Question $ 700 for a CPU - GPU - MB combo for light video editing and heavy office work

Robomcd

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Nov 27, 2013
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My 12-year old DIY video editing PC (i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 MB, 16GB Ram) really is getting too old and the original graphic card (also Asus) is kaput. I will start video editing again, so I need a new rig and started to look into today’s DIY builds for our non-profit.

The combo of Asus ProArt Z790 with a i5 14 600K and a Asus RTX 4070ti looked nice … until I saw the prices here in the Czech Republic: only those three components set you back well over $ 1000. And I realized that for what I want to do, this is probably serious overkill.

Start look a bit further, and got crazy from all possibilities. Now looking for the optimum combo of MB (Z790, H770, B780?), CPU (Intel i5 14th gen) and GPU (Intel Arc B850 or RTX 4060?) with upgrade possibilities if we have more money. Budget for those three components around $ 700, the rest of the stuff I will cannibalize from our other PCs or buy later.

I have stand-alone Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, Dreamweaver, Chief Architect, Office pro.

I have a lot of unused video footage from both phones and dedicated video camera’s. Now I am partly retiring and finally want to go through that and make some nice videos for our non-profit center and for our family. Sometimes I play games, but not fanatic and not high-speed or multi-player stuff. More trucks (I have a 1965 M51A2) than F1 if you get my drift.

But for my daily work and as news junk, I often have 30+ tabs open in a browser, with four Pegasus Mail clients running and several files in Word and Excel open as well, and listening to music (streaming or from my collection) if I am not on zoom meetings. And I don’t like slow or loud PCs.

The CPU will be a i5 14th gen, a 14 600 would probably (?) be ideal but maybe the lower 14 400 or 14 500 is enough, I am not into over-clocking.

Motherboard: I was looking into Asus again, wondering if a ProArt B760 would be a good choice or a Prime Z790?

Now I came across two reviews that might make an interesting alternative: Intel Arc B850 GPU and the Gigabyte Z790 Gaming x ax MB.

What would be the best balanced combo of these components, or is there a serious cheap and better alternative?

For the rest, every combination would be in put together with 16 RAM DDR5 (can always add later) and one M.2. SSD for OS and programs.

Approximate Purchase Date: within four weeks

Budget Range: € 700 (in Czech Republic!)

System Usage from Most to Least Important:

Office work (four email clients running, word, excel, zoom meetings)
Photo work, light video editing, and design work
Web browsing (often 30+ tabs open at the same time)
Occasional gaming (not high-speed or multi-player).

Parts Not Required: keybord, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS, case, PSU, additional SSDs for data storage.

Country: Czech Republic, Europe

Parts Preferences: ASUS or Gigabyte.

Overclocking: No

Monitor Resolution: Full HD or higher, 4K not necessary
 
Most would probably point you to 32 RAM now rather than 16 now and 16 more later.

Are you averse to MSI? It seems Asus isn't getting as many favorable mentions as it did 10 or 15 years ago when you last built.

I'd at least consider a mid to upper range micro ATX board rather than a full ATX board in the same price range. And B series rather than Z. All intending to allow you to direct the spending elsewhere (RAM, CPU, OS drive; video card).

Performance differential on a common benchmark between 14500 and 14600K is about 7 percent on single thread and 22 percent on multi-thread.

14400 versus 14600K is about 53 percent in favor of 14600K on multi-thread and 13 percent on single thread.