Powerful PC for Music Production and Gaming

[Rakk]

Unless you're planning on overclocking, water cooling really isn't necessary at all, and the triple copper cooler will be fine.
Also if you're not overclocking the Samsung 1333Mhz RAM would be perfectly fine, you'll not see much difference between it and the 1866 unless overclocking anyway.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

I'm not going anywhere near overclocking! If you don't fully understand a word, don't use it! That's my motto.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

Ok - so based on sound advice received elsewhere, I now have the following two options - Intel and AMD.

These are my requirements:

1) Must play LOTRO and most modern games at highest graphics settings.
2) Should be easily upgradable for the foreseeable future, if the need arises.
3) Should be suitably equipped with a decent cooling system, which includes the case.
4) Should be able to run quite demanding film/sound editing software.
5) Should be a great PC to last me the 4 years I will need to pay it off.
6) Should realistically come in at under £1,000, to keep the payments below £30 a month.

Here's the AMD option:

-----

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD BULLDOZER QUAD CORE FX-4170 (4.20GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3: M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £862.00 including VAT and delivery.

-----------

And now the Intel option:


Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3550 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £977.00 including VAT and delivery.

-------

Over £100 difference. Which is the better PC, and where could I alter things to make it an all round better computer?

Thanks!

 

[andkin787]

I'd choose the AMD but swap out the 16gb of 1866mhz ram and substitute 8gb of 1600mhx ram, and I'd get a HyperX 120gb SSD as your boot/windows/load critical games drive and keep the 2TB as the drive for everything else. The SSD will give you far more visible/actual speed than the extra 8gb of ram ever will.

 

[Rakk]

I'd choose the AMD but swap out the 16gb of 1866mhz ram and substitute 8gb of 1600mhx ram, and I'd get a HyperX 120gb SSD as your boot/windows/load critical games drive and keep the 2TB as the drive for everything else. The SSD will give you far more visible/actual speed than the extra 8gb of ram ever will.

However given he ideally wants to use some high RAM usage software for editing, the 16GB will actually be very useful for him, though yes I'd certainly drop it down to the 1600MHz or 1333MHz rather than the 1866 or 2133

 

[MaltonSeadog]

Yep, 16GB is worth it for me, for only £40-50 extra.

Could someone briefly explain how SSD and HDD working together works?

So when I install ANY software, will it ask me which of SSD and HDD I want to install it to?

Do they simply act as two seperate hard drives?

 

[Rakk]

Do they simply act as two seperate hard drives?

Yes, it really is that simple
As long as the installation wizard lets you choose where to install stuff (which is probably about 99.999% of software) you can choose whether to install it on the SSD or other drives.
Generally you'd want the OS and your most used programs on the SSD.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

Great, thanks!

So really, 120GB would be well enough for SSD. That'd fit Windows 7 and the majority of my software on it.

Then I can back it up with a 1TB or 2TB HDD, which is enough for anyone surely? I struggle to fill my 80GB HDD now!

 

[Rakk]

Then I can back it up with a 1TB or 2TB HDD, which is enough for anyone surely? I struggle to fill my 80GB HDD now!

Well, some people use a lot more space than others
But I remember thinking the same thing, my previous PC had a 250GB drive and it was maybe half full, so when I got my new PC I though 250GB will easily be enough.
So, 7-8 months later after I'd got a few new games, my comment was 'what do you mean, I've only got 10gigs worth of space left .....'

 

[MaltonSeadog]

HDDs really don't use a huge chunk of the budget up, so I reckon a 2TB is well worth investing in, even if it is overkill for the time being.

 

[Karnor00]

I had a quick look at the required specifications of the sound software you linked in your first post and all 3 of them listed as a requirement a sound card with ASIO drivers. So while onboard sound is very good for gaming, I think you will need to include an actual soundcard to meet your video/sound editing requirements.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

OK guys, almost there.

Can you improve this PC and keep it under £1,000?

As someone above stated, I also need a soundcard with ASIO drivers and 16GB RAM for certain software. I think I now have everything I need.

If you can suggest an improvement though and keep it under a grand, that'd be great.

My only lingering concern is the GPU, but I think the one I've chosen is still pretty good. It's whether it'll have the durability and lifespan to keep gaming possible for 2-3 years though...

----

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD BULLDOZER QUAD CORE FX-4170 (4.20GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3: M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£32)
Network Facilities
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 Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £987.00 including VAT and delivery.

----

Edit - add silver warranty to that and get rid of Office and Bullguard...

Here's a version without SSD, but with better GPU:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD BULLDOZER QUAD CORE FX-4170 (4.20GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3: M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium (£59)
Network Facilities
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
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £990.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Karnor00]

Both specs look fine - it's really down to personal preference which you prefer. If it were me I'd go for the version without the SSD but with the better GPU because it will make more of a difference in games.

But other people may prefer the fast boot/load times for programs on the SSD.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

Fast loading times isn't really an issue to me.

My current boot time is around 2 minutes, with Photoshop CS4 taking anything up to 90 seconds to load up.

I'm used to it, really!

 

[Rakk]

Both specs look fine - it's really down to personal preference which you prefer. If it were me I'd go for the version without the SSD but with the better GPU because it will make more of a difference in games.

Agree here, its the GPU that decides how well the games will run, the better GPU you have the better FPS you will have and the higher settings you can set.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

On that basis, is there anything else you'd lose to get up to the GTX680?

Also - is there a great advantage in going up to the six or eight core Bulldozer CPU?

 

[Karnor00]

On that basis, is there anything else you'd lose to get up to the GTX680?

Also - is there a great advantage in going up to the six or eight core Bulldozer CPU?

Given that the difference in price is over £200 between the GTX570 and GTX680, and your other sound editing requirements I think you'd end up losing too much to try and get a GTX680 into the budget. The GTX570 is still a very good card for todays games - the GTX680 is pretty much overkill on a single screen setup.

As for the CPU, for most games there wouldn't be any advantage in going up to a six/eight core Bulldozer. There are a few exceptions such as Flight Simulator X and Civilization 5. However I don't know what impact it would have on sound editing software, but I suspect that they may benefit from the extra cores.

However I would drop the memory from 1866MHz to the 1333MHz version as unless you are planning on overclocking your system there is literally no difference between the two (other than the £40 price difference which you could use to upgrade the CPU a bit).

 

[MaltonSeadog]

And so we arrive here:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD BULLDOZER EIGHT CORE FX-8150 (3.60GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3: M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 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
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium (£59)
Network Facilities
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
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £1,004.00 including VAT and delivery. (£30.70 a month)

----

RAM reduced to 1333, and CPU upgraded to highest possible on this configuration.

 

[MaltonSeadog]

Although I'm slightly concerned that the FX-8150 has scored so poorly on most reviews I've read, usually 4 or 5/10.

Is an i5 a serious consideration if I can stretch my budget a little?

Are FX-8150 really so poor?

 

[Karnor00]

I don't think it would break the budget too much to order the computer with an intel i5 rather than AMD processor. Unless I've missed off something obvious in the spec below, it only adds £10 to the total cost.

Edit: Just noticed that I put in a lower spec soundcard compared to your spec, so in total it would cost £37 more than your AMD spec.


Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3550 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 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
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£32)
Network Facilities
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: £1,014.00 including VAT and delivery.

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