Advice building a computer?

Question

Can't afford a Dell workstation, so I will need to put together my own, and was wondering what combinations/recommendations you would make. at $978 the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Kentsfield 2.66GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor is a little out of reach, so was looking at Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 Merom 2.33GHz Socket M Processor Model BX80537T7600 - Retail for $630. How do they compare and what graphics card, case, motherboard, would you recommend? I work as graphic designer with photoshop 300-400MB files and also do a lot of 3D work and video digitizing. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you need to ask advice, i would advise on not doing it, the hardware is the easy thing to put together, but its the rest that is frustrating.

Answer 2

I've always built my own machines. If you want to build a great box for as little $$ as possible then you need to be looking at AMD not Intel. This machine screams. I work with Photoshop, Illustrator, DreamWeaver, AudoCAD and all sorts of 3D programs. I'm running an overclocked AMD Athlon 64 3200+ w/ 2GHz RAM, NVidia 6800GS Graphics Card on a MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum motherboard. I originally built this box for less than $500 3 years ago and just did this last upgrade for less than $150 (processor and motherboard). You don't need anywhere near the fastest stuff out there to have a beast of a machine. Stay about 2 to 3 speeds below whatever is the latest thing out and you'll maximize speed vs. cost ratio and be ahead of the game with always more to invest down the road.

Answer 3

The motherboard has to support the 64bit proccessor for high end graphics. For Video I would go with ATI 256 MB GPU for the 3D stuff This thing has the Active x 9.0 which is real sweet almoste as good as the Active X10.0 Now for the Ram since you have the Dual core CPU I would get 2Gig of RAM with dual channel DDR-SDRAM PC3200 to support the Bus speed///now for the case I would use one that will give the best cooling for you money ....The motherboard would be the one that has 1024 FSB DDR 184 DIMM slots ...

Answer 4

yep your going the right direction with the motherboard, but include at least one GB of ram for photoshop. ATI video card are a good idea. The video card should have around 512 mb of memory. as for the case, any case is good enough, if you want a pretty cool premade case, visit bestbuy. For your A drive(floppy), you should replace it with a memory card/stick reader. Get a pretty small hadrdrive for your windows program, get a REALLY big secondary hard drive (or a big portable if you like to travel a lot) to store all your photo shop doc.'s

I suggest "western digital" harddrives, very quiet and high quality

hope it helps (;

Answer 5

If you're working with that kind of stuff, you'll want both processor speed and a ton of memory. I'd put money into memory.

I'm not sure, though, that for those kinds of dollars, you'll get what you want. Unlike the "old days", you don't necessarily save a lot by putting your own together - companies like Dell and whatever have put a lot of research into eking out the best performance for their configurations.

Answer 6

Since you are primarily doing graphics work, I would suggest a MAC rather than a PC as they are just better for "heavy" graphics work.

Basically, for a PC, you want min. 2Ghz CPU, Fast video card with min 256Mb mem, and a min 1Gb RAM at 400Mhz or better, IF using Vista, make that 3Gb RAM. MB with min 400Mhz FSB, case with at least 400W power supply, to fit MB, etc. ALSO a large, fast HD with min 2Mb cache.

I would ALSO suggest that you use multiple partitions, putting ONLY the OS on C, with others for applications, data, transfer, etc. (as needed.)

I have C through F partitions on MY machines with 80GB+ HDs. (I have 9 machines currently including an "older" mini-mainframe!)

Answer 7

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