Little Help Building a Desktop?

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

Hey,

So a lady at work has asked me to help her son out in building a desktop. I want to give her as many choices as possible, so I figured I would build up a table to show several different builds so she can compare.

1) I have to try and keep the build as cheap as possible (I am aiming for $600, but giving several options - So anywhere from $500-$800)
2) Her son is 14 years old and likes to upload gaming videos from his Hauppauge
3) I have to assume that he will be needing a monitor/keyboard/mouse
4) Have to include Windows 7 of coarse.

So if you are up for the challange and want to help, please feel free.

Sites I am currently looking at are:
www.newegg.ca
www.memoryexpress.com
www.ncix.com

I'll constantly be updating what I have found, so please critique.

gigabiteme · Feb 23, 2013

mike try ncix too and wait for specials/ bundle deals will be way cheaper/ and as far a gaming rig, your prices seem low- try 800.00 to
1000.00

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

gigabiteme said:
mike try ncix too and wait for specials/ bundle deals will be way cheaper/ and as far a gaming rig, your prices seem low- try 800.00 to
1000.00

Ya i forgot about NCIX, I'll add it to my original post.

It's not really a "gaming rig" per say. As far from what i can tell, he doesn't even play PC games on it. Just going to be heavy encoding and rendering kind of thing.

I've been playing around with pricing and think you might be right. I did get it down to $700 (with peripherals) but not the greatest for task at hand lol. I'll keep trying though.

gigabiteme · Feb 23, 2013

i know it's tough when someone else is involved- go amd and save money
and the kid will appreciate the extra heat in his room in the winter

FuryRosewood · Feb 23, 2013

Thats a hard thing to do...but i guess you could cut the ram down, go with a celeron dual core 1155 chip, 4 gig of ram, and a decent gpu, and lean on the gpu a little. probably can fit that in a 750 dollar budget with OS and a 19 inch monitor

*edit*

Played around with a asus z77 Pro board, 8 gig ddr3 1600 and a celeron g860 with a 7770 GHZ edition by asus it was around 777 bucks, with OS. just no mouse or keyboard...so that would be 800...though probably if you wanted could do a amd build and get a little bit more threads but im not sure how many threads this might require..

Twiki · Feb 23, 2013

You'd be surprised what a Sandy Bridge Celeron can do. When I built my system a few months ago I started with a G540 which is a Celeron at 2.5 Ghz. The on chip HD Graphics was quite decent. It's not a gamer CPU even though it could get by at lower resolutions. It's pretty fast.

FuryRosewood · Feb 23, 2013

Might be able to hang out without a dedicated card then, skip that, save the 50, and buy a i3 3220 instead and use the intel hd4000 for a bit then get the boy a gpu for birthday/christmas

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

Right on Fury!!

How is Dual Core processors with video rendering? I know that it's divided into 4 threads, just unsure on performance.

A dedicated card isn't priority, i don't think.

I have been looking at the AMD A8 and the A10 series. These should be ok, right?

FuryRosewood · Feb 23, 2013

I think more threads would help, but im wary of instructions per clock with the amd chips, and i think in the long run your electric bill will appreciate the i3 better, as well as being able to grab a i5 or i7 later if needed.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/10/03/amd-a10-review/5

Heres a comparison...to me its so little of a diff..id just grab the i3 and grab more power later (A10 i assume is the top end...and the entry level i3 is nearly matching it. And keep in mine the chip i chose was the third gen, so the second gen will be slower, the third may be a little faster.)

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

I got this one:

EDIT: I forgot Windows 7.... lol

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

FuryRosewood said:
I think more threads would help, but im wary of instructions per clock with the amd chips, and i think in the long run your electric bill will appreciate the i3 better, as well as being able to grab a i5 or i7 later if needed.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/10/03/amd-a10-review/5

Heres a comparison...to me its so little of a diff..id just grab the i3 and grab more power later (A10 i assume is the top end...and the entry level i3 is nearly matching it. And keep in mine the chip i chose was the third gen, so the second gen will be slower, the third may be a little faster.)

Damn, you are right. Better stick to Intel on this one. Specially cause i know he will be editing videos and whatnot.

Twiki · Feb 23, 2013

I was upgrading my new system piece by piece and I replaced my Celeron with an i3 2105 since it was $25 off. It's faster plus it has HT and HD Graphics 3000. It was a great improvement. It's a dual core but 4 threads so it thinks it's a quad. Great CPU.

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

Here's another one, this time Intel:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

what ya think?

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

Twiki said:
I was upgrading my new system piece by piece and I replaced my Celeron with an i3 2105 since it was $25 off. It's faster plus it has HT and HD Graphics 3000. It was a great improvement. It's a dual core but 4 threads so it thinks it's a quad. Great CPU.

Due to the amount of workload that this computer might see, I'm unsure about a Dual core (even if it has 4 threads). Keep it in mind for a backup. With HD3000 graphics, id prefer having a dedicated graphics card.

FuryRosewood · Feb 23, 2013

Id go with professional or just grab win8 and use a shell on it, the memory limitation for win7 home edition bothers me. I would also look at the z77 pro by asus, its slightly nicer and may last a little longer...the board seems to be a weak link otherwise it looks good. Also look into a slightly nicer case...CM to me are kinda on the cheap side...flimsy materials.

CrazyMike · Feb 23, 2013

FuryRosewood said:
Id go with professional or just grab win8 and use a shell on it, the memory limitation for win7 home edition bothers me. I would also look at the z77 pro by asus, its slightly nicer and may last a little longer...the board seems to be a weak link otherwise it looks good. Also look into a slightly nicer case...CM to me are kinda on the cheap side...flimsy materials.

Windows 7 home, i am pretty sure he won't notice the difference lol
You are right the board is a little weak.
Case i just went with the price range. 50$ will give a half about decent case or at least close to it.

FuryRosewood · Feb 23, 2013

Try this case:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX37673

This board:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39032

Price goes up a little but reliability goes up more.

EvanK · Feb 23, 2013

CrazyMike said:
Windows 7 home, i am pretty sure he won't notice the difference lol

The problem with 7 Home is that it maxes out at 16GB of RAM. It's not a software limitation, just Micro$oft up selling the Pro edition. Not a huge problem for now as 16GB is plenty for video editing, but in a few years time when he's looking to upgrade he'll be limited by that.

For a board, I can whole heatedly recommend the P8Z77 series, I have the V Pro (full ATX) and it's an excellent reliable board, the bios is awesome. The GA-UD5H is also a great board is you're looking for something from a different manufacturer, you'll be happy either way.

Not a huge fan of that case either, spend another $30 and get something from BitFenix or NZXT.

That RAM also seems unnecessarily expensive, go for this instead and save a few bucks.

Also remember that Memory Express will match prices from online Canadian retailers and beat the difference by 25%, I shaved almost $200 off the cost of my build by price matching through them. You'll be paying even less with Alberta's 0% PST.

FuryRosewood · Feb 23, 2013

Didnt notice that the ram was 1866 yea, the 1600 will be a bit cheaper, i grabbed low latency cl8 1600 but still cost me a bit of change.

spirit · Feb 23, 2013

Unless he is going to go over 16GB of RAM in the future and needs to connect to a domain and have the extra networking features Pro has, you can save money on the OS by buying Home Premium SP1 x64.

Windows 8 may be cheaper. I've got it and I quite like it. No reason not to buy it for a new build.

The i3 would be fine for light editing. I've got a friend who does editing on a Phenom II X4 840. Admittedly the Phenom is a proper quad-core whilst the i3 is a dual-core with HT, but I reckon the i3 3220 probably performs about the same or maybe even a little faster. If you can get an i5 though, go for that over the i3 for editing of course.

I'd spend more on the case and get a Zalman Z11. It's got good cable management and it looks too, so he'll love it.

It doesn't cost an awful lot more than the Antec One I don't think, but have a look anyway.

Little Help Building a Desktop?

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