Building my own computer

[Tzusskin]

Looking good there, nice set of components and not a bad cable job either. Can't say I am a huge fan of the HAF series of Coolermaster cases. I am more of an ATCS man myself, not long put myself together an i7 920 based system in the Coolermaster ATCS 840 case.

[spirit_of_will]

Looking good there, nice set of components and not a bad cable job either. Can't say I am a huge fan of the HAF series of Coolermaster cases. I am more of an ATCS man myself, not long put myself together an i7 920 based system in the Coolermaster ATCS 840 case.

I used to be quite confident about putting PC's together 8-10 years ago but am well out of touch these days. How much does a decent i7 920 build cost these days? I'm looking for something to run Photoshop CS5 with (serious) ease so I'm trying to find something that could run 16GB RAM... just been on ebay browsing MacPro desktop set-ups to see how they compare.

[Eddie]

If your throwing large files around, look at including raid hard drives striping. This makes a huge diff when you open / save files. I've had some over a gig once (don't ask)

[Daize]

How much does a decent i7 920 build cost these days? I'm looking for something to run Photoshop CS5 with (serious) ease so I'm trying to find something that could run 16GB RAM... just been on ebay browsing MacPro desktop set-ups to see how they compare.

For now the best is to get an 1155 chipset thus an i5 2500K or i7 2600K (if you want hyperthreading) intel proc. You can easily run 16Gb ram on either.

[spirit_of_will]

For now the best is to get an 1155 chipset thus an i5 2500K or i7 2600K (if you want hyperthreading) intel proc. You can easily run 16Gb ram on either.

What's a decent rig running that sort of spec likely to set me back?

[Tzusskin]

All in, with a new screen I spent roughly ?1400 but I kinda went to town on the specs. I bought a very high end motherboard and solid state drive, those two parts alone would account for about ?400 and the case was another ?400. The i7 920s are already a bit out of date, I think the current mid range i7 on socket 1366 is the 950. The newer socket 1155 chips are performing extremely well at the moment (now that the issues with the early release motherboards have been sorted) and are a little better on price than the 1366 chips.

If CS5 supports GPU offloading of calculations and rendering jobs then the current nvidia graphics cards will eat up any work you want to give them, the 560 Ti cards are about the best bang for buck right now (I am running a slightly older 460 and not found much that it turns its nose up at).

AutoCAD 2011 is an absolute breeze to run on this machine (6GB RAM) so I would imagine that photoshop would be fine as well (don't have a copy to test).

Take a look at www.bit-tech.net , They run a monthly buyers guide based on various budgets with most of the suggested components being backed up be very good testing and reviews. I have been following that site for almost 10 years now and trust the info they give.

[Eddie]

Also use duel screens, one for tools, one for just the image.

[Detroit_Waves]

All in, with a new screen I spent roughly ?1400 but I kinda went to town on the specs. I bought a very high end motherboard and solid state drive, those two parts alone would account for about ?400 and the case was another ?400. The i7 920s are already a bit out of date, I think the current mid range i7 on socket 1366 is the 950. The newer socket 1155 chips are performing extremely well at the moment (now that the issues with the early release motherboards have been sorted) and are a little better on price than the 1366 chips.

If CS5 supports GPU offloading of calculations and rendering jobs then the current nvidia graphics cards will eat up any work you want to give them, the 560 Ti cards are about the best bang for buck right now (I am running a slightly older 460 and not found much that it turns its nose up at).

AutoCAD 2011 is an absolute breeze to run on this machine (6GB RAM) so I would imagine that photoshop would be fine as well (don't have a copy to test).

Take a look at www.bit-tech.net , They run a monthly buyers guide based on various budgets with most of the suggested components being backed up be very good testing and reviews. I have been following that site for almost 10 years now and trust the info they give.

400 on a case, wow! What case are you using?

Ive built every computer ive had in the past 7 years, and the most I have ever spend on a case was 170 I think, and I was reluctant to spent that!

[spirit_of_will]

All in, with a new screen I spent roughly ?1400 but I kinda went to town on the specs. I bought a very high end motherboard and solid state drive, those two parts alone would account for about ?400 and the case was another ?400. The i7 920s are already a bit out of date, I think the current mid range i7 on socket 1366 is the 950. The newer socket 1155 chips are performing extremely well at the moment (now that the issues with the early release motherboards have been sorted) and are a little better on price than the 1366 chips.

If CS5 supports GPU offloading of calculations and rendering jobs then the current nvidia graphics cards will eat up any work you want to give them, the 560 Ti cards are about the best bang for buck right now (I am running a slightly older 460 and not found much that it turns its nose up at).

AutoCAD 2011 is an absolute breeze to run on this machine (6GB RAM) so I would imagine that photoshop would be fine as well (don't have a copy to test).

Take a look at www.bit-tech.net , They run a monthly buyers guide based on various budgets with most of the suggested components being backed up be very good testing and reviews. I have been following that site for almost 10 years now and trust the info they give.

LOL I did say that I was out of touch and shock horror I'm already out of date! I might try to bring my current 2.50Ghz Quad machine up in performance by maxing out the RAM to 8GB (I'm 4GB at the mo) and see how that goes, can't be much more than ?35-40 for the extra RAM.

Also use duel screens, one for tools, one for just the image.

A new monitor is something else that I've been looking at, one of the 24" Dell IPS jobbies! I could keep my current screen as a 2nd screen but I'm a little lacking in desk space with an A3 printer and 2 scanners hogging loads of room!

[Tzusskin]

400 on a case, wow! What case are you using?

Ive built every computer ive had in the past 7 years, and the most I have ever spend on a case was 170 I think, and I was reluctant to spent that!

Oops, I meant to say that the case was ?140. I was a bit tired last night.

[Eddie]

Until you've used duel screens you don't know how good they are, when you have, you never look back.

[monkey66]

big plus 1 on the dual monitors. Been using two monitors for a good 5 years and would never revert to a single screen through choice.

[Daize]

Take a look at my link in the OP. That rig cost me a bit under 1200 euros. You could save a bit of money on the PSU probably as I got a top of the line with alot of extra power in case I want to SLI later. You can also save another 80 euros if you don't plan on overclocking and stick with the intel stock cooler, but that would really be too bad as these cpus oc great. In any case there are coolers that cost alot less then the one I got; alot of people use the Coolermaster 212+, which is the best bang for your buck. You could save some money on a cheaper MB as well, but be sure it is a P67 MB if you want to use a graphics card. A 2600K is another 100 euros, if its just to play games and browse, it is not worth the extra expense. I am not sure what components cost in the UK, but I heard they were alot more expensive for some reason.

[Mo_Robusto]

I always found computers daunting

I can just about use mine to browse the web and do basic things like transferring files from my camera to my PC and writing the odd letter. Otherwise i don't have a clue when it comes to computers.

I spent well over ?1300 a couple of years back on a new PC which i thought was a good specked system but after i got talking to some one they mentioned that for that kind of money i spent i could have gotten alot better... so i was duped by my local PC shop The PC was an Acer Aspire T671-PB74

Does anyone here build custom PC's? As my current one is becoming obsolete

Mo

[Tzusskin]

Depending on distance (i'm in Nottingham) I can certainly help out with that if you want. Failing that I can give you all the advice you need in terms of what parts you can keep from what you have (case and hard drives for backup, that sort of thing) and sort out a spec for you given a budget.