Further to the media centre thread I will be needing new innards for my desktop PC.
I want to edit videos and play some games (if I ever get the chance). Photoshop will also be used. Also some Java development but I suppose anything that can handle the above won't care about Java.
Budget.. ooh.. £2-300? Is that a lot these days?
Just upgraded a system, and have a Core2 Duo E5700 with Intel fan and a couple of 2GB DDR3 memory modules over-all little used. If you choose a mobo that will take these, I'm willing to sell these for a reasonable price if interested.
Let me know-email in profile.
Baz
Have a look at aria or ocuk for mobo bundles. For 300 holes you should get a fast setup.
I recently did some PC upgrades - thanks to flea-bay.
GTX 260 896MB graphics card - GPU acceleration within Photoshop (and Premiere). Pretty mental on the games too.... completely blown away by it!
Core2Quad CPU (Q8200 I think?) + 2GB RAM + Gigabyte G31 motherboard.
All for 150 notes 
GPU acceleration within Photoshop (and Premiere)
GPU actually helps with the video processing load? I'm interested.. does it actually make a lot of difference?
http://blog.krama.tv/hacking-adobe-premiere-cs5-to-enable-more-nvidia-cuda-cards/
Adobe Premier needs a minimum of 756MB of graphics RAM. 512MB card's won't cut it.
Allows even my bottom-end Q8200 to play multiple 1080p streams/effects in real-time.
And ever since CS3 (or 2?) GPU acceleration for rendering has been available in Photoshop - provided your GPU met their minimum requirements.
Right.. next question, does it work with Elements?
Wtf do I want OSX for?
Flippin eck.. this stuff is a minefield!
Look at the CPU and GPU hierarchy charts at Toms Hardware. In fcat. have a good look throuhg Toms Hardware, good site. Try Dabs for your purchases.
Last time I did a theoretical budget build (possible upgrade for someone) it was Atlon II X3 CPU, a Radeon 5750 HD GPU, 8GB or RAM (use some of that as a RAM Disk via your OS or other freeware such as Gavotte RAM Disk ).
P.S.
Check your PSU is up to the job.
£200-300 for what? Just the Motherboard, CPU, GFX card and some RAM, or pretty much everything?
If it's pretty much everything, buy a new computer... It'll be cheaper!
If it's just as stated above, with careful shopping around and prioritising, you should be able to bag yourself something capable of the above. Providing your PSU and other bits are up to the job of course.
First and foremost, depending on the games you want to run, the GFX card is going to be the most important choice. I'd set aside almost half of your £300 budget here... Look at something like the following...
For the motherboard and processor, you have to decide what your priorities are really. Given you wanted an ok GFX card for gaming, you're not really likely to afford a Quad Core at all, unless you find an old one in good nick 2nd hand on ebay. So your choices are which dual core to go for really, meaning also which socket! For video editing obviously you want as much power as possible, as you would for Photoshop, but without stretching your budget (or forgoing somewhat on the GFX card) you'll struggle to get lots of power. That said, there are some bargains around, especially if you know what boards and processors overclock well!
My choice at your end of the scale, would be to stick with socket 775 Intel, and get a motherboard and processor that you can overclock the bejeesus out of. With that in mind, I reccomend the following combination...
Gigabyte G41M-ES2L
Intel Pentium Dual Core 3.2GHz E5800
The above combo I have seen overclocked (very stable too) at approx 5.4GHz!!! It would eat a lot of quad core processors at that speed...
Then just get yourself 4GB of RAM, I picked up some new DDR2-6400 OCZ Gold 2x2GB sticks for about £30 off ebay, so good branded RAM in new unused condition for about half what it would cost from a shop.
If you want to up your budget somewhat, that changes the game a bit... Bung in another couple of hundred quid, get yourself a socket 1155 Sandybridge Core i5-2500K and motherboard instead, I can guarantee that spending the extra £200 now would mean it will last a LOT further into the future... The i5-2500k also overclocks like a beast too!
Wtf do I want OSX for?
Cos it's the bomb... Got the Gigabyte G41 motherboad I listed above myself, but with a Q9400 2.66GHz Quad core on it, running OSX myself. Cost me peanuts as a setup (about £300 including 2nd hand GFX card and a decent PSU), and it's got as much poke as a mid range iMac, at 4 times the price!
Buy a 2nd hand server Top end for next to nowt,you need to make sure it can fit a gpu and or soundcard and you'll need a bit of experience in building systems or have a friend that knows his stuff,possibly even enrolling in a wee night computer building course at college but for the money its the best system.
Most of these servers are based around a dual or quad intel xenon processors running at 3.2ghz with RAID hard drives.
And are pretty robust as theyre usually switched on and left running :?.
dyna-ti » Buy a 2nd hand server Top end for next to nowt,you need to make sure it can fit a gpu and or soundcard and you'll need a bit of experience in building systems or have a friend that knows his stuff,possibly even enrolling in a wee night computer building course at college but for the money its the best system.Most of these servers are based around a dual or quad intel xenon processors running at 3.2ghz with RAID hard drives.
And are pretty robust as theyre usually switched on and left running :?.
Just enough knowledge to be dangerous..... please say you're a brick layer, and not working in IT?
If he was asking for a suitable car for popping to the shops, you would recommend an 18-wheeler truck.
I used these for mobo bundle
Good service and info on the site. Delivered within 5 days to France
mboy - thanks for the long post - yes, upgrading an existing system, so just the main bits.
The thing that is most annoyingly slow now is dealing with videos. So bearing that in mind - more cores, or more clock? Some online have said that the more cores the better specifically for Premiere or Photoshop.
Of course this pushes up the budget, but this is being paid for by cancelling a full-on sky package, so the budget is flexible As for gaming - well that could wait really - I don't actually own any PC games that would tax the system so it wouldn't be too bad to just put in a normal GFX card and then upgrade later. Better to do that than skimp on CPU I feel.
I see that some software uses the GPU as processing power - this would be great, and really appeals to my geekery but Premiere Elements doesn't support it and the real version is £700 - so not going to happen, sadly 
Look at paying for Premiere Elements as a morally sound way of getting Premiere for a massively discounted price. You still pay Adobe something...
I would opt for more cores than higher clock speed, especially when you can start overclocking the CPU...
Four or six, then? And I also read that you want at least 2Gb per core which whacks the cost up.
Not that I'm not turned on by the thought of a 6 core system with 12Gb ram mind..
Most software cant take advantage of 4 cores yet, so 6 is probably overkill.
Sure about that wnb?
Depends on what you classify as 'most software'
Windows can, and so does the .NET framework (so any apps written in .NET will multi-core).
Mostly Premiere Elements and Photoshop Elements. I think Adobe are generally fairly up on this stuff.
Xiphon, got any suggestions about CPU then?
Not sure if it's any use but i'm selling a half decent bundle...
I think the days of the clock speed race are over, as CPUs have become much more powerful. Combined with the advance in graphics hardware, even older kit can play todays games (and perform tasks in Photoshop, etc) perfectly well.
At home, I have a Q6200 CPU (from 2006!!); 2 x 1GB RAM; and a GTX 260 896MB graphics card (from 2008), and it runs 'modern' games perfectly well. Currently enjoying Crisys 2.
Adobe Premiere runs nice and smooth (although it does need more RAM, I accept that) when decoding 1080p videos, thanks to the GPU assisted processing.
You could go down the i3/i5/i7 route, which is pretty recent technology (read : relatively expensive) - depends on how long you can see yourself keeping the PC, and if you plan on upgrading it.
If you budget can stretch, I would *definitely* try to include an SSD drive for the main OS. The difference between SSD and mechanical is frighteningly fast.
depends on how long you can see yourself keeping the PC, and if you plan on upgrading it
Only bought one PC ever, that was in 1998. Although nothing now remains, not even the case. Current bundle is from ooh.. 2004 I think? And it's going to be recycled into a media centre PC as per my other thread.
Is saving up for longer an option? Or it is more like an emergency PC?
If you can, I would save up more - getting a decent PSU, CPU (i5 is excellent), RAM, etc etc - then plan on keeping it (not upgrading...) for the next 5-6 years? As opposed to 'uprgading' parts of it for £300?
I can afford the essentials now, and then get a better gfx card later. I can afford i5 or i7 if it's worth it - there's AMD too which is a fair bit cheaper for more cores.
Like I say this is budgeted for by cancelling Sky, so we'll be ahead eventually no matter how much I spend
MAke sure your PSU is up to the job if you are looking at a modern GFX card.
I would go down the i5 route personally.
Combined with 6GB of RAM ( 3 x 2GB), and a decent PSU too.
And a SSD. (keep other drives for data storage though.... just main OS and applications... and perhaps a 'working data' folder on the SSD).
Bearing in mind you say you have no games to play at the moment, it indeed changes things. As far as GFX is concerned, just get something basic (or 1/2 decent but 2nd hand) to get you going... Let's focus on the processor and motherboard first though...
The thing that is most annoyingly slow now is dealing with videos. So bearing that in mind - more cores, or more clock? Some online have said that the more cores the better specifically for Premiere or Photoshop.
It's not quite that simple I'm afraid. Sometimes more cores is better, sometimes more clock speed, can depend on the application (and the architecture of the processor). Was reading only today how the new Sandybridge Core i3-2100, a 3.1GHz Dual Core processor at circa £90, can absolutely lay waste to an AMD Phenom 11 X4 840, a 3.2GHz Quad Core processor for similar money. So less cores, and lower clock speed, yet it significantly outperforms it!
And also, whilst more and more software is increasingly capable of utilising more cores, it's not like on Mac OSX where they're very effective at utilising as many cores as you can throw at them. There's little or no point in ever having more than 4 cores on a PC (Not long ago there was no point in more than 2), but on a Mac, hell throw 6, 8 or even 12 cores at the situation, they'll all help!
Anyway, if this is going to be a system to last several years, get your wallet out now and spend the money... If not, and your budget is tight, follow the advice in my previous post... But assuming you're prepared to spend the money... Here's what I'd get...
Gigabyte Z68 Mobo
Core i7-2600k
4GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
OK, that lot has blown your budget by some £60 or so, and you still don't have a GFX card in there, but the motherboard and CPU are the most important things in your case, and you don't wanna scrimp here. This combo will last you ages, and is ultra upgradeable. The Core i7-2600k might be £75 more than the i5-2500k, but it's about 40% faster again, and whilst you won't notices its performance advantage gaming, you will notice it drastically in video encoding and photoshop work, software that can take advantage of its Hyperthreading basically. You could save the money, and still have a bloody fast PC, but I'd spend the extra £75 myself and have one that I know will still be quick in 3-4 years time.
As far as RAM goes, just get 4GB to start. By using just one stick, you can always buy another (or another 3) of the same to double your memory quite cheaply. Better to go 1x4 than 2x2 in my book as you've got more upgradability still. Besides, unless you've got multiple applications all running at once, 4GB is enough for pretty much anyone still.
The Z68 motherboard (and that Gigabyte at £79 is a bargain for a Z68) allows you both the overclocking abilities of the P67 (VERY worthwhile with the 2600k processor, it was built to be overclocked, you can take it to over 5GHz!!!), and the built in GFX of the H67 chipset too. So to get going, if you're not playing games initially, you can use the inbuilt Graphics of the mobo! Personally though, I'd shop around for a cheap 2nd hand GFX card, something like the 8800GTX 640mb I have in my system can be picked up cheaply on ebay for about £25, and it'll still waste anything cheaper than about £60-70 brand new, and will play most games at decent frame rates and resolutions, if not Crysis at 1080.
SSD wise, well, if you can be bothered go for one... It will increase your boot speed and any applications you put on it. Personally though, I think until they're big enough and cheap enough for all your data to be on one, I'm not convinced they're wholly worthwhile. Buy a fast normal HD, like the Samsung F3 1TB I have (about £40 and the fastest 7200rpm drive out there), it's more than quick enough and you get a good amount of storage. Though you could be canny and take advantage of the SATA 3 that the Z68 mobo has, and buy yourself a SATA 3 compatible drive, which would theoretically double your read and write speeds.
Whatever you do though, wouldn't bother with AMD. You might get more cores, and higher clock speeds on paper, but in real life Intel processors trounce them these days, especially the newest Sandy Bridge ones.
Does that help?
I went for the i7 2600k bundle, 4gb DDR3 and a Geforce 550ti as my older kit struggled with Lightroom, it went really slowly with lots of images open.
Very fast and stable now. Not really interested in over-clocking as stability more important to me.
Cost a bit more, but hopefully will last a bit longer with technology moving so fast, so worth the extra.
Flys along now, handles everything, no lock ups or glitches in games like CODMW2
The same way as the Windows platform, unless software is written for multi-core (and multi-cpu) systems, OSX won't take advantage of them.
Similar to the .NET platform, recent OSX (since 10.6) uses Grand Central Dispatch - it will use as many resources (cores, CPUs) as possible, provided the software uses their library.
OSX itself is build upon FreeBSD, and that has always had support for SMP (Symmetrical Multi-Processing). I remember reading an article showcasing the latest OSX at the time - they had a quad socket Xeon motherboard, with 24GB of RAM and 16 cores ( 4 x Quads ). OSX happily used them all... but only one piece of software could use them all.
Until software developers write their applications from the ground up, we will still be stuck on the single core architecture (software wise anyway) for years to come.
Some may remember the patch IDSoftware released for Quake 3? Added multi-CPU SMP support to their game.
The same way as the Windows platform, unless software is written for multi-core (and multi-cpu) systems, OSX won't take advantage of them.
Yes, but as you probably already know, more of it seems to be able to make use of the resources available... My Q9400 when running on Windows, I could never seem to max the processor cores out (well not all of them at the same time), unless running Prime (designed specifically to stress test processors). Now it's running Snow Leopard, just ripping a DVD using handbrake, it maxed all 4 cores readily, which resulted in a pretty quick rip.
Sometimes more cores is better, sometimes more clock speed, can depend on the application
I know - I understand multi-threading and parallel computing, being a developer myself, but I don't understand video encoding at all. That's why I mentioned Adobe Premiere by name
It's worth noting that I very rarely see one core maxed and the other not on my dual core system, although it does sometimes happen. Which I guess answers my own question really.
Handbrake on the Windows platform takes advantage of all cores too 
Just ripped a DVD for mrs xiphon, and it happily maxed out all cores.
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