Need Advice for Graphic Design/Gaming Rig around $800

[designchick88]

Purchase Date: Asap, within the next day or two

I am a Graphic Design student with one year left of school, I need to upgrade my old PC to run CS6 which I use mostly Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. I also would like it to run games like League and MMORPG's. Looking to spend under $800 if possible but I have a weakness for pretty cases.

My current build:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($33.16 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($184.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Phantom (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $743.11
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-02 22:44 EST-0500)

I'm not sure if it's necessary for me to get the i7 or if I can just settle for the i5 to save money.

Any advice on whether this is a decent build would be much appreciated. I already have:

- Monitor (only one for now, plan on two in the future)
- Power Supply (I bought this one awhile back and would like to reuse it)
- Keyboard/Mouse
- Windows 8 OS
- Graphics Card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 which is a bit older but not looking to upgrade at this time)

 

[JMer806]

The i7 will be better for your rendering and whatnot but it's a good place to save money. Everything looks solid, though, if you really want to keep that old GPU

 

[designchick88]

The i7 will be better for your rendering and whatnot but it's a good place to save money. Everything looks solid, though, if you really want to keep that old GPU

Thank you for the fast response! Is there a huge difference in the i7 and the i5 for the cost difference? And if I eventually want to upgrade the graphics card will this build still work with something like the GTX 670 680 or 690? This will be about a year down the road I'm just looking to future proof the build

 

[JMer806]

Thank you for the fast response! Is there a huge difference in the i7 and the i5 for the cost difference? And if I eventually want to upgrade the graphics card will this build still work with something like the GTX 670 680 or 690? This will be about a year down the road I'm just looking to future proof the build

It'll work fine with those GPUs, but keep in mind that in a year you'll be looking at a GTX 7xx

The main difference between the i7 and the i5 is hyper-threading. Basically, in certain applications the i7 can act as though it has 8 cores instead of 4, so for very CPU-intensive tasks (like rendering, coding, and others) the i7 is a better choice.

However, I'm not sure how much heavy CPU work is done in photo-editing, so I'm not sure if it'd be worth the money to you personally. I guess if you are downloading and working with a bunch of huge RAW files then it would be helpful, but I don't really know.

 

[iceclock]

max budget, and parts preferrence and what programs u gonna use?

 

[JMer806]

max budget, and parts preferrence and what programs u gonna use?

No offense, but did you read the OP?

He said:

I am a Graphic Design student with one year left of school, I need to upgrade my old PC to run CS6 which I use mostly Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. I also would like it to run games like League and MMORPG's. Looking to spend under $800 if possible but I have a weakness for pretty cases.

 

[iceclock]

it was late, give me a break mang.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Bg01
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Bg01/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Bg01/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($233.98 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 Pro Rev. 2 36.7 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($65.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.98 @ Outlet PC)
Storage: Plextor M5S Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($94.99 @ Microcenter)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 1GB Video Card ($99.99 @ Microcenter)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 520W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $726.89
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-03 13:04 EST-0500)

would be better for u. 650ti will tromp that 260 in design and gaming.

xeon is cheaper. and has 4cores+4ht-threads.

got u a new ps as that thermaltake is of bad quality. wouldnt trust it with my life.

got u a nice case+ssd.

 

[designchick88]

Thank you for the build advice, I do however want to keep things a little higher end to be able to future proof the system. I'm doing this build in steps and what I listed above is absolutely necessary right now because my old crappy Dell just won't cut it anymore.

I'm not looking to get a new Graphics card right now or a SSD (I'll get those in a couple months so I can get a 680 or 690 if it comes down in price)

The power supply I've had for about a year but will be replaced later as well.

My real question is just if the original build works together, if there is anywhere I can save a little money that's great like that CPU cooler you listed. I want to get a really nice base setup first and slowly replace the other items.

The other thing I was confused about was the Corsair Vengence memory, there are about 4-5 different ones that say the exact same thing, I wasn't sure which to go with.

 

[iceclock]

ya theyve got different colours, and stuff the ram. all the parts i took are mid-tier to highend.

unless u want to overclock. than see no reason to buy a z77 board.

 

[JMer806]

Thank you for the build advice, I do however want to keep things a little higher end to be able to future proof the system. I'm doing this build in steps and what I listed above is absolutely necessary right now because my old crappy Dell just won't cut it anymore.

I'm not looking to get a new Graphics card right now or a SSD (I'll get those in a couple months so I can get a 680 or 690 if it comes down in price)

The power supply I've had for about a year but will be replaced later as well.

My real question is just if the original build works together, if there is anywhere I can save a little money that's great like that CPU cooler you listed. I want to get a really nice base setup first and slowly replace the other items.

The other thing I was confused about was the Corsair Vengence memory, there are about 4-5 different ones that say the exact same thing, I wasn't sure which to go with.

SSD is best for overall non-gaming performance improvement over a standard hard drive. I'd aim for 120-180 GB, that seems to be the best spot for price versus size. I wouldn't go smaller because the space fills up faster than you'd think.

As far as the RAM, as long as it's 1600 mhz and 1.5V then it should be fine. Basically they have different model numbers for different colors and with or without heat spreaders. Get the ones without spreaders - make installing a CPU heatsink easier.

Iceclock - Are Xeons compatible with H77? I thought they needed a special MOBO that could use the different RAM?

 

[iceclock]

yes they are.