Building a new PC

[Justin]

OK, so my ageing P4 3Ghz tower system is reaching the end of it's useful life so the time has come to build again :-)

I want to build small this time, my back can't take moving the tower systems anymore! So I'm thinking about a Shuttle set-up. The PC will be for dye sub so I'll be running Coreldraw X4, Adobe CS3 suite etc. nothing too powerful, no games, don't even want it hooked to the net. Mainly photo/vector work.
Whilst I like the Shuttle idea I'll be working on a very small budget so maybe get a lot more for my money buying good budget mobo/case.

CPU
Don't think there's any need to go mad, a 3Ghz dual core AMD should suffice for what I need, quad core I'd probably never see the benefit.

GRAPHICS CARD
I've always put a fair bit of emphasis on this but is physical RAM more important?

MEMORY
4gb, decent brand in a dual channel kit. Is it worth going to 8Gb? Would have to look at the Windows version for this.

HARD DRIVE
Just gone back to running my OS from a small Raptor which is blisteringly quick but very unreliable (been through 4 of the monkeys)
I like the idea of playing with a new SSD, expecially in a shuttle case. Anyone using these yet? Prob only need a small one, something like this. (http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=39335&utm_source=eshot0288&utm_medium=eshot&utm_campaign=HDD0939#)
If I build into a larger case I'll think about RAID again, tried this with the Raptors and whilst quick it collapsed very quickly.

MONITOR
I have a decent screen, could probably do with calibrating properly though.

What do you guys think? Any advice on what to/not to go for?

Cheers,
Justin :-)

[castlegategiftcreations]

sorry Justin but it is all gobbledegook to me - don't understand any of it.

[Justin]

Lol, stay tuned! I'm no expert but have learn't over the years, it's a bit of a curse really, building & fixing PC's for family and friends!

I've not had to build one for a long while so want to make sure i'm up to date on the tech.

Cheers,
Justin ;-)

[JSR]

"Ageing P4 3GHz reaching the end of its useful life..."

Lol!

My ageing P4 3.06GHz PC hasn't been turned on for a year and a half because I've been doing everything on my netbook since August 2008. You don't get much lighter than that! :D

The days of me chasing after the "latest and greatest" multi-billion-core systems with gazillion gigabytes of RAM and several trillion terabytes of hard drive are long gone... :lol:

Mind you, I don't run Photoshop or Corel Draw.

[Justin]

I find I do most of my work on the laptop, Centrino Duo 1.6 or something like that! It handles everything I throw at it really which is why I don't want to build an over the top PC.

When it's running well (which it sometimes does) my current PC handles most things pretty easily, it's just been playing up for months now, I think the Mobo has a few problems. I debated swapping buts and bobs but feel it may be better to move the tech. forward a little.

Justin :-)

[Paul]

with respect Justin but whats wrong with P4 3ghz??? for that work you want to do is perfect machine! add some ram and bit biger HDD and you have a perfect PC for sublimation printing.

[Justin]

The P4 3Ghz is certainly up to the job but I've been having a lot of problems recently that point to either (or both) the mobo and cpu. Not much point in spending on old technology really. I have 3Gb RAM and plenty of drive space.

Justin :-)

[GoldRapt]

Shuttle?

[JSR]

Shuttle?
http://uk.shuttle.com/ ;)

[bms]

Had a shuttle sometime ago - was fine, but very cramped inside and awkward to build compared to standard cases. You're not going to be doing huge amounts of complex graphics, i.e. moving graphics like games play so a half decent 512meg graphics card would be fine. I'd recommend one with dual output though as having 2 screens working off a pc is a massive help.
RAM - check compatibility on 3gig + with your Windows version.
As for RAID - yes great, but backing up regularly to an external hard drive is always better as if the whole pc goes belly up then at least all your main files are stored elsewhere (preferably in a different physical location to the main pc).

[Justin]

Found a new Shuttle ready built for £199. Intel (oh well) E5300 2.6 Dual Core, 50Gb HD, 4Gb RAM. I know its not as good as building with seperate graphics card but I reckon it would do the job as well as my P4.

I think it's VGA only with single output as well.

Justin

[bms]

50gb hard drive???? Surely 500gb? :)

[Justin]

Oops, yes 500Gb! :oops:

I asked about putting in an SSD and a 40Gb (Yes, 40 this time!) would be £80 extra.

Justin

[bms]

40gb will soon get filled up with other files. If you're going for this then I'd suggest a 500gb external usb drive for backing up files. I have this on our main pc with a small dos batch file for backing up files to the other drives (one spare internal and another external drive). The batch file just checks for new files created on the main pc (within a specific directory and sub-directories) and backs them up to the other drive.

[Justin]

Yes, I have a couple of large external drives so 40Gb would be plenty. That said, the standard HD would probably be quick enough, no need to spend anymore, I think £199 is a good deal having looked around.

Justin :-)

[JSR]

Yes, I have a couple of large external drives so 40Gb would be plenty. That said, the standard HD would probably be quick enough, no need to spend anymore, I think £199 is a good deal having looked around.

Justin :-)
That's kind of how I work. My netbook has just 12GB of internal drive space (4GB on C:, 8GB on D:) but that's more than plenty for my purposes. Barely 5GB is used up with Windows and apps.

My portable apps and immediate documents are on a 16GB SD card (mirrored nightly to a duplicate card), and my accessible-but-less-immediate files are on two 320GB USB drives (host-powered so they're accessible in the event of a mains power failure). Everything is backed up onto a 1TB external drive in the event that something goes wrong. "Mission critical" data (that is the work I do on a consultancy basis) goes off-site once a week on a CD or DVD.

If my netbook ever needs replacing, there's nothing critical actually on it so it could be swapped out with very little downtime.

[Justin]

CPU
Am I right in thinking to most users there is little benefit to quad core overduel core and that not many applications take advantage of the extra 2 cores?

MEMORY
If the mobo will take DDR3 1800Mhz, am I better to put in 4Gb of same memory or 8Gb of slower memory?

OS
No point in putting 4Gb+ in if I'm running WinXP Home, so do I upgrade to Win7 or stay with XP?

[GoldRapt]

quad core is limited as it makes a bottle neck .
BAsically it is wo dual cores using the same pathways.
I have a quad core and my mate who owns a com[puter shop told me i had wasted my money.
XP wont use anything over 3gb allegedly !

ALso, I have twin geforece video cards using sli mode and 12 months on they are a waste of money as nvidia have superceeded two cards with a new single card.
Its all a mine field really,.

[Justin]

Yeah, just reading up on the net. The slower quad core could probably be overclocked to match the slower duel core but the duel core has 6Gb L3 cache which I think is a benefit. Most software won't exploit the duel core but video and photo editing should, swings and roundabouts really. The duel core would probably run cooler.

Tis true, XP won't see over 3Gb so I think it's time to go to Win7.

I don't think a huge graphics card is needed, seems more of a benefit to get everything else right, more RAM, quicker processor etc. Not playing games which is where you seem to need massive graphics cards.

Something else I'd not really thought about until now is moving uo to 64bit OS over current 32 bit.

[GoldRapt]

I play call of duty... or try too :D

[Justin]

Lol, games, power hungry applications! My 6 year old often embarasses me on the Wii so I stay clear of games!

[Dharok]

JNMann, having built a few custom spec PCs in the past for myself I could offer some good advice here.

4GB of the same memory will indeed improve the speed of the load time and amount of applications you can use, especially if the memory of the 4GB has a higher clock speed (in MHz) compared to that of the 8GB.

It is true that 8GB of memory is supported under any 64bit operating system, do the programs you use utilise all of this memory available? Probably not.

Windows 7 as a business operating solution at this moment in time isn't commonly recommended. Due to the amount of bugs and glitches still readily being seen in W7 I don't see it as being a justifiable operating system that needs to be relied upon under heavy daily use. I'd stick with Windows XP 64-bit for now, this version has definitely been the most reliable for businesses still in the past year and commercially now people are still not convinced by the likes of Vista/W7.

Quad-core processor, depending upon how much you want to spend on a new mothherboard, all Dual-Core boards will often support Quad-Core processors too. If your thinking of going Intel, or already have a Socket 775 motherboard I'd recommend spending just under £100 on a Quad-Core and purchasing some cheap 800MHz DDR2 memory to go with it. A 500GB hard drive of a decent brand will only cost a maximum of £50 so the overall cost isn't so bad.

[Justin]

I did wonder about bugs in Win7, I see a lot of folk are still sticking with XP so I think I will as well....there, that's saved me a few quid!

Software used will mainly be CorelDraw X4 and Photoshop so I'm not sure whether these would benefit from 4Gb+ and a quad processor?

Will post a few ideas of the spec I'm looking at for a wee bit of feedback.

Justin :-)

[Dharok]

I personally have a 24" monitor, natively running at 1920*1200 pixels, running on a half decent graphics card, dual core processor and 4GB of DDR2 memory. Keeping in mind this dual core processor is running at 3.0GHz it can be used to edit very high resolution images without any lag whilst also running your usual web browsers or media players at the same time.

To future proof your new specification a tad' right now I would recommend going Quad due to the value for money and the so-called 64-bit only programs that are always 'just around the corner'. Saying that, a graphical oriented computer can still easily run an a quick Dual Core and 4GB. Memory is still very cheap and I would definitely advise you to stick with DDR2 memory as the performance per buck ratio is very good still. DDR3 is still relatively new and isn't necessary unless your video editing or encoding large files.

[Justin]

I think the budget (or lack of it!) may dictate going for a dual core, not sure when the next upgrade would be so if I can just get things stable and running a little quicker that will do for now :-)

Here's a qukck idea:

Asrock K10N78M GeForce 8100 Socket AM2+ DVI VGA Out Gigabit LAN 6 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3GHz) Socket AM2 L2 2MB (2 x 1MB) Cache OEM Processor

Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Hyperx Memory Non-ECC Cl5(5-5-5-15) Unbuffered

I'm not keen on cheap motherboards but it should be ok. Hopefully push to 4Gb.

[JSR]

Good heavens. Quad-core processors, 8GB RAM, 64-bit OSes, 1920x1200 screens, 500GB hard drives...

Blimey, how do I manage on my netbook? :shock: