• Looking to finally build a dedicated gaming/media editing PC - $750-$950
    13 replies, posted
I've looked around at pre-built models and have found none that even seemed worthy of upgrading, so now I am looking into building my own from scratch. Unfortunately, I know little on the matter of computer hardware, their relative price/performance ratio, and compatibility. Ideally I would like to be able to build something that would be above the minimum requirements to run GTA V, but it isn't a necessity. I'm mostly looking to build something that can handle most modern games (and perhaps recording), experimental stuff like BeamNG, and editing software like Adobe Photoshop and various audio and video software while working with relatively large files. Operating system isn't a necessity, but if it can fit within the budget, I'd buy it. As I said, my budget isn't huge - I'm using a student loan to do this and would like to have enough at the end perhaps to take some bite out of buying a 24-32"monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Any recommendations on those would be appreciated as well. This is intended to be a decent computer that can get me through the next few years of college and maybe beyond.
[QUOTE=FreakyMe;47344178]I've looked around at pre-built models and have found none that even seemed worthy of upgrading, so now I am looking into building my own from scratch.[/QUOTE] Good choice, prebuilts are nearly always terrible value for money, and building your own PC is really quite easy. [QUOTE]Ideally I would like to be able to build something that would be above the minimum requirements to run GTA V, but it isn't a necessity.[/QUOTE] It is highly unlikely that any decent build in that price range won't be able to run GTA V at playable speed - it'll [I]probably[/I] look quite good even - but nobody can say that for sure until the game's out. [QUOTE]I'm mostly looking to build something that can handle most modern games (and perhaps recording), experimental stuff like BeamNG, and editing software like Adobe Photoshop and various audio and video software while working with relatively large files.[/QUOTE] These days recording gameplay is a non-issue thanks to GPU-assisted recording and encoding. Can you be more specific about picture/audio/video editing? How large projects are we talking, how serious are you about it, how important is editing speed as opposed to graphics quality in games? Are you going to need a lot of storage space, or do you already have a large external HDD (or just don't keep much work around)?
Yes it'd definitely help if you let us know which is a bigger priority. Gaming or editing.
Gaming, honestly. Editing is more of a hobby and would mostly be limited to editing print size images in Photoshop and editing GoPro video files in various software. [QUOTE]How important is editing speed as opposed to graphics quality in games? [/QUOTE] Negligibly, but I would like to see better performance than I've been getting on an array of failing, old laptops. [QUOTE]Are you going to need a lot of storage space, or do you already have a large external HDD (or just don't keep much work around)? [/QUOTE] A 1 TB HDD would suit my needs fine I think - I only keep raw photos, video gets processed and edited pretty quickly after being imported, and then the originals are deleted. I'll probably pick up a 2 TB external next semester with my grant money if I find I need more space.
[b]Edited build, swapped out mainboard[/b] Actually, Haswell i5 is faster than Vishera even for editing tasks - feel free to look up benchmarks. I'd go with something like this instead: [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9HY6jX]PCPartPicker part list[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9HY6jX/by_merchant/]Price breakdown by merchant[/url] [b]CPU:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k]Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor[/url] ($199.99 @ Micro Center) [b]Motherboard:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-z97anniversary]ASRock Z97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard[/url] ($79.99 @ Micro Center) [b]Memory:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f312800cl9d8gbxl]G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory[/url] ($67.98 @ Newegg) [b]Storage:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd10ezex]Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive[/url] ($53.49 @ Directron) [b]Video Card:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-gtx970gaming4g]MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card[/url] ($332.99 @ Amazon) [b]Case:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-case-200r]Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case[/url] ($54.99 @ Micro Center) [b]Power Supply:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-cx430m]Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply[/url] ($29.99 @ Newegg) [b]Total:[/b] $819.42 [i]Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available[/i] [i]Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-19 08:55 EDT-0400[/i]
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;47353853]The only thing I need to comment on your build taxi is H97 with a K processor?[/QUOTE] Oh, my bad, thanks for pointing that out. Just updated it.
Personally, I'd go for a better PSU than that, Corsair are alright but you'd be better off getting something with a higher build quality
Try this one: Power Supply: [URL="http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seasonic-power-supply-ss600et"]SeaSonic 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply[/URL] ($55.98 @ Newegg)
In my experience they're fine, but fair enough.
I'd also suggest upped the motherboard a tad if you can. The anniversary really only has the power delivery to properly over clock a Pentium
I really appreciate the help - this looks like a computer that would fit my needs perfectly, thanks!
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.