$1000 Work PC

[jtbryant]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Feb. 1st

BUDGET RANGE: $1000

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Multi-Tasking, Network Management

PARTS NOT REQUIRED:Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, Hard Drives, DVD Burner

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: TigerDirect.com, Directron.com

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: Intel CPU, ATI Video Card

OVERCLOCKING: No

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: In the Future

MONITOR RESOLUTION: NA

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Work PC

Looking to build a new work PC. I need a good functional case, USB ports and mic/speaker up high (Antec 200?) I can get more bang for my buck building it than ordering from Dell or Lenovo.

Need to be able to upgrade in the future, need a lot of power for a multitude of tasks. I do it all in my IT dept. from transcoding video to Excel.

Whatever card I get needs to be dual DVI-D, I must keep my two SyncMaster 204t's. I have a lot of stuff running at once - Outlook stays open, Firefox (5 to 6 tabs at a time), Total Commander, Cisco Network Assistant, Polycom PVX - and a huge assortment of other programs I need. A gaming video card is not a need, but a POWERFUL card is - not sure there is a difference. My budget is almost gone, so I've got to stretch it this year, but I have to have a new PC.

Would an SSD drive be worth it?

 

[enzo matrix]

Generally, I would advise for you something like the following:
-core i7 920
-socket 1366 motherboard (6 cores will be coming out on it)
-radeon 5670
-3x2GB triple channel memory- mushkin, OCZ, or another reputable brand. Don't just pay attention to the speed though, speed is also determined by a lower timings. For example 6-6-6-18 DDR3 ram at 1066MHz will probably perform better than 7-8-7-22 DDR3 ram at 1600MHz (12GB not needed now but you'll have the option to upgrade down the road)
-Antec three hundred case

As for the SSD, it's up to you if it would be worth it. A good one like the OCZ vertex at 60GB would be at least $200, if not more. The advantages of them would be low access time and faster speeds, so windows would load faster, and applications will load faster from disk. If you look at the reviews online, they can find a practical difference of, in some cases, twice the speed of a normal hard drive. For me personally, it wouldn't be worth it. However another thing to mention is that SSDs won't fail like hard drives.

 

[jtbryant]

Can I get that machine for $1000? What type of power supply?

Thanks,
jtbryant

 

[banthracis]

i7-920 under 1k is difficult. But, why would you wanna go x58? You don't need the extra PCIE bandwidth since you aren't xfiring.

For your budget I also doubt you're looking for $300-400 CPU's, so the i9's are out.


I don't see any heavily threaded programs being mentioned and honestly you could do everything you want fine with an i3 or Phenom II x3.
[strike]
SSD is hard to fit in on such a tight budget. [/strike] NVM, made a X25-V fit =D

PSU wise a good 400W is all you'll need. I'll throw together a build for you in a bit.

 

[banthracis]

Optical Drive
LG $23.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136167

Case
Antec 300 $59.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

Ram
Corsair XMS3 DD3 1600 7-8-7-20 $109.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145285

Mobo
Asus USB 3.0/SATA 6.0 $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131620

CPU $124.98
i3-530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115222

OS/GPU
Win 7 Premium and 5770 $259.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.297961

PSU/HD
OCZ 600W and Spinpoint F3 500gb $109.98 w/ $25 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.323089

PSU is more than you need, but it's basically $30 after combo and rebates. Excellent deal.
That HD is probably the best non SSD HD available. Beats even a velociraptor in important benchmarks.

Total: $848.91 before shipping and $25 MIR.

With the savings you could either upgrade to a i7-860 if you need want 8 threads, or actually grab a 40 gb X25-V SSD $129.99 as a boot/apps drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167025&Tpk=x25-v

SSD's are definitely a major performance difference. Not merely 2 or 3x faster, but an order of magnitude in some cases.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=20
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-ssd-performance,2518-10.html

 

[jtbryant]

Best answer selected by jtbryant.