Specification comments please

S

sherman39

Member
Having "staggered" across PCS whilst looking for computer manufacturers other than Dell I got a good feeling from reading this forum.I am not down on Dell, in fact have been well served by them, its just that I would like to choose component brands for a change rather than whatever Dell has as standard.
I am not a gamer, but do edit video(very amateurishly) using a product called Corel Video Studio X2.I originally chose this because I was impressed with the users forum. My camera records in AVCHD but my current PC, a six year old Dell Pentium 4 cannot cope with that format and I tend to convert to HDV. I have a budget of £1,500 but do not wish to waste money and would have no objection to saving money if the spec I have put together is complete overkill. I do occasionally watch TV via my PC, other than that my computer usage is largely mundane.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. That said whilst I have used a PC for years I am not a techie.
One other concern. I pay Dell for at next working day on site repairs (although as my PC is over 6 years old that is no longer an option) and have no experience of having to return to base for repairs. Other than having to store the original packing to use if needed are users "happy" with turnaround speeds for repairs

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 PRO (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0/SATA 6Gb/s, CrossFireX™ & SLI
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x LG BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£69)
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
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155/1156 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£32)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI EXPRESS CARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£139)
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£8)
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,465.00 including VAT and delivery.

Regards

Paul
 
Last edited:
MrShteeeve

MrShteeeve

Well-known member
Hi Paul and welcome to the Forums. I had a read of what you use your PC for, and I'd presume there to be no sort of serious gaming going on with the desktop in question? Also do you write data/videos to Blu-Ray's? One last thing, will you be using external speakers or the Monitors? And do you already have a TV tuner card? I will start having a fiddle round with the spec and see what I can do while I wait for you to have a read and reply :).

Steve.
 
Last edited:
MrShteeeve

MrShteeeve

Well-known member
I was thinking about this spec, as the i7 won't really get used, unless gaming etc, the i5 is more than enough really.

Spec.

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£48)
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-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£139)
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£8)
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,321.00 including VAT and delivery.
 
Last edited:
bg92

bg92

Expert
Didn't you get it wrong? From what I know i7 has hyperthreading and this is what doesn't help in games, but it might do in video editing. The i5 would be definately a better option if this was a gaming rig, but the i5-2500 should still be enough for your needs.

Edit: Instead of gtx560 2gb you could go for gtx470, it has more cuda cores, this might benefit you if the programs you are going to use for video editing are using Cuda technology.
 
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MrShteeeve

MrShteeeve

Well-known member
I knew they came stock HT disabled, I always thought you could enable it in bios from previous experience.
 
Fear

Fear

Prolific Poster
The i7 2600 is the only 1 that has the Hyper Threading and it will be be running as such, so in task manager you will see the 8 cores showing.

The i5 has a slightly slower clock and does not have the Hyper Threading so if you can afford the i7 go for that.
 
S

sherman39

Member
Thanks for the responses.

I am not a gamer and do not envision becoming one.
At present I do not write to Blue-ray discs (I do not have the facility to do so) and am not sure if I will but it's a nice to have
.I "save" my video editing "masterpieces" to YouTube so they are readily accessible to any interested party with a computer.
I do have stereo speakers attached to my present PC and will probably just transfer them to the new PC.
I do not have a TV Tuner card. The PC TV watching that I do is "catch-up" on BBC IPlayer or similar. Occasionally I will watch football live via the PC, and let someone else watch the TV.

Other than saving money is there any other reason to going green rather than black for the 2nd HDD.Conversely is there any disadvantage.
I have absolutley no knowledge of "cooling" so will the "SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)" be of real benefit?
I take the point about additional CUDA, the Corel Video Studio software that I use at present does not utilise CUDA but doubtless it will in the next release.

I did try to look at using the i7 2600sand an appropriate mother board but other than one review could find little written about it.Does anybody have any thoughts on using that.

Regards and thanks again
Paul
 
Last edited:
bg92

bg92

Expert
This is maybe a little bit overkill for your needs, but it would be future proof.
Caviar green is more of a storage drive where you could save your work and etc, it is a bit slower then the caviar black. The caviar green also takes less energy, makes less noise.
I would go for SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19) as its quieter than stock cooling and cools your cpu better, and its not expensive.
As for motherboards I would go for ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO.
Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, NVIDIA® SLI™, ATI® CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 470 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - DX® 11, 3D ***SPECIAL OFFER***
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x LG BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£69)
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
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£139)
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£8)
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,438.00 including VAT and delivery.

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

MrShteeeve

Well-known member
Sorry I've been out all day. The differenceis minimal between the 2 audio cards you could spend the money elsewhere and get better performance. I'd recommend the above spec, but for some reason, despite you saying you don't write to blu ray it's still included, so you could just knock it down to the BDROM drive which reads BD's and writes to DVD.
 
S

sherman39

Member
Mr Shteeve, bg92 and Fear, thank you all for your input.

Mr Shteeve: Although I have no need at present for a Blue Ray writer it may be something I will use in the not to distant future, thanks for the thought on the sound card/on board sound, I will save the money and enhance elsewhere.
bg92: Would you kindly expand on why you think the P8Z68-v Pro will improve the specification.
Fear: Green it is for the 2nd HDD, thanks.
Paul
 
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