Ok, I have not had a desktop PC since 2006 when I gave my water cooled AMD monster machine to my brother for xmas. Since then I have been using laptops and my wife's laptop died a horrible death and my current machine is on its last legs. So I have been out of the hardware game for a long time and the tech has advanced so much that I didnt keep up with the changes I have been working hard and got £1000 to spend on a desktop to replace mine and my wifes laptops as we now use tablets for portability. I was wondering is you good chaps can help me come up with a build for around £600 because I plan on spending around £330 on a Dell 27" touch screen monitor seen and will need to buy Windows 8.1. So I probably be left with £600 for the box and inards. I need a machine for HD video editing, footage from video cameras. I am not really interested in playing games but do need a good VGA card for encoding. If I play any games, it will be classics like C&C and RA unless I get hooked on Guild Wars 2. I was thinking of having a decent amount of ram, maybe 16GB and a fast CPU for encoding. With regards to storage I will need a good amount of space to dump video from my cameras and work space to edit. I already have 7 or 8 USB 3.0 exteral drives for storing my video when edited and encoded. A Blu-Ray drive may be optional. My wife will mainly be using it for internet and streaming TV from china. Her requirements wont put any stress on any machine Thanks in advance. Edit - I should proabably mention that im not interested in water cooling or window cases and flashy lights etc. Im past all that but still want a pretty looking case. I have been looking at the Lenovo K450 I7 version for £799 but think I should be able to build better. I like the case though
Hi, anyone out there? Is the community still alive or have I been gone too long. Anyway, after some research and having compromised with screen size, I have now purchased the following components to build my new system. OS: Win 8.1 64bit OEM DVD Monitor: Dell P2314T 23" Touchscreen Desk Arm: Dell MSA14 Case: Corsair Graphite 380T (Yellow) Mini ITX PSU: Corsair RM550 MB: MSI Z97I Gaming AC ITX CPU: Intel I5 4690K Devil's Canyon Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 16GB(2x8GB) DDR3 2400 Mhz GPU: Using on board for moment. (Considering MSI GTX 760 2GB in near future) HDD: 2 x 256GB SSD - Samsung EVO 840 Pro (Considering maybe raid 0 or non raid) Will use my wireless Logitech KB and Mouse I still have and Logitech speakers. Will strip out my Samsung R610 bluray drive to install windows. Im hoping I wont have any comparability issues with the above setup. Most of my components are currently being held up because the case is on pre-order (sep 18) which is preventing the rest of the build being dispatched. Not a lot I can do right now with a couple SSD, memory and a monitor I do wonder if its worth replacing the Intel stock cooler for Corsair H100I, going against my initial decision of having a non WC PC this time.
I wouldn't raid the SSDs personally, I think the speed will be more than enough as they are. You may find the CPU may get quite warm, I believe that I've seen a few threads about the i7 getting quite toasty, not sure if it'll also occur on the i5 but worth looking out for. Especially if you plan on tanning it doing any video encoding etc.
All that money and using stock cooler ? no thanks. Get a decent cooler on it, especially if using the onboard GPU. Also do you need a touch screen ? Also personal preference is Asus mobo over MSI. Don't bother raiding SSD's, not worth it. If you want a big drive get a big drive in the first place.
OK, ive just ordered a Corsair H100I cooler. Touch was a requirement for my wife, she really wants touch and as the 23" Dell monitor was only £160 I thought why not. I was looking at the new ASUS ITX board that was on the recent bit-tech preview list of ITX boards and decided to go with MSI in the end because it looks cool
