Custom PC build advise

Robando

Robando

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Hi all, I am going to build a pc for general purpose use and some HD video editing using Lightworks. I ideally want a quick pc with a high clock rate that does everything almost instantly as I do like to work quick. I will be running windows 7/8/10 and Linux os. My budget is around £300 ish :rolleyes: so I will be trying to get the best performance for my money. I may overclock if or when required. After some research I have decided to go with the following:

AMD FX 8350 CPU
ASUS M5A99X mobo
Case (500w psu included)
Corsair Memory Vengeance 8GB
Western Digital 1TB HDD
Graphics card (unsure?)

Will this combination of hardware work well together?
Can anyone suggest a better setup for my requirements?

Thanks :)
 
Robando said:
Hi all, I am going to build a pc for general purpose use and some HD video editing using Lightworks. I ideally want a quick pc with a high clock rate that does everything almost instantly as I do like to work quick. I will be running windows 7/8/10 and Linux os. My budget is around £300 ish :rolleyes: so I will be trying to get the best performance for my money. I may overclock if or when required. After some research I have decided to go with the following:

AMD FX 8350 CPU
ASUS M5A99X mobo
Case (500w psu included)
Corsair Memory Vengeance 8GB
Western Digital 1TB HDD
Graphics card (unsure?)

Will this combination of hardware work well together?
Can anyone suggest a better setup for my requirements?

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Well, I would have doubts about the case/power supply for 24.00 But hey, Its a budget system right? I would recommend going with a Nvidia chipset video card. I run a GTX-650 and does very well.
 
We've had terrible luck with the lower end ASUS boards. If you're going high end (think $250+) motherboard, stick with ASUS. Low end, stick with either MSI or Gigabyte. Although some of the higher end MSI boards are looking pretty good. But I'm getting sidetracked here.

If you cheap out on a power supply, it will bite you in the butt later. Get at least a Thermaltake or Corsair 400w+ PSU. I'd rather sacrifice half the RAM and get a better power supply, then upgrade the RAM later (though I wouldn't cheap out on the RAM either - the Corsair RAM you've got is great, just get 4GB instead of 8GB and use the extra funds for a decent PSU).

We build quite a few custom desktops ranging from $600 to $3500. The #1 cause of problems is people cheaping out on the PSU.
 
There are some good used workstations systems out there and here is one that is close to your budget, this is what I would recommend:
Dell Precision T3500 Workstation - 3.2 GHz Hex Xeon/12GB/250GB HD/Quadro/Win7
http://www.ebay.com/itm/221754296609?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Intel Xeon W3670 3.2 GHz Hex Core 64 bit CPU with 12 MB Cache (6 Cores) [speed rating 8648]
(VS the AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core speed rating 9021)
12 GB DDR3 Ram
Western Digital 250 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive
6 rear USB 2.0 port & 2 Front USB 2.0 ports
Rear eSATA port
Front and rear firewire ports
Two PCIe x16 slots, two PCIe x4 slots and 2 PCI slots
Gigabit Ethernet Port
1 Rear Serial port
Parallel port
ATI Radeon X1300 PCIe graphics card with 256 MB RAM and dual DVI outputs (Supports dual monitors)
Windows 7 Professional x64 with license and install DVD

The power supply that comes with these systems are powerful to run whatever you need.
Check the benchmark rating here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
 
8 gigs is "average" RAM for a typical office use workstation. Video editing loves RAM....I'd be going at least 16...the last one I did for a friend had 32.

Also for video editing...generally you want 2x hard drives....one for the "scratch pad/work space"...plus you spread the virtual memory (pagefile.sys) across both drives for even better concurrent performance.

Good solid power supply, I wouldn't skimp there, get one that does true 12 volts at the rail..(most do not). You want that solid juice for a higher end video card.
 
Far as everything, 8gb would suffice but the more the merrier. Also, power supply I agree. I'd get at least an EVGA 600B, or something comparable. They are fairly inexpensive, but seem reliable.

Also, I would NOT get that case. Especially for that cpu, something well ventilated is a must. I had to rebuild a system for a kid a few weeks ago who had a system similar to yours, but his case had poor airflow. So the cpu would keep overheating. Get a 990FX gigabyte board in my opinion, they should handle that chip well.

Another thing, aftermarket cooler. If budget is the key, I say grab a cooler master hyper 212 evo. The stock cooler in my opinion just is not enough for that cpu. Maybe even get a closed loop liquid cooler.
 
Just to clarify this PC build is for my own personal use and not for a customer. I am still a humble student hoping to one day become a IT technician.
Looks like the case and psu needs some more thought. :confused:
I use Ubuntu mostly for all computer tasks and find that it hardly uses any RAM so I think 8 GB will be adequate for running LIghtworks on Ubuntu. I only use windows if I absolutely have to and I also try to keep up to date with windows versions if or when I have to repair a windows PC.
I will put together a new list of hardware later on this evening and post it. For now I am thinking of going with this motherboard Gigabyte 99XA-UD3
Brilliant help so far and thanks to all of you.
 
It's not the OS that sucks up the RAM, one could argue Windows doesn't use much when it's doing nothing. Rather, it's the application itself...and video editing software works with very large files. You want to load the those files into RAM, not run out of RAM and have to resort to the slow hard drive. Even if you did all SSD...it's slow compared to if the file was entirely in system RAM.

Spend time in their user forums.....and I don't base my specs on what I think based on my use, rather...based on input and experience of those that use it on a daily basis, some clients being professional video peeps. You'll typically see 12 or 16 or more gigs be very common.
 
Robando said:
I have now put together a new list of components:

AMD FX 8350 CPU
Gigabyte 99XA-UD3
Fractal design core 2300 case
Evga-bronze-500b PSU
Corsair Memory Vengeance 8GB
Western Digital 1TB HDD
AMD Fire Pro V4900

The ram will have to be 8 Gb for now, I can always add more later if required. The AMD Fire Pro V4900 is reported to work well with Lightworks and has good driver support in Linux.
How does this setup look now?
Click to expand...

Looks like a really good system. A few observations:

Could save a few bucks by getting an FX-8320 instead as the only difference is clock speed IIRC and the cost can sometimes be significant. I would also get something like a Hyper 212 Evo for that CPU.

I question the HDD as well as Graphics card. WD AV hard drive...might want to see how it is optimized. Probably better off with a Black or a Seagate Barracuda. SSD is an obvious recommendation. Maybe get a small 60+GB SSD and pair it with a spinning drive?

I would make sure that FirePro is what you need. I am seeing prices 200+ and it MAY not be any better than getting, say, an R9 280X for the same price. Better yet - for Linux support get a one gen old card instead to ensure perfect driver support. I picked up a used 7970 instead of 280X instead. I saved lots of money and got a nearly identical card ( I think they can be flashed to 280X).

PSU...that's a good one...check your wattage usage with something like this: http://support.asus.com/PowerSupply.aspx?SLanguage=en
 
I agree with the 8320, put the money saved toward a nice aftermarket cooler, then overclock that rascal. This may seem slow by standards now, but my FX 8120 came stock at 3.1ghz. I've got it overclocked to 4.2ghz on air.

Also, I would say get a gaming card. Check this used 7950 out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Radeon-...235?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19ffb360eb

105 and 10 bucks shipping. I got mine from ebay as well and works fine. Plus the gaming card would obviously let you game if you get bored lol.

SSD, don't go for 60gb. Last time I checked, I could get a 120gb for 50 bucks at microcenter. A friend of mine who's in the market for an SSD saw recently newegg have a 500gb for 99, but by the time he got home to try to order it was gone. But I see 240-250gb for 80 bucks at Microcenter. So I would not go for a small one. At least get a 120gb or so. Your system will thank you, you would be suprised how much quicker the system seems in every day use.
 
Hi SpaceSquad and ohio_grad_06,
I looked at the price difference of FX 8350 and FX 8320, about £19. Not sure it would work out any better getting the FX 8320 as I would need a new aftermarket cpu cooler ( about £28 ) to overclock. Also if I did overclock the FX 8350 would hit higher speeds but I would need the aftermarket cpu cooler, maybe look at this in the future.
You were right about the AMD FirePro, there are cheaper performance cards out there. My budget will not stretch to a R9 280x ( £100 ish ) so after a quick read on the lightworks forums apparently lightworks is not so gpu intensive. I will probably get a Geforce GTX 570 which should do the job.
To stay near my budget I am going to use an old WD 500Gb Sata hdd, it's only 5400rpm. This will be used for storage when I can afford a SSD to run the OS's, this may cause problems with video editing but I will see how it goes. I will probably go for the Sandisk 128Gb SSD ( £45 ) I installed the 64Gb version in my laptop and made a massive difference.
I ended up buying the 600W psu to be on the safe side.

Final list is as follows:
  1. AMD FX 8350 Black Edition, Vishera, 8 Core, AM3+, Clock 4.0GHz, Turbo 4.2GHz, 8M
    £ 130.56
  2. Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3, AMD 990X, SAM3+, DDR3, PCIe 2.0 (x16), 2 Way SLi / 2 Way
    £ 81.54
  3. 600W EVGA 600B 80PLUS Bronze, 1x120mm Silent Fan, ATX, PSU
    £ 52.32
  4. Fractal Design Core 2300 Black Mid Tower Performance Case with USB 3.0 & 2x 120m
    £ 28.92
  5. 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-14900 (1866), Non-ECC, CAS 9-1
    £ 49.98
  6. WD Scorpion Blue 500Gb HDD WD500BPVT
    £ 0
    Delivery
    £4.99
Ordered it this morning for £348.31

All I need now is the graphics card Geforce GTX 570 which will cost no more than £60 used. Oh and I will need a wifi card £10 ish. After some simple arithmatic that takes me £118.31 over budget :eek: looks like beans on toast for the next few weeks...

Thanks for all the input, much appreciated.
 
IMHO, an SSD is a MUST if, as in your opening post you stated:
"I ideally want a quick pc with a high clock rate that does everything almost instantly as I do like to work quick".
THAT will make a huge difference.

Harold
 
I would still get an aftermarket cooler asap. Also as opposed to the gtx 570 maybe look at a radeon 7850.

Something like this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-XFX-Rad...136?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ee1442cd0

I'm in the US though not the UK, but there should be similar deals out there. Also, FX 8320 vs 8350, you do realize that they are both unlocked multipliers right? So theoretically they should both do well. But on stock you aren't going to do much of anything. I can tell you a friend of mine is annoyed who has one of the 8350's, because his liquid cooler is out for a warranty claim, so he put the stock cooler back on and it wants to heat up just browsing the web etc.

As far as the rest of the list. That motherboard should be solid. Also, the EVGA 600B is what I have in my pc, 49 amps on a single 12v+ rail, should handle almost any single card. No issues with mine yet.
 
Last edited:
Going with a slow old HDD is a mistake IMO. I think you'll find yourself wanting to upgrade very soon. That HDD is a huge bottleneck.

Other than that, the build is great.
 
Yes the WD hdd will be slow but I really can't afford the ssd right now. I could decomission my laptop for a few weeks and use the sandisk ssd 64Gb out of that. In fact I will do just that :cool:
I did like the look of the fractal design case, it's simple but effective with good ventilation. Also the front interface is mounted on the top and is easily accesible.
Choosing this graphics card is tricky. The card suggested - radeon 7850 does not benchmark as well as the gtx 570 radeon 7850 vs gtx 570
Awesome help, thank you.
 
Maybe, but different benchmarks tell a different story.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7850-vs-GeForce-GTX-570

gpu boss shows them to be neck and neck. Other thing to keep in mind as well if you are going to render and what not, the gtx 570 likely only has 1.2gb of vram or so. If you get a 7850 with 2gb, that may help things out. I know some guys on gaming forums were talking a year or 2 back about cards actually using all of the 1gb of vram on some cards when they turned up AA and all the effects. So might be worth considering.
 
Managed to get a sapphire radeon 7850 dual-x for £61 :). Feedback from the lightworks forums say that a amd 2Gb card should be ok.
I also ordered the hyper evo 212 cpu cooler and a nice shiny new sandisk 128Gb ssd. Just waiting for these to arrive so I can complete the build.
 
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