Budget PC for video and photo editing (Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop)

[Robert Paulson]

I'm building this PC trying to keep it below $600-$650 (it can go just a litlle higher than that but not too much). What I have so far:

CPU: AMD FX 8320 Black Edition 3.5GHz
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 R2.0 or ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0
GPU: GeForce GT 730 2GB or XFX Radeon R7 240 2GB (both of them low profile)
SDD: Crucial BX100 2.5" 120GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB 240-Pin (I'll get more as soon as I raise more money)
Case: Pending

So my problem comes when choosing a mobo and GPU. I'm aware that the M5A99FX has a better chipset, but there's a difference of $40 between one and the other. I'd like to now if for that difference I'm actually getting a better product and why. Then there's the GPU: of course I'm gonna need it but this isn't a gaming pc, so I don't want to spend too much on that. As you see both of them are low profile, just found out about this stuff and I noticed that in all brands price is smaller for this kind of cards. But I don't know if it'll be better to get a regular one.

Thanks and have a great day.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

You could do far better for that price range. Those graphics cards are so low-end and weaker. Scrap the whole build.

 

[bambiboom]

Robert Paulson,

In my view, the budget of $600-650 would be better spent by buying a recent, used workstation and upgrading a bit. Workstations are designed for extreme reliability in continuous professional use of the kinds of applications you mention. I've bought five used workstations - and was given one- and in seven years never had a single serious failure that resulted in loss of work. Plus, buying a system means in many cases you can get to work and upgrade gradually- as necessary, never having the system out of use for more than a couple of hours at at time. Buying used saves researching, ordering, assembling, configuring, and trouble-shooting a new system. and the used system as it is a partly depreciated, high quality system will have better performance. Here's an example of the kind of thing I mean:

Dell Precision T3600 Xeon E5-1650 3.2GHz 16GB 500GB Quadro 4000 - JE -3072334
> Sold for $434.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3600-Xeon-E5-1650-3-2GHz-16GB-500GB-Quadro-4000-JE-3072334-/381420243617?hash=item58ce6b0aa1%3Ag%3AUFYAAOSw4HVWCZ5F&nma=true&si=gJlnvjDZQ80kNZHDu58YGVWArxs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Dell Precisions are beautifully made and have excellent support form Dell. When I bought a 2011 Precision T5500 in 2015- and for $171, Dell sent me a disk of the original software including Windows and the PERC 6/i drivers for that exact system free of charge. The sample T3600 has the excellent Xeon E5-1650 6-core @ 3.2 /3.8GHz. On Passmark, the E5-1650 has an average CPU score of 11730 and ranked No. 54. For comparison, the AMD FX 8320 -scores 8031 and is ranked No. 169. As Premiere is multi-threaded, there would be an advantage for more cores and this very good clock speed. Plus 16GB RAM, and even the Quadro 4000 is excellent- completely useful in for your applications.

Other possibilities might be HP z420 which also use Xeon E5's.

HP Workstation Z420 (Intel Xeon E5-1650, 3.5 GHz, 500 GB, 8 GB RAM) > sold for $521

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Workstation-Z420-Intel-Xeon-e5-1650-3-5-GHz-500-GB-8-GB-RAM-/331639814343?hash=item4d3745f8c7%3Ag%3A8MAAAOSwTapV39K3&nma=true&si=gJlnvjDZQ80kNZHDu58YGVWArxs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

If you are doing extensive video effects processing and need many cores, you could buy a low specification Precision T7500 with dual CPU's:

Dell Precision T7500 Dual Xeon E5507 Quad Core – 2.27 GHz WorkStation > sold for $137

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T7500-Dual-Xeon-E5507-Quad-Core-2-27-GHz-WorkStation-/371465495513?hash=item567d11a3d9%3Ag%3A%7EPwAAOSwo6lWIStJ&nma=true&si=gJlnvjDZQ80kNZHDu58YGVWArxs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

This is another generation back in technology, but the capabilities of 12 cores /24 threads at more or less current speed, huge amounts of RAM and all at popular prices may be worth the effort. Change the two CPu's to Xeon X5690 6-core @ 3.47 /3.73GHz for about $250 each (original cost $1,650 each) or for the budget, buy only one to start. Then add RAM (DDR3-1333 ECC). I bought 24GB (6X4GB)of this a few months ago for $100. A T7500 can support up to 192GB! Find a good used Quadro 4000 or K620, but if the work is strictly 2D,, you could start with an FX 3800 which has a 2D performance as good as either of those and can be purchased for $40 or so. the T7500 disk system is 3GB/s, but you can improve it with an SSD and eventually add a 6GB/s PCIe RAID controller. I bought a Dell PERC H310 for a T5500 for $60.

So, there are a couple of alternatives that could have a much better cost /performance ratio and probably save a noticeable amount of time and effort.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz > 32GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card 875W PSU > Logitech z313> Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3490 / CPU = 9178 / 2D= 685 / 3D= 3566 / Mem= 1865 / Disk= 2122] [Cinebench 15 > CPU = 772 OpenGL= 99.72 FPS] 7.8.15

Network: Netgear GS108-400NAS Gigabit Ethernet