.
I have a 500GB Crucial SSD, and have two internal 3TB HDDs. So well within your budget.
I have got 2 external 3TB HDDs as back-up. I also have a portable 2TB 2.5" HDD.
I run Windows 10 pro.
I bought on advice from a friend who works with vectors and all that clever stuff, including Illustrator and other Adobe products, and at the time he reckoned my set up beat his. It was his advice for me to go with Affinity Photo. His advice was for 64GB RAM but memory was expensive a few months ago. He gave me a copy of Premier Pro but I don't use it, preferring the Power Director interface and speed.
Ryzen 3 2200G with 32GB RAM. It has on-board Radeon Vega Graphics but these gave problems with 2 x 27" VDUs, frequently, or at least too often, hanging, so I put in an old NVidea 2 GB video card as a temporary fix some months ago now, probably 6, and it has proven more than adequate.
I have a 500GB Crucial SSD, and have two internal 3TB HDDs. So well within your budget.
I have got 2 external 3TB HDDs as back-up. I also have a portable 2TB 2.5" HDD.
I run Windows 10 pro.
I bought on advice from a friend who works with vectors and all that clever stuff, including Illustrator and other Adobe products, and at the time he reckoned my set up beat his. It was his advice for me to go with Affinity Photo. His advice was for 64GB RAM but memory was expensive a few months ago. He gave me a copy of Premier Pro but I don't use it, preferring the Power Director interface and speed.
I work in graphics/publishing, similar requirements to above posts. Also use Dell Outlet, as machines are cheap and can be easily upgraded, to the point where 'building' one ends up with less spec and more outlay. We've not had a Dell machine fail for the last six years.
16GB of RAM is 'generally' enough for Adobe suite, until when it isn't. Effects like 'blur' can use multi-core threading, but tends to use not more than three cores. (I5-8400 has six.)
Fast SSD's take the pain out of Windows swapfile use, so adding more RAM beyond 16GB might not be necessary.
If the OP is happy to image and swap out drives, then something like the Dell Inspiron 3670 is a good starting point from Dell Outlet, I5-8400 has six cores, a Passmark of 11642, way ahead of the i7s from a few years ago. Ryzen 3 has a p.mark of 7310 so i5-8400 will be noticeably faster.
Two ram slots, up to 32GB, comes with 8GB, so add another stick. 4 Sata ports, 2 x 2.5" disk mounts, 1 x 3.5" disk mount.
Supplied Nvidia GT1030 2GB graphics card has one DisplayPort and one DVI socket. Onboard graphics is HDMI. This combo will drive two monitors from the GT1030, DisplayPort to DVI cables to suit the monitor(s) in use.
£370-£400 plus VAT on Dell outlet. These machines are v.quiet.
Add another £250 for ram, and an SSD, keep the supplied hard drive for store, plus a decent Displayport/DVI monitor, takes the budget up to about £700 for an i5-8400 graphics production machine.
Dell 'scratch and dent' and refurb machines tend to be absolutely pristine when the arrive, after buying three.
As to graphic cards for publishing, it's a personal choice. We buy older Quadro cards from Ebay, for gamma you can taste, but again, the lines are blurred with the later faster Nvidia cards like the GT1030.
We use Iiyama ProLite monitors, (£150) or Dell Pro monitors.
Windows 10 Pro versus Windows 10 Home: Pro gets Domain Join, Group Policy Management, Bitlocker, Enterprise Mode Internet Explorer (EMIE), Assigned Access 8.1, Remote Desktop, Client Hyper-V, and Direct Access. If you don't need these then W10 Home is fine and supports BitLocker encryption.
Dell 3670 also supports TPM 2.0 if you're working on client files and need disk encryption.
Dell Outlet Insp. 3670:
https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInven...
16GB of RAM is 'generally' enough for Adobe suite, until when it isn't. Effects like 'blur' can use multi-core threading, but tends to use not more than three cores. (I5-8400 has six.)
Fast SSD's take the pain out of Windows swapfile use, so adding more RAM beyond 16GB might not be necessary.
If the OP is happy to image and swap out drives, then something like the Dell Inspiron 3670 is a good starting point from Dell Outlet, I5-8400 has six cores, a Passmark of 11642, way ahead of the i7s from a few years ago. Ryzen 3 has a p.mark of 7310 so i5-8400 will be noticeably faster.
Two ram slots, up to 32GB, comes with 8GB, so add another stick. 4 Sata ports, 2 x 2.5" disk mounts, 1 x 3.5" disk mount.
Supplied Nvidia GT1030 2GB graphics card has one DisplayPort and one DVI socket. Onboard graphics is HDMI. This combo will drive two monitors from the GT1030, DisplayPort to DVI cables to suit the monitor(s) in use.
£370-£400 plus VAT on Dell outlet. These machines are v.quiet.
Add another £250 for ram, and an SSD, keep the supplied hard drive for store, plus a decent Displayport/DVI monitor, takes the budget up to about £700 for an i5-8400 graphics production machine.
Dell 'scratch and dent' and refurb machines tend to be absolutely pristine when the arrive, after buying three.
As to graphic cards for publishing, it's a personal choice. We buy older Quadro cards from Ebay, for gamma you can taste, but again, the lines are blurred with the later faster Nvidia cards like the GT1030.
We use Iiyama ProLite monitors, (£150) or Dell Pro monitors.
Windows 10 Pro versus Windows 10 Home: Pro gets Domain Join, Group Policy Management, Bitlocker, Enterprise Mode Internet Explorer (EMIE), Assigned Access 8.1, Remote Desktop, Client Hyper-V, and Direct Access. If you don't need these then W10 Home is fine and supports BitLocker encryption.
Dell 3670 also supports TPM 2.0 if you're working on client files and need disk encryption.
Dell Outlet Insp. 3670:
https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInven...
Edited by Slushbox on Friday 26th April 08:07
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff