1000$ MusicProduction/PhotoEditing PC

[Matt_Kursch]

To be honest, I started off looking for a pre-built system, and was leaning towards this ZT Systems machine. But I wanted to explore my options with a new build.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

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Approximate Purchase Date: 1st week of October 2010

Budget Range: upto $1000 USD

System Usage from Most to Least Important: A little Music Production (Cubase) and considerable Photoshop (on CS2 now but want to upgrade to CS5).

Parts Not Required:
Mouse - Logitech M310
Sound Card - Delta 1010
Monitor - U2311H
OS - Windows 7 Ultimate

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel Core i7 Processor , DDR3 RAM (6-8 GB) , at least 500GB SATA HD

Overclocking:Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: I do not play games at all. So, No?

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments:
- Looking for a wireless keyboard
- I do not need a BluRay player
- I plan to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and while I know a quiet PC is ideal, I'm not mighty keen on it, esp. since my music production will be sporadic.

 

[obsidian86]

edited
$1020

 

[Matt_Kursch]

Thank you!
12GB RAM - would that be to account for CS5 or Cubase?

Also, if I were planning to overclock this, would the provided cooler and the 400W supply still be ok?

I should have probably mentioned that I'm looking to also get a SATA HDD, at least 500GB.

 

[photonboy]

some points:

1) If your budget is $1000 then getting a huge SSD will drastically reduce the amount you can spend on other parts. I don't recommend it. An SSD will make little difference on photo/video editing as the files being processed are loaded into your RAM and when they are saved it only takes a second to transfer a 70MB file (on average) to an inexpensive 1TB drive.

I recommend a 1TB WD Black drive for Windows, partitioned to 100GB (C:Windows) and the rest to D: (multimedia).

I recommend a second hard drive to make periodic full IMAGES of Windows and to store critical files or just copies in case of a primary hard drive crash (for $80 a 1TB is a great bargain).

2) Spend $150 on a new NVidia graphics card.

3) 1156 Motherboard (Gigabyte, Asus or MSI)

4) i5-750 or i7-860 CPU recommended (if fully utilized the i7-860 can add 30% more processing power than the i5-750. It's $100 more. I've utilized all 8 threads in Handbrake and Acronis backup fully at 100% so the i7-860 is my recommend.

5) 8GB DDR3 (unless you absolutely know you need more. Too much adds heat/noise from fans.)

6) Corsair 750W PSU

7) Antec 300 case (got on sale. Great case with 2x120mm fans. Use fans on lowest level)

8) $40 CPU heatsink/fan cooler. (look at reviews. $80 is overkill)

Notes:
SLI/Crossfire? (NO. Only needed when the best card available like an HD5870 is still not enough. SLI and Crossfire actually create issues.)

Get an NVidia card. NVidia is much farther ahead for Graphics support of video/photo editing using CUDA. Just Google this if you doubt. There's really no support from ATI yet that works so the programs I currently use just use the CPU only.

CUDA.
Nvidia is exporting CUDA to support CPU's. So before the end of 2011 we'll see the ability to use BOTH the graphics card AND the CPU at the SAME TIME instead of one or the other.

Based on my research I believe the best value for you is a $300 CPU and a $150 NVidia card (latest DX11).

1156 vs 1366?
1156 is slightly cheaper and more efficient.
The 1366 has 2x the PCIe bandwidth, however even the 1156 supports 2xHD5870 graphics card which is a lot. You'd never need more than the 1156.

 

[obsidian86]

he wont be gaming so why recommend a 5870?