PC build for HD Video Editing and Gaming

[Gigeralien]

As I posted in the new members topic thread I’m looking to buy myself a new PC in the next couple of months or so.

My budget will be in the region of £1300 - £1500 for a desktop PC that will be used for a range of applications. As well as general everyday use and using Microsoft Office for working at home, it will need to be practical for Photo and Full HD video editing and memory storage, and it would be very nice to finally play games again that are both great and visually stunning without losing performance. I’m not sure my budget stretches to allow max settings for this though... maybe there is something that can give way for this?

Below is the spec I have put together at the top end of my budget, as I had done previously with my 11 year old Dell I have used over spec in some areas so I can future proof for as long as possible based on current technology before needing to buy new again.

Please feel free to tear my spec apart as no offence will be taken, I will be very happy of any advice to help me create the perfect machine within my budget that I can get the most out of!


Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
60GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£72)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium - Fatal1ty Professional Series (£104)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Firewire & Video Editing
3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card (£9)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£9)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Total Price £1490.00

 

[wereireland]

EDIT: I have forgotten some things like anti-virus and firewire but i was looking at most essential things so remember to throw them in.


There is no need for the sound card. The onboard sound card is good enough for most people unless your into music production or anything like that. I would upgrade the graphics card so you can play nearly EVERY game on max settings with above average fps. I have included it in my build.


Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM ENFORCER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
60GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W TX SERIES (TX850) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£99)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£49)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,536.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-sandy-bridge-pc/

 

[Wozza63]

better off just getting a 3TB drive rather than 2 seperate, it should work out cheaper, although they aren't always available when i look

 

[iTzMEKKAOUI]

one fail of a spec.

 

[Rakk]

one fail of a spec.

Uh????

If you are going to state such bold comments, you should explain why you think it's not good, cos that comment most certainly wasn't useful in any way shape or form

 

[wereireland]

Uh????

If you are going to state such bold comments, you should explain why you think it's not good, cos that comment most certainly wasn't useful in any way shape or form

I think he was talking about me because i forgot so much stuff in it.

 

[Gigeralien]

Hi all,

Thank you for the advice so far, in the case of iTzMEKKAOUI , I’m not sure where that was aimed either, so if it was at me I guess I asked for it when I said tear my spec apart with no offence taken! However, with your thought appreciated you offered no explanation as to why! :detective:

And with that now aside I’ll explain my thoughts on my spec and the advice I’ve received so far.

I did originally consider a single 3TB drive, and only changed this to a 1TB and 2TB drive as I didn’t want to clutter up a single drive regularly used with lots of old archive Video edits and impact its performance as it fills up. It also seemed to make sense adding the Green Caviar for specifically this purpose as I believe the drive shuts down extremely quickly without continuous use? That would leave me with the Black Caviar for storing Music, and the current Video I’m working on which would be in continuous use with the Drive always remaining constant.
Taking the comment on board I did play around with the spec, though could only find a 3TB Caviar Green which also oddly put the price up further than over the two separate 1TB and 2TB drives when I thought it would come down!
I was hoping this would allow me to upgrade the Graphics Card to 1.5GB from 1.25 within budget, but unfortunately even without the X-Fi Fatal1ty it takes the price up into mid £1500.

Trying hard to remain within the strict budget I’ve set myself I have looked at where else I could possibly save money and attempt to keep a high performance. With this in mind I looked at the RAM memory and the Sound. I wasn’t sure if I would actually need 16GB RAM so have taken this down to 8GB, and although a faster mhz I’m not sure this is the right decision as I so often see arguments supporting capacity over speed (Also wondering if speed will make a difference at all as I’m thinking it’s the capacity that Full HD uses more). And although I was hoping to have a 7.1 surround system but using Wereirelands advice I can instead use the onboard 5.1 instead as a sacrifice which I can upgrade a further 2 channels to 7.1 easily later with the Fatal1ty.

So I’ve now, keeping the 1TB Black and 2TB Green Drives, removed the X-Fi Fatal1ty sound Card keeping the onboard only, upgraded the Graphics Card to 1.5GB and although halved the RAM memory to 8GB I’ve opted for using Kingston 1600mhz opposed to the 16GB Samsung 1333mhz.

Would this be better than the previous spec or will I see an impact on HD video editing because of RAM decrease?

New Spec now detailed below:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
60GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£72)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Firewire & Video Editing
3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card (£9)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£9)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Total Price £1474.00

 

[Wozza63]

a hard drive can be easily partitioned to appear like 2 drives software wise and everything will be kept seperated

 

[Frenchy]

Actually wozza, im not sure if others would agree with me, but I would always prefer to have two smaller drives for example two 1.5's instead of a 3. Not really sure my reasons behind this. I think it mainly comes from the fact im a photographer, and I would always carry around 4 1GB cards rather thana single 4GB, if the card got ruined it would be all my photos lost, if I lose 1 card then I only lose 1/4 of my earnings. Same with harddrives, I use my computer for my business (im a games developer), I currently have the two data drives in Raid mirroring them, if one dies its all easily restorable.

 

[shocksalot]

Hello Gigeralien, not entirely sure what sort of video editing you do but personally i create VFX in packages such as Nuke and After Effects (i also specialise in 3D software but thats irelivant right now =P), heres a list of things for you to prioritise for this kind of setup:
1: CPU, this will speed up rendering (aswell as other things)
2: Hard drives: you will need a ton of storage for this kind of work, so i recomend getting multiple drives (its never safe to put all your pennies in one pot), also the Write speed will also improve render times, aswell as import times.
3: RAM; if you do use any vfx software you will need tons of RAM for prev renders and real time rendering (also the more footage in your scene the more RAM the application will use).
4: Cooling: worst case sceneario your hard drives suffer heat death and you lose your work (trust me this does happen!), the right PC case can make all the difference! be sure to get a case with a fan located in front of the drives (this is usually at the lower front). Also a decent CPU cooler will improve your render times (heat causes cpu's to suffer in terms of performance and life expectancey).

get those 4 things sorted and then based on your remaining budget chose your GPU / mobo, because you also want to game i recomend getting at least a 1GB GTX 560ti (nividia) or a 6950 (ati).

hope this helps dude.

 

[Gigeralien]

Wozza365, Yep, on a positive note Partitions may work for me, and something I’d not given much consideration to when getting carried away and thinking about additional drives.

On the current spec configuration I’m using I only have the option of changing to a 3TB Caviar Green that still pushes the price up (do you know where I can change this to give me more options?), albeit only slightly and still within budget. Understanding that the Caviar Green is also quieter than the Black (which is also a bonus) would I really notice anything significant using the Green alone being it more of a power saving drive?

The other good point of being able to use a single partitioned 3TB drive also means that I have the option later on of adding a further 3TB drive without upgrading the PSU as the current spec can accommodate it.

However, the negative side of this follows Frenchys post, redundancy is something else I hadn’t really given too much thought about for my new PC, mainly due to I’m used to the lack of available space on my current system which means I regularly have to back up to external Drives of which I have quite a few now.

On the one hand I could partition a 3TB hard drive to 1TB/2TB but cannot use RAID for redundancy as I do not have an additional drive, meaning I have to keep using external back up drives, of which I already have several and I’d actually like to get away from…Or use the original 1TB Black and 2TB Green Drives I've already configured but can only see and use 1TB of the 3rd Drive if I use RAID for redundancy? Also I would need to use Mirrored Volume for this purpose too as Striped wouldn’t be of benefit, is this right? Just a bit concerned using this, as if I used this option I would want RAID to be used on the 3rd Drive without affecting the SSD 1st Drive and 1TB 2nd Drive, not quite sure how this works.

Dependant now upon further responses I think I already have a few decisions to make that could affect either the spec or the budget I have…

I would just like to say thank you so far for your thoughts and observations, the feedback I can see already is making me think differently about the set up of my own perfect PC!

 

[Gigeralien]

Hello Gigeralien, not entirely sure what sort of video editing you do but personally i create VFX in packages such as Nuke and After Effects (i also specialise in 3D software but thats irelivant right now =P), heres a list of things for you to prioritise for this kind of setup:
1: CPU, this will speed up rendering (aswell as other things)
2: Hard drives: you will need a ton of storage for this kind of work, so i recomend getting multiple drives (its never safe to put all your pennies in one pot), also the Write speed will also improve render times, aswell as import times.
3: RAM; if you do use any vfx software you will need tons of RAM for prev renders and real time rendering (also the more footage in your scene the more RAM the application will use).
4: Cooling: worst case sceneario your hard drives suffer heat death and you lose your work (trust me this does happen!), the right PC case can make all the difference! be sure to get a case with a fan located in front of the drives (this is usually at the lower front). Also a decent CPU cooler will improve your render times (heat causes cpu's to suffer in terms of performance and life expectancey).

get those 4 things sorted and then based on your remaining budget chose your GPU / mobo, because you also want to game i recomend getting at least a 1GB GTX 560ti (nividia) or a 6950 (ati).

hope this helps dude.

Hi Shocksalot,

Thank you, I've only just seen your post straight after I posted my last one so I wasn't able to include your input, As it's now getting late, I will take your points and be sure to take notice of them in consideration of my spec in next post. Thanks again.

 

[Wozza63]

as it is not your main drive and you wont be putting all your programs on there, you will not notice much difference, although games won't run great on there I believe, they will probably take a while to load