Custom build for around 2,000$.

[Spork Schivago]

Hello,

My sister wants me to build her a fast PC for around 2,000$. That's just the tower, no mouse, no keyboard, no printer, no monitor, no speakers, etc.

I wanted some suggestions. I was thinking of one of those new M.2 drives but I haven't really been keeping up on all the latest IT news so I'm a bit out of the loop right now. I've heard good things about those Samsung Pro 950's M.2 4x drives. I found one that's 512GB in size. I was hoping we could get something that was 1TB in size for the M.2.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I mean, I could do something like 512GB for the M.2 drive, put the OS on there, and have a 2TB SSD or something hooked up to the 6Gb/s SATA port but I didn't really want to do that, you know?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

I guess 512GB will be fine. So, I'm thinking the Samsung 950 Pro M.2 4x 512GB drive ( http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/m...ge/MZ-V5P512BW ).

For the motherboard, I'm thinking socket 2011v3, what do you guys think? I'd like to stick with an Intel i7...

If AsRock has brought their game up, I was thinking maybe something like the ASRock Extended ATX DDR4 Motherboard FATAL1TY X99 PROFESSIONAL ( http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal...0Professional/[site|thaus[cat|[art|[pid|B00NLH6GGG[tid|14634342017516062[bbc|LEPRIX )

[retiredcaps]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

My sister wants me to build her a fast PC for around 2,000$.

Holy! $2K for a computer? What are her requirements other than "fast"? What applications will she be running?

My current PC is a $10 CDN (ten) special. E8500 Core 2 Duo CPU with Lubuntu 16.04 runs more than fast enough for my requirements.

[Topcat]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

2k can build a pretty snazzy system these days!! I havent done a build that expensive for a client in ages!! Ohh I miss those days!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Holy! $2K for a computer? What are her requirements other than "fast"? What applications will she be running?

My current PC is a $10 CDN (ten) special. E8500 Core 2 Duo CPU with Lubuntu 16.04 runs more than fast enough for my requirements.

It's got to run Windows 10 or 7. She actually wants 10 if she can get it. I won't be purchasing the OS though. She has some way of getting it and said she'd handle retrieving the key herself. I'll be installing it though.

All she said was I want you to build me another PC. I want to spend around 2,000$ and I want it to be fast. I asked questions, like how much space do you think we'd need, and we decided on 512GB for the M.2 drive. It's pretty much I just use my best judgement. If I need clarification, I ask her something.

I'm going to give her a used DVD burner for free so she doesn't have to pay for one. That'll give her a little extra cash for the PC. I was thinking the Socket 2011v3 with the X99 chipset. She does a lot of video and picture stuff. Don't ask me what exactly. For software, one of her programs is something called Adobe Photoshop I think. I can figure out more if you need.

For RAM, I was thinking of just sticking around 16GB. I thought that should be more than enough for what type of work she does. There's no gaming at all, so one video card, I'd think be enough. If we stick with something like the i7-5930K processor, with the X99 Chipset, she should have 40 PCI-E lanes, right? The i7-5630K costs some good cash though. I was thinking either that processor or the i7-5960X. That i7 8-core 5960X looks like a really nice CPU but it's over a grand. The 5930K is cheaper. And then, later on, she can always upgrade to a nicer CPU. Like one of those 18-core ones, when the price drops in a couple years.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

2k can build a pretty snazzy system these days!! I havent done a build that expensive for a client in ages!! Ohh I miss those days!

Yeah, the last one I built her cost around 1,500$. It was an i7 socket 1366. She says if I build her this one, I can have the old one because it doesn't work right anymore. I don't know why she just doesn't have me fix the old one, but eh. I'm not going to complain for a free PC that's got an i7 socket 1366 in it. That thing was fast when I built it a few years ago.

I was hoping people here could help me decide on the a great motherboard. I'm looking into the ASRock but I'm also looking into some Gigabyte boards. It's been a while since I've read about the newer technology.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

I bet I could talk her into Windows 7 pretty easy like. Does anyone have any suggestions for a board / chipset / CPU / RAM / video card / PSU / anything?

If you guys think my choices are good choices, feel free to let me know. I'd hate to screw this build up! Here's the specs for the two CPUs I'm looking at.

[B]i7-5930K[/B]                [B]i7-5960X[/B]
[B]==============================================================================[/B]
Price: [B]580$[/B]               Price: [B]1,015$[/B]
Core Name: [B]Haswell-E[/B]          Core Names: [B]Haswell-E[/B]
# of Cores: [B]6-Core[/B]           # of Cores: [B]8-Core[/B]
# of Threads: [B]12[/B]            # of Threads: [B]16[/B]
Operating Frequency: [B]3.5 GHz[/B]      Operating Frequency: [B]3.0 GHz[/B]
Max Turbo: [B]3.7GHz[/B]
L2 Cache: [B]6 x 256KB[/B]           L2 Cache: [B]8 x 256KB[/B]
L3 Cache: [B]15MB[/B]             L3 Cache: [B]20MB[/B]
Manufacturing Tech: [B]22nm[/B]        Manufacturing Tech: [B]22nm[/B]
64-Bit Support: [B]Yes[/B]           64-Bit Support: [B]Yes[/B]
Hyper-Threading Support: [B]Yes[/B]      Hyper-Threading Support: [B]Yes[/B]
Virtualization Technology Support: [B]Yes[/B] Virtualization Technology Support: [B]Yes[/B]
PCI Express Revision: [B]3.0[/B]        PCI Express Revision: [B]3.0[/B]
Max Number of PCI Express Lanes: [B]40[/B]   Max Number of PCI Express Lanes: [B]40[/B]
Thermal Design Power: [B]140W[/B]       Thermal Design Power: [B]140W[/B]
Cooling Device: [B]No - Processor Only[/B]   Cooling Device: [B]No - Processor Only[/B]

[diif]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Find out properly what she uses her PC for. If its Photoshop and video its usually 3 drives as one is used for a scratch disc.
Double the memory.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Find out properly what she uses her PC for. If its Photoshop and video its usually 3 drives as one is used for a scratch disc.
Double the memory.

Alright, I've asked. She said she's at the ER, her son put a screw through his thumb I guess. Currently, she only has one physical drive in the PC but she does have an external USB drive that she stores pictures on when she's done working with them.

I'll also ask if she knows what a scratch disc is and if she uses one or not. I know for a bit, she was doing weddings. People would get married, she'd go to their wedding. They'd pay her lots of money, like 1,200$ - 1,500$ and she'd take a bunch of pictures and then do stuff with them on her PC.

So, for memory, you're saying 32GB?

Man, today is one of those days where stuff just keeps going wrong. I am getting ready to trash this freaking PC right out the window here if this keyboard messes up one more time.

[Sparkey55]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

What 4? The Sims 10 with 20 add-on packs?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Find out properly what she uses her PC for. If its Photoshop and video its usually 3 drives as one is used for a scratch disc.
Double the memory.

So, one drive would be used for the scratch disc, right? The other drive for the OS, I'm guessing, and then the third drive for what? Storage of the data? That way, if the OS needs to be reinstalled, you don't lose any data, is that right? Or what's the other drives used for? Thanks.

[dmill89]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

2k can build a pretty snazzy system these days!! I havent done a build that expensive for a client in ages!! Ohh I miss those days!

^This, my last build was around $1k and is plenty fast:
CPU: Intel I7-4790
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport was 16GB DDR3-1600 (2X8GB), now 32GB (4X8GB) as I got a good deal on more RAM.
Video Card: Sapphire Nitro Radeon R9-380 (4GB)
SSD: Crucial BX-200 240GB
HDD: Toshiba HWD110XZSTA (1TB 72000RPM) [rebranded Hitachi Deskstar]
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212-Evo
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910W
Case: Cooler Master HAF-932
DVD-RW Drive: Samsung SuperWriteMaster SH-S203N
Blu-Ray-RW: LG SuperMulti-Blue BH12LS38

I was debating between the I7-4790 and the I7-5820k myself and chose the 4790 due to not only price and power consumption (84W vs. 140W) but the fact that each core of the 4790 is about 10% more powerful than those of the 5820k (and even the 5930k, though the 5820/5930 do of course give you 2 more cores) as well (due to this the 4790 actually performs better in may applications). I'm not sure there are many if any applications that will actually take advantage of the additional performance of a 5820/5930 over a 4790/6700 for at least the next several years (no recent I7 is likely to be the bottleneck of your system), if your sister runs multiple multi-threaded resource heavy applications at the same time she may see some benefits. While you certainly can fit a I7-5930K into a $2k budget you may be spending money solely for the sake of spending money with minimal if any real world gains.

What is this system used for? Depending on usage the money may be better spent on a high-end GPU (or two) and/or a ton of fast SSD storage.

Another option if you don't mind used CPUs and their power consumption, Xenon E5-2670s (8 core) are stupid cheap right now (~$60 ea.) and about on par with a I7-5820k performance wise, you could get a pair and a Dual-LGA2011 board for less than a single I7-5930k and an X99 board.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

^This, my last build was around $1k and is plenty fast:
CPU: Intel I7-4790
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport was 16GB DDR3-1600 (2X8GB), now 32GB (4X8GB) as I got a good deal on more RAM.
Video Card: Sapphire Nitro Radeon R9-380 (4GB)
SSD: Crucial BX-200 240GB
HDD: Toshiba HWD110XZSTA (1TB 72000RPM) [rebranded Hitachi Deskstar]
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212-Evo
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910W
Case: Cooler Master HAF-932
DVD-RW Drive: Samsung SuperWriteMaster SH-S203N
Blu-Ray-RW: LG SuperMulti-Blue BH12LS38

I was debating between the I7-4790 and the I7-5820k myself and chose the 4790 due to not only price and power consumption (84W vs. 140W) but the fact that each core of the 4790 is about 10% more powerful than those of the 5820k (and even the 5930k, though the 5820/5930 do of course give you 2 more cores) as well (due to this the 4790 actually performs better in may applications). I'm not sure there are many if any applications that will actually take advantage of the additional performance of a 5820/5930 over a 4790/6700 for at least the next several years (no recent I7 is likely to be the bottleneck of your system), if your sister runs multiple multi-threaded resource heavy applications at the same time she may see some benefits. While you certainly can fit a I7-5930K into a $2k budget you may be spending money solely for the sake of spending money with minimal if any real world gains.

What is this system used for? Depending on usage the money may be better spent on a high-end GPU (or two) and/or a ton of fast SSD storage.

Another option if you don't mind used CPUs and their power consumption, Xenon E5-2670s (8 core) are stupid cheap right now (~$60 ea.) and about on par with a I7-5820k performance wise, you could get a pair and a Dual-LGA2011 board for less than a single I7-5930k and an X99 board.

Thanks for the reply. The CPU you went with, I see that only has 16 PCI-E lanes available. Isn't that noticeable, or no? Both the CPUs I were looking at have 40 PCI-E lanes, which I think would be a requirement.

I'm still waiting on an answer for what exactly she's going to be doing with this PC. Earlier, she said pictures and videos. I know in the past, she did work with Photoshop and wedding pictures she took herself. She'd work with the pictures in RAW format or whatever it's called. I've verified that the PC will not be and will never be used for gaming, at least not by her or her direct family (ie, children / husband). I don't think I've ever seen any of them play a video game before, so there's a good chance she's just against video games. I mean, growing up with her, she used to play once in awhile with me on the NES.

Ultimately, the idea is to get the most bang for the buck. The fastest system I can build for 2,000$. It's a tough choice where to devote the most amount of money to...the motherboard, the CPU, the video or the RAM? I figure I could get a really nice motherboard with a really nice CPU and have enough left over for decent RAM and a decent video card, or I could go for a lot of RAM and get a decent motherboard and a really nice CPU, or a decent CPU with a really nice motherboard and a good amount of RAM, you get the idea.

I don't think video card is extremely important, unless maybe she's going to be editing videos. Do the GPUs do a lot of work nowadays with video editing? For Photoshop, I couldn't see the video card playing much of a role...you know, in the sense where there'd really be no reason for 4-way SLI or something, you know what I mean?

[diif]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

So, one drive would be used for the scratch disc, right? The other drive for the OS, I'm guessing, and then the third drive for what? Storage of the data? That way, if the OS needs to be reinstalled, you don't lose any data, is that right? Or what's the other drives used for? Thanks.

Main SSD for OS and programs, second SSD for a scratch disk (doesn't need to be big a 60/80/120GB would easily suffice) and third, I'd make it a hard drive or a pair in RAID for storage.
Maybe look at/suggest maybe a NAS with RAID instead of a USB hard drive for storage, I've seen to many USB drives die.
Yes to maybe doubling the memory although it depends on cost and usage of Photoshop.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...rformance.html

Buying the fastest CPU isn't necessary as dmill89 says, find the cost/speed sweet spot. In all the time i've been building PCs i've never upgraded a CPU, in the time scale that people replace their computers, they usually just get whole new systems as things have moved a long so much. That change has slowed down in the past couple of years but generally now I personally feel that the top end CPU figures are just a pissing contest and in the real world it would be very hard to notice the difference. Money would be better off spent elsewhere in the system.

A scratch disk isn't necessary either if using a fast main SSD, there are also PCI-E SSDs to consider but they would probably blow the $2k budget. If she's just managing and touching up wedding photos she won't really be taxing Photoshop (I use a few year old i3 and a hard drive and don't have to wait when I'm doing photo manipulation for printing at A2 size). If I did this sort of stuff regularly, I would be using a faster system although it's specs wouldn't matter. I would spend money on a decent backup system though as nobody wants to lose copies of those irreplaceable images, ever.
When dealing with 3D, video and large high resolution images in the several GB range then hardware becomes more important.

[diif]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Graphics cards in Photoshop are only used for certain features.
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...-card-faq.html

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Main SSD for OS and programs, second SSD for a scratch disk (doesn't need to be big a 60/80/120GB would easily suffice) and third, I'd make it a hard drive or a pair in RAID for storage.
Maybe look at/suggest maybe a NAS with RAID instead of a USB hard drive for storage, I've seen to many USB drives die.
Yes to maybe doubling the memory although it depends on cost and usage of Photoshop.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...rformance.html

Buying the fastest CPU isn't necessary as dmill89 says, find the cost/speed sweet spot. In all the time i've been building PCs i've never upgraded a CPU, in the time scale that people replace their computers, they usually just get whole new systems as things have moved a long so much. That change has slowed down in the past couple of years but generally now I personally feel that the top end CPU figures are just a pissing contest and in the real world it would be very hard to notice the difference. Money would be better off spent elsewhere in the system.

Well, that's why I didn't think I was looking at of the crazy CPUs. Is 500$ to 1,000$ a crazy price nowadays for a decent CPU? My understanding was I was looking at the lowest end i7 that provided 40 native PCI-E lanes. Depending on the board, from what I've been reading, they're upgradable to those 18-core i7's. To me, that's something that might add a few years to the system down the road. I've been upgrading a lot of older systems for some clients recently. Everyone's bringing me these old laptops wanting 7 or 10 on them. The one I just did, it had a 32-bit CPU, single core, 512MB of RAM, running XP. I maxed out the CPU to a 64-bit CPU dual core that seems to be handling 7 just fine. I put 4GB of RAM in there as well. It cost me a total of 25$. I bet at the time, that CPU cost a lot of money.

A scratch disk isn't necessary either if using a fast main SSD, there are also PCI-E SSDs to consider but they would probably blow the $2k budget. If she's just managing and touching up wedding photos she won't really be taxing Photoshop (I use a few year old i3 and a hard drive and don't have to wait when I'm doing photo manipulation for printing at A2 size). If I did this sort of stuff regularly, I would be using a faster system although it's specs wouldn't matter. I would spend money on a decent backup system though as nobody wants to lose copies of those irreplaceable images, ever.
When dealing with 3D, video and large high resolution images in the several GB range then hardware becomes more important.

Okay, I agree with the backups. I believe that M.2 4x drive I was looking at was a PCI-E SSD, wasn't it? It uses 16 PCI-E lanes, I thought, unless I messed up my research again. It's only 512GB, not the largest, but it should be really really fast. I talked to her about multiple hard drives. I think the best would be some sort of RAID setup. Main 512GB x4 PCI-E SSD drive for OS, programs and work and then maybe a mirror RAID for the data when she's done with it? I'm not familiar with NAS. Are they RAID? I know what the term stands for, I've just never played with them. I like the idea of Network storage, then if she has a laptop or something, she can access stuff from that as well.

[stj]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

that's stupid money, you could equip a small internet cafe with that!

[dmill89]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Thanks for the reply. The CPU you went with, I see that only has 16 PCI-E lanes available. Isn't that noticeable, or no?

Since I run a single GPU I've never had issues, if running multiple GPUs (especially more than 2 or 2 + an M.2 SSD) it may be an issue.

I believe that M.2 4x drive I was looking at was a PCI-E SSD, wasn't it? It uses 16 PCI-E lanes, I thought, unless I messed up my research again.

M2. only provides 4 PCI-E lanes. This is what the Samsung 950 drives uses (hence the x4).

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

Since I run a single GPU I've never had issues, if running multiple GPUs (especially more than 2 or 2 + an M.2 SSD) it may be an issue.



M2. only provides 4 PCI-E lanes. This is what the Samsung 950 drives uses (hence the x4).

I don't know why I typed 16 for the M.2 x4. I've been reading up on the PCI-E 3.0 and the M.2 stuff, how the Z170 boards have dedicated 4 PCI-E v3.0 lanes for the M.2 (I think they call this M.2 Ultra or something?). When I hear PCI-E, I always think of video and x16. I bet that's where I got the 16 from. I'm going to go to bed and deal with this tomorrow, I'm real tired now. I still haven't heard back from here.

Wouldn't the multiple GPUs only be useful for people who play video games? So, even though your CPU only supports 16 PCI-E lanes, you think it's really fast? That's good to know. Thanks.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Custom build for around 2,000$.

that's stupid money, you could equip a small internet cafe with that!

I guess it depends on what you're doing with it. I built a system that cost over 10,000$ once. It was more or less configuring it I guess, you know, picking the parts that I wanted. Like 2TB of hard drive space (which was insane back then). We had set it up as RAID 5 using 20GB drives. It was crazy, the hard drives weren't even in the same case as the motherboard. The motherboard had room for a few extra CPUs and a shit ton of RAM. I guess it's all what you're going be using it for, you know? Also, if you got the money, I guess spend it on what you love!

Her monitor cost a lot of money! It's insanely expensive and it's not crazy huge either, but it cost a lot!!!! It's some weird monitor for pictures or something like that, IPS or something. And then she's got this device she hooks up to the monitor and when she runs it, it does weird stuff and adjusts the colours so when she prints, it looks exactly on paper what it looks like on the screen. Her camera, that's really expensive too! I wanted to borrow it to use in my telescope. I was going to buy one but it's over a grand just for the camera!