[ask] Building PC with limited budget

[juliand_fergie]

Dear friends,
I'd like to build a computer system (PC Only) that could support video editing, and game. The problem is, I only have a limited budget around $ 670 ($ 680 max).

One of my colleagues suggested these specification:

Proc: AMD AM3 Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
M/B: MSI 870A-G54
RAM: DDR3 PATRIOT PSD3 2G 1333 H
Harddisk: 3.5Inch Seagate SATA II 1TB 32Mb
VGA: Sapphire HD 5750 512Mb 128Bit DDR5
Optical Drive: Sony DVDRW 24x Box
PSU: Speedpower AX-550-S 550W
UPS: Prolink Pro 700

Does the spefication above adequate enough for my purposes? Or can I get more with my tight budget?

I really need some opinion here, for I don't know much about PC specification. I'm really sorry if my english wasn't good enough.

Thanks before, I'm looking forward to hear from you guys..

Best Regards,


Juliandi

[wonderwrench]

Dear friends,
I'd like to build a computer system (PC Only) that could support video editing, and game. The problem is, I only have a limited budget around $ 670 ($ 680 max).

One of my colleagues suggested these specification:
Does the spefication above adequate enough for my purposes? Or can I get more with my tight budget?

I really need some opinion here, for I don't know much about PC specification. I'm really sorry if my english wasn't good enough.

Thanks before, I'm looking forward to hear from you guys..

Best Regards,


Juliandi

Two gigs of ram is a little light for gaming and video editing. Four gigs would work much better. What OS are you going to run? The MSI 870A-G54 motherboard looks good. It supports the new SATA3 and USB3 standards. Question: Do you really need SATA3/USB3? If not you could cut the motherboard price down by 30-50% and use the savings for more memory.

I see you are looking at an AMD AM3 Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU. Are you going to overclock? If not you could save some money here also. Though you would loose some CPU performance in doing so. IMO it would be a good trade off to get more memory.

The video card should be ok though its only a 512 meg card. Some newer games need more than 512 megs of video memory for smooth game play at higher resolutions and quality settings. The difference in cost between a 512 meg and 1 gig HD 5750 is 10 bucks or less in most cases.

I can't comment on the PSU or UPS as I have never heard of them. A PC's PSU is the most important part in the system. Cheep PSU's can cause instability and or damage to system components.

A price list and or a link to the retailer your buying from would help us get a better idea of whats what.

Bill

[juliand_fergie]

Two gigs of ram is a little light for gaming and video editing. Four gigs would work much better. What OS are you going to run? The MSI 870A-G54 motherboard looks good. It supports the new SATA3 and USB3 standards. Question: Do you really need SATA3/USB3? If not you could cut the motherboard price down by 30-50% and use the savings for more memory.

I see you are looking at an AMD AM3 Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU. Are you going to overclock? If not you could save some money here also. Though you would loose some CPU performance in doing so. IMO it would be a good trade off to get more memory.

The video card should be ok though its only a 512 meg card. Some newer games need more than 512 megs of video memory for smooth game play at higher resolutions and quality settings. The difference in cost between a 512 meg and 1 gig HD 5750 is 10 bucks or less in most cases.

I can't comment on the PSU or UPS as I have never heard of them. A PC's PSU is the most important part in the system. Cheep PSU's can cause instability and or damage to system components.

A price list and or a link to the retailer your buying from would help us get a better idea of whats what.

Bill

Thanks for your advice. I'm planning on using Windows XP and Windows 7 if it's possible. I'm also having some difficulty on deciding which component / hardware that would be unnecessary for me to have so I could save some money to spend on RAM. I have another options on m/board. What if I'm using ECS IC890GXM-A or perhaps ECS A790GXM-AD3. I don't know which one is better.

I'm looking to use AMD AM3 Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition not just by any reason. I wanted my PC to run smoothly, both on video editing & playing games. I also heard that video editing runs great in a processor that have more core. I also planning to tweak/OC-ing my processor just a little bit.

The price list should be in this address, but it's in Indonesian rupiah. FYI, 1 USD is equal to around IDR 9200/9300

http://rakitan.net/simulasi.php


thanks for your help, I'm looking forward to hear from you.

Juliandi

[David (PassMark)]

Do you really need a UPS?
I agree with wonderwrench. More RAM would be better, even if it means a marginally slower CPU, or cheaper MB.

[juliand_fergie]

I've just browsing & comparing prices. What if I'm building the PC based on the specifications below? I've finally found a way to placed 4 gigs of ram into my specs:

AMD AM3 Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (Box)
Mb ECS A785GM-AD3 (Amd 785G+SB710)
RAM PATRIOT PSD3 4G 1333 KH (2 X 2G) DDR 3 Module
Harddisk 3.5Inch WDC SATA II Caviar Black 500Gb 32Mb
VGA VAIKOO HD 4870 1Gb 256Bit DDR5
PSU Speedpower AX-550-S 550W
Optical Drive Sony DVDRW 24x Box
UPS Prolink Pro 700

GRAND TOTAL

IDR 5961000 (equal to USD 640)

Is it quite good enough, or not? FYI, I think I really need to use UPS for the electricity in my house is unstable. I'm open to any suggestion that you might have.

Thank you very much for your advice.

Juliandi

[juliand_fergie]

I just got an update for my specs. I wonder which PC specs is better, the above specs or this one below:

AMD AM3 Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (Box) --> 975.000
ASRock 870G Extreme3 --> 1.058.000,
RAM PATRIOT PSD3 4G 1333 KH (2 X 2G) DDR 3 Module --> 957.000
WDC SATA II Blue 500Gb 16Mb --> 414.000,-
VGA Digital Alliance HD 5770 1Gb 128Bit DDR5 --> 1.527.000,-
Casing Venomrx Dark Naja 326.000,-
Power Supply PSU Speedpower AX-500-S 500W --> 437.000,-
Optical Drive Sony DVDRW 24x Box --> 225.000

Which one do you think is better? Also, which one of these video card is better:

* VAIKOO HD 4870 1Gb 256Bit DDR5
or
* Digital Alliance HD 5770 1Gb 128Bit DDR5

Both have 1 gigs of memory, but the other have a greater 'bit'. I can't decide which of these two that could fit well into my specs.

Thank you for your help, I'm looking forward to hear from you guys..

Regards,


Juliandi

[wonderwrench]

The ASRock 870G Extreme3 looks good! I have had very good luck with ASRock boards though i have no experience with this exact board. It has all the latest tech and features so I give it a thumbs up!

As far as the video cards go the 4870 should be faster than the 5770. The 4870 was the top of the line single GPU ATI card in the 4xxx series. Its supports DX10.1 but does not support DX11. The 5770 is a current generation part that supports DX11 though it is mid level card. Its a judgment call on which card to get. As more DX11 games come out the need/want for a DX11 card will only increase. The 5770 would be more future proof but may not have the power to really take advantage of future DX11 games. Its hard to say. One other thing to think about is power draw and heat output.

The 4870 will draw more power and put out more heat as its a older design. This will be much harder on your PSU. I searched high and low for specs on the Speedpower AX-500-S but can't find a thing. Most lower cost PSU's can't come close to putting out their rated power. The watt rating really does not tell the whole story anyway. The combined amperage available on the 12 volt rail is what counts. A quality 500 watt PSU should be able to put out between 36-40 amps combined on the 12 volt rails. A quality 400 watt should be able to put out 30 or more amps combined on the 12 volt rail. Its is very possible that the Speedpower AX-500-S cant even keep up with a quality 400 watt PSU such as a Corsair CMPSU-400CX. Small multi 12 volt rail PSU's are problematic also. I would recommend that any PSU under 650 watts use a single 12 volt rail as this will help eliminate problems when using higher end video cards. See screen shots of two PSU's that give useful specs. Note: to calculate the true amperage output on a multi rail PSU as in the second screen shot take the total 12 volt wattage and divide it by 12. So 480/12=40. You can see Corsair is giving real 12 amp specs as the numbers match. With most low cost PSU's this is not the case.

The system overall looks great. The PSU is the only thing that bugs me.
You need to do more research on available PSU's in your area before you pull the trigger and buy the stuff. A good source of information on PSU's is http://www.newegg.com/

Bill

[wonderwrench]

I did some research on PSU's available at http://rakitan.net/simulasi.php

The THERMALTAKE Lite Power 500w should power your system no matter which video card you choose. HD 5770 or HD 4870. It has two 6 pin PCIE power connectors. It has a combined 12 volt output of 36 amps. Note: the part numbers at the resellers link you provided do not match whats on Thermaltakes webite so I can't prove its the same PSU.

The CORSAIR CMPSU-400CXEU 400W is most likely the best quality PSU in your price range. It will power your system fine if you choose to get the HD 5770. It will not power a HD 4870 as it has only one PCIE 6+2 power connector and would be slightly under powered anyway. It has 30 amps available on a single 12 volt rail. I use this PSU in all my low/mid range builds when possible.

[juliand_fergie]

^^
Thanks for your research, wonderwrench. I really appreciate it. The CORSAIR CMPSU-400CXEU 400W is a really good option, but I think the watt 'rating' is too low for my overall specs, don't you think? I'm thinking to get a 500W or 550W PSU. After researching here & there, and asking some opinions from few of my colleague, I've come up with these options of PSU:

* Seasonic M12II-520W Bronze
* FSP Saga II 500W
* Cooler Master GX 550W
* Enermax Tomahawk 500W ETK500AWT

In my research, they said that these PSU have a true/pure 500 watt rating, which, if it's real, would be a great conclusion to my overall specs. What do you think of these 3 PSU? is it better than my previous option?

Also, your review regarding 4870 vs 5770 is really helpful. But I still have a doubt of which one to choose between these two. Both have 1 gigs of ram, both have their own pros & cons. The one thing that concerns me is the VAIKOO HD 4870 have 256 bit, twice better than Digital Alliance HD 5770 that only have 128Bit. Is the difference between this BIT means a lot on its performance? And which one is better, in your opinion?

I'm sorry for keep asking on such matters. Thank you very much for your advice.

Juliandi

[wonderwrench]

The info I gave in the above post is incorrect. Note: to calculate the true amperage output on a multi rail PSU as in the second screen shot take the total 12 volt wattage and divide it by 12. So 480/12=40. This should have read 480/12=30.

Listed in order best to worst IMHO.

Seasonic M12II-520W Bronze (It claims to have two 20 amp 12 volt rails but in reality its is a single rail with 40 amps) Seasonic actually makes PSU's and very good ones at that. website, review review 2

Cooler Master GX 550W (44 amps/12v) I think this PSU is made by SevenTeam, good company I found no reviews from reputable sites. I would still get this PSU no problem. website

Enermax Tomahawk 500W ETK500AWT (2 18 amp rails, 36 amps combined)
Review I'm not a fan of split rail PSU's under 650 watts.

FSP Saga II 500W FSP (FPS/Fortron Source) makes some good PSU's but I can't find any good info on this exact model. Lately they seem to be over rating their PSU's (calling a 400 watt PSU a 500 watt) so I would stay away anyway.

The video card choice is all yours as I can't decide for you. Its a tough call.
The HD 4870 is faster than the HD 5770 no two ways about it. But it has no DX 11 support. It may help to know what your monitors max resolution is. If its not a high resolution monitor I doubt you will have any performance problems playing the latest games with the HD 5770. If your monitor is 1600x900 or higher the HD 4870 will perform noticeably better than the HD 5770 will. Is your monitor a CRT or LCD? If its a LCD you will want to run the max resolution it supports so you get the sharpest image. If its a CRT you can run any supported resolutions and still get decent image quality in most cases. This would allow you to lower the resolution to increase frame rates in game if necessary. You can lower the resolution down on a LCD also but in my experience it looks bad.

FYI I can play the latest games on the system in my sig which has a Nvidia 8800 GT at 1440x900 without turning the in game settings down. Crysis and Crysis Warhead play fine at medium/high setting. The HD 5770 is as fast or faster than my 8800 GT BTW.

If you end up going with the HD 5770 the Corsair CMPSU-400CXEU would have no trouble handling your system. Corsair could have easily called it a 450+ watt PSU. I find most people buy way bigger PSU's than they really need. For max efficency you want your PSU at 20-25% load when your PC is idle. Check out the free power supply calculator here. I added your latest parts list to the calculator with a moderate overclock and came up with 381 watts as the recommended size PSU.

I just noticed that you changed from a Phenom II 4x to a 2x to get the cost down. Not a problem, I was wondering how you came up with more money. You may want to look at the Athlon II 4x 630 and 640. You loose the L3 cache but gain 2 more cores. So its slower than a Phenom II 4x but in most cases faster then a Phenom II 2x of the same frequency. BTW you do not need a Black Edition CPU to be able to overclock its just easier because the multiplier is not locked.

Bill

[juliand_fergie]

I've visited the link that you've provided regarding calculating PSU, it is really helpful. I think I'm going to choose Seasonic M12II-520W Bronze PSU, in case I'm upgrading my components sometimes in the future. IMHO, the 520W psu would be a safe choice if indeed I'm having a thought to upgrade my specs in the future.

FYI, my current monitor is lcd LG W1953S, It supports to 1360x76 res. I can't decide it right now, but so far I tend to pick the HD 4870. what do you think of it? Also, just from its brand, which one do you prefer? VAIKOO or Digital Alliance?

Yes, I changed to Phenom II X2 so I could spend more budget in RAM. That is why I'm able to put 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM into my spec. Hopefully, the whole system could do well with this amount of RAM when I do my video editing project. I think my whole system would be no different than this one below:

AMD AM3 Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (Box)
Mb ASRock 870G Extreme3
RAM PATRIOT PSD3 4G 1333 KH (2 X 2G) DDR 3 Module
Harddisk 3.5Inch WDC SATA II Caviar Black 500Gb 32Mb
VGA VAIKOO HD 4870 1Gb 256Bit DDR5
PSU Seasonic M12II-520W Bronze
Optical Drive Sony DVDRW 24x Box

and plus with some parts from my current PC:

LG LCD W1953S
LG DVD-ROM
3.5 Inch Seagate SATA I 80 Gb (ST3808AS)

So, what is your final thought / conclusion regarding the above specs?

Thank you for spending your time reviewing my whole specs, I really appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Juliandi

[wonderwrench]

I've visited the link that you've provided regarding calculating PSU, it is really helpful. I think I'm going to choose Seasonic M12II-520W Bronze PSU, in case I'm upgrading my components sometimes in the future. IMHO, the 520W psu would be a safe choice if indeed I'm having a thought to upgrade my specs in the future.

FYI, my current monitor is lcd LG W1953S, It supports to 1360x76 res. I can't decide it right now, but so far I tend to pick the HD 4870. what do you think of it? Also, just from its brand, which one do you prefer? VAIKOO or Digital Alliance?

Yes, I changed to Phenom II X2 so I could spend more budget in RAM. That is why I'm able to put 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM into my spec. Hopefully, the whole system could do well with this amount of RAM when I do my video editing project. I think my whole system would be no different than this one below:

and plus with some parts from my current PC:

So, what is your final thought / conclusion regarding the above specs?

Thank you for spending your time reviewing my whole specs, I really appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Juliandi

The Seasonic M12II-520W Bronze would be my pick also. The HD 4870 is a good choice. The brands where you live are way different than I have in the US so I have no idea which is a better brand card. Its most likely the same stuff we have here with different names?

On the CPU choice I did some research and there is a chance you can unlock 2 more cores on the Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition if you are really lucky. Do not get your hopes up though. What video editing software are you going to use? If it supports multi-threading an Athlon II 4x will be faster than a Phenom II X2 @ 2x. Gaming performance would be slightly slower on a Athlon II 4x in most cases because games even today do not use multi-threading very well an the Athon II's have no level 3 cache. Take a look at this review and see what you think. Note: this review is from January of 2010 so some newer AMD CPU's are missing from the test but the review still holds true today. From my experience quad core systems feel snappier than dual core systems when multi-tasking, even more so when running Vista/Win 7.

Your choice of parts looks good. It should be a nice system. I like researching stuff and helping people so no problem helping you out. I'm a computer junkie, I got one free in 1996 and I have been hooked ever since. Make sure you post back and let us know how everything worked out for you.

[juliand_fergie]

Thank you for taking your time reviewing my PC specs. If everything goes well, I'm going to buy all of those parts on Monday. I'm having a second thought, though, regarding my choice of motherboard. What do you think about ECS A890GXM-A? Is it much better than ASRock 870G Extreme 3 or is it only has a slight difference? I have read a few articles & reviews about this board, and I'm having a difficulty to decide whether to stay with ASRock or pick this ECS board.

I just want to make sure that I'm buying the right parts for my PC without having to regret about it someday.

Thank you very much for your help & information.


Juliandi

[wonderwrench]

ECS has always been a lower end manufacture and people perceive them so. They have been trying to change peoples opinions by making some higher quality and higher end boards aka the black series. As far as I can see the ASRock and ECS boards you are looking at have similar spec's. I would expect ASRock to have generally better quality and better support, driver, bios updates etc. One thing I see is both boards have integrated GPU's which you do not need as far as I know. I tend to buy boards from MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, Asrock, and Biostar. MSI has been my favorite over the years. This sounds funny but I say go back to the first board you were looking at the MSI 870A-G54. See the comparison of 870 boards here. look closely at the features such as PS2, do you use a PS2 keyboard and mouse, PATA, do you have PATA/IDE drives you want to use, 1394a etc. Make sure the board you want has what you need/want. Any one of these boards should do the job just fine.

[wonderwrench]

Here is some info on AMD chipsets. keep in mind that 7xx is older than 8xx.

760G - Budget, majority if not all are µATX, have integrated Radeon HD 3000 graphics, one PCI-e 16x lane.

770 - Budget, majority ATX IIRC, should have only have one PCI-e lane. Some come with two PCI-e lanes but the second one operates at 4x bandwidth, possibly resulting in bottlenecking in CrossFireX for some cards. More modern boards support SATA III and USB 3.0.

785G - Relatively budget, welll - suited for HTPC thus majority are µATX IIRC, comes with Radeon HD 4200 graphics, one PCI-e 16x lane, some has an extra PCI-e 16x lane which works at 4x like the 770 chipset.

790X - Higher end, ATX form factor supports 8x/8x CrossFireX. More modern boards support SATA III and USB 3.0.

790GX - Higher end, ATX form factor, supports 8x/8x CrossFireX, has integrated Radeon HD 3300 graphics.

790FX - Very high end, supports 16x/16x, 16x/8x/8x, 8x/8x/8x/8x CrossFireX, ATX motherboards.

870 - Budget, majority ATX IIRC, one 16x PCI-e lane, native SATA III support, some with USB 3.0.

880G - Relatively budget, mainly µATX, one 16x PCI-e lane, some come with a second at 4x, same situation with 770 chipset, native SATA III support, some with USB 3.0, has integrated Radeon HD 4250 graphics.

890GX - Higher end, ATX form factor, supports 8x/8x CrossFireX, comes with integrated Radeon HD 4290 graphics, native SATA III support, some with USB 3.0.

890FX - Highest end for AMD at the moment, all ATX form factor, supports 16x/16x, 16x/8x/8x, 8x/8x/8x/8x CrossFireX. Native SATA III support, some with USB 3.0.