advice on building a PC to use for designing.

laichi

Honorable
Dec 18, 2013
8
0
10,510
Greetings gents

I'm interested in building a PC to use for web designing and having a hard time deciding what to settle for with so much out there. I used to be up to date many years ago before loosing touch with PCs. I'm getting back into it as I need one of for desinging, using softwares as creative suite, Photoshop etc including web development programms. Will also be using reason the music making programme alittle. Will also be the usual surfing the web, ms office etc

Since it won't be for gaming guessing I need to spend more on the graphics card, sound card and display monitor.

budget is around £550-650

Its something I've always wanted to do and so I'm diving into it now, just want to make sure I get it right as their's no room for error. Which is where you guys come in.

Have a few parts in mind, could you let me know If its good enough, future proof it if possible.

Mother board-asus H87-PRO Intel Socket 1150 Motherboard
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-h87-pro-intel-h87-s-1150-ddr3-sata-iiiCpu-Inteld-pcie-30-(x16)-vga-dvi-hdmi-dp

Cpu-Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Socket 1150 Quad Core Haswell Retail with Heat Sink Fan
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-4440-s-1150-haswell-quad-core-31ghz-33ghz-turbo-1100mhz-gpu-31x-ratio-84w-retail

Memory hdd-Seagate 1TB SATA 3 Performance Hard Drive OEM ST1000DM003
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-seagate-st1000dm003-barracuda-720014-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-64mb-cache-8ms-ncq-oem

Power supply -Powercool PSUPC550AUBAM 550W Modular Power Supply (PSU)
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-powercool-modular-80-plus-80-eff-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-fan-cooling-dual-rail-atx-22-psu

This is how far I have got. Need to choose a sound card if needed, graphics card and RAM.

One of my main concerns is choosing a good brand with reliable quality. Especially for power, ram, HDD.

Is the power supply a good choice any better alternatives?

For memory I went with Seagate as i've heard they are a bit less prone to damage not sure. Any thoughts on this please?

Will be using windows 7 as i've heard its better. Let me know what you think, plan is to order some parts now and the rest end of the month.

Thanks for looking,p & talk soon

Over n out
 
here it is
no need dedicated GPU
120GB samsung SSD to speed up workflow
2TB HDD for storage
small elegant case from Fractal Design

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£131.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H87M-G43 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£67.01 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£60.62 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£68.88 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£31.49 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHDS118-04 DVD/CD Drive (£10.78 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.93 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £534.82
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-19 02:13 GMT+0000)
 


You didn't give him/her a graphic card?

The OP is going to be using Photoshop... Do you know how useful even a low end 6450 for that matter is in photshop and web desigining?

Not giving a GPU to someone who is gonna be working on all those Web intensive apps that make use of the Graphic Card is insane !

OP.... I would pick something out for you ... but in my opinion you just need the following things to be great...

A core i7 non "k" version
A cheap GPU like 6450.
If you can get 16gb RAM that would be even better because Photoshop allows dedicated RAM to be allocated to it and this will definitely speed up your web apps.

Other than these three things, which I think you shouldn't avoid or cheap out on....
You can feel free to spend less money on anything else.
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£132.08 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£64.80 @ Aria PC)
Memory: GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£55.92 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£44.99 @ Novatech)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card (£66.29 @ Ebuyer)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£38.65 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£37.10 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHDS118-04 DVD/CD Drive (£10.78 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.93 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 23.6" Monitor (£143.09 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £661.63
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-19 02:44 GMT+0000)

This motherboard has SOUND BLASTER CINEMA.
 


Agree with you in most instances.

But a discrete GPU has its uses and a 6450 costs like 40 dollars.

Can't go wrong either way. I am partial to discrete GPU's when working on rendering with plenty of RAM set aside for Photoshop too.
 
Sorry forgot to mention, 16gb ram was the idea. Couldn't choose, vengence look alright and I've read corsair is good. So that is sorted.

ideas sound great guys. food for thought. just wondering if the motherboard originally picked was a good choice? Will be needing atleast a 5.1 surround sound connection too. If its a better one i'd rather go for it somitsneasier to upgrade around ..what you think?

Also notices the difference with i5 and i7 as it has more cores to work with with the 5 apparently being closer to the i3. Maybe keep the i5 and upgrade to i7 in a year or so..

The 2tb sounds like a plan, great stuff. Does the additional 120gb server as a 2ndary memory right? Excuse any silly questions, still learning.

Feels like everything picked first is a higher model to what's recommended. Could this be due to the motherboard I picked requiring the 550w power supply. Read somewhere its good to have 500w.

I'd also like a graphic card as I'm so accustomed to using one, not having it makes me feel a little uneasy ehehe really like the idea of not using one. I will be going into all areas of design not just web eventually, so maybe a good idea to grab one?upgrade later aswel

About to purchase adobe cs6 premium web and design for under £500 new..

Will still keep the Samsung 840 evo 120gb as rendering will require performance.


Nice one


 
Can't seem to find another corsair vengeance 16gb for sale that is the similar to what you recommended for The 8. There are 16gb but different colours , which one to go for in my case.. Let me know please

This one good
Corsair Memory Vengeance LP Black 16GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9-9-9-24 XMP Dual Channel Desktop

Thanks
 
Thinkign to go for this DVD/b!u ray for an extra 20, will it b okay guys? Will use a DVD recorder from a dell PC lying around.

LiteOn DH-4O3S-04-B 4x Internal BD-ROM Blu-ray SATA OEMOEM

And for power with the added graphic card, board etc which make should it be and how many watts will be enough. Heard corsair is the one for the job..I have no idea tho.

Update: will each component need to be installed, so I should download and place on an flash disk prior to starting up right?
 
This is where we are so far...

Intel i5
Asus h87 pro
2 tb Seagate barracuda
120gb Samsung sdd
16 GB ram
Asus GeForce GT 640 NVIDIA Graphics Card - 2GB(feeling good so decided why not will come in handy if I upgrade)
bluray/DVD recorder
DVD player.CDR recorder(part from an old PC )
Power 500-550w crosair
Microsoft windows 7
Nzxt phantom 410 white case(looks good and visually appealing gets me mind in design mode)
Icy box 6x slot card reader.

Hopefully that has covered everything..over budget but should be worth it. Adds up to £695 / www.scan.co.uk

Let me know your thoughts please, is it worth it or considering I will upgrade later in a year or so.

Can always upgrade i5 to i7 or xeon later, including graphic card, in time for the extra work load.

Really want to start ordering as I'll have some work shortly after the holidays..

Would really appreciate if someone with experience was to have a look over the list , let me know if I'm good to go..

Thanks
Best wishes