PC for audio & gaming..

[LiberaScientia]

Sup guys, so with my crimbo money, I've decided to get a new PC, since my current one is absolutely awful, and not worth upgrading. Got about £300 to spend. Anyway, just wanted your opinions on this.

I'd probably add more RAM, since I have two 4GB DDR3 sticks lying around that I can use, which would take it up to 16GB.

I'll be using it mainly for mixing. Doesn't need to be insanely powerful, just cope with a reasonable amount of plugins, and I tend to bounce stuff anyway since it helps me to commit to mix decisions. I'll also be using it for a fair bit of gaming, nothing too strenuous graphics-wise, just being able to run most modern games on medium settings with a decent framerate is fine.

So yeah, if you guys have any other suggestions as to what could work, let me know. I'm fine with going down the DIY route since my bro builds PCs in his spare time anyway.

Cheers

 

[HCL]

Aren't those FX CPUs meant to be pretty dire?

 

[infectdsniper]

yea 16 gigs will be good. what cpu do you have already? and prob a gfx card like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130827

 

[LiberaScientia]

the CPU in my current machine is an Athlon II X2 220 2.8GHz, so pretty much anything is an improvement

 

[infectdsniper]

yea you might wanna get the best cpu and ram you can and hold up on the gfx card unless gaming is equally important to you get at least a 3.0 or higher quad or better

 

[LiberaScientia]

Did you check out the link in the OP? What do you think of that? Bearing in mind I'll be adding another 8GB RAM.

 

[Line666]

The graphics card listed is really cheap and only a step up from an onboard card, I wouldnt really expect that to deliver decent framerates on todays games - I built a PC with a 6670 which is three times the price of that card recently and I only get a respectable medium/high framerate with that. Also be wary of the PSUs on these prebuilds - they tend to skimp there because nobody thinks PSUs are important - but I had a prebuild that died there after a year because it was some cheap shit.

The AMD stuff has a bad rap but is good for budget compared to the Intel stuff, however they dont perform as strongly in single threaded applications because they are not actually strictly speaking quad or octo core, thus a four core intel will skelp an 'eight core' AMD all over the park - especially for games which dont utilise multithreading (most) but you will see a good performance for price on audio application processing with the AMD due to its false-core architecture helping with multithreaded applications. In short AMD is very good for the price if you are doing mostly audio work, because this is specifically multithreaded, but it could lag a little on games performance whereas Intel will be better all round - but more expensive too.

If you have a spare case/PSU/ram/HD sitting around anyway then it might be for the best to build your own PC (not difficult) because you know exactly what will be going in it and you will save money/gain you better overall stability/performance.

 

[LiberaScientia]

Thanks for the advice man, I think I might just save up a bit more and build something worthwhile then.

 

[Line666]

No bother man, I wouldn't take that as a damning indictment of AMD btw, as for price they do offer more value and I would still have bought an AMD chip for my recent build had I not wanted to run a Hackintosh setup as well. As it stood though I built a pc with an i5 3570k, 8 gig ddr3, and the Radeon 6670 with nice case + PSU for just over 400 so you can squeeze a lot more respectable components in there if you don't settle on a prebuild. It might be worth keeping your RAM just at 8 if you're not mad on the virtual instruments as well because aside from running sample libraries most audio stuff will benefit from a faster CPU to run more plugins over more RAM and that will help be more inkeeping with your 300 budget. You can probably get away with cheaping out on the mobo as well if you are not going to be OCing the pants off everything and want to run at purely stock speeds.

As I said though if you have any other components lying around you should use them and then you could definitely work something fairly strong out of your cash.

 

[LiberaScientia]

Aye, I'll probably start off at 8GB and go up to 16GB when I can afford to. Is it worth getting an SSD as my main drive, then using a HDD to store my files/samples on, or should I just use a HDD as my main drive?

 

[trolaso_pedaso]

http://www.pccomponentes.com/presup...or_red=0;1&instal_so=no;1&montado=no;1&so=0;1

This will do. I play BF3 with almost this same config 1080p and get 60+ fps.

 

[Line666]

Honestly from what I've read on SSDs there is a difference but its a difference not really worth capitalising on unless you have cash to spare, a regular 7200rpm HDD should do you fine for the main drive unless you are interested in booting in 20 seconds and not 40.

 

[LiberaScientia]

I think what I'll do then, is buy the CPU and motherboard with the cash I have at the moment, then buy the other stuff bit by bit, as I get the money, then piece it all together when it's all there. I'll be able to use the HDD from my current machine though, so I don't need to worry about that. 500GB is enough since I keep most of my stuff on an external drive anyway. Should be able to use the CD/DVD drive and soundcard as well, since it's not like I need any fancy blu-ray shit. Should run about £500 - £600 in total, depending on whether I can get the CPU and motherboard for a good price in the January sales. Is it worth going used on any of the parts or should I just buy new?

 

[ForHerDeadEyes]

I think what I'll do then, is buy the CPU and motherboard with the cash I have at the moment, then buy the other stuff bit by bit, as I get the money, then piece it all together when it's all there. I'll be able to use the HDD from my current machine though, so I don't need to worry about that. 500GB is enough since I keep most of my stuff on an external drive anyway. Should be able to use the CD/DVD drive and soundcard as well, since it's not like I need any fancy blu-ray shit. Should run about £500 - £600 in total, depending on whether I can get the CPU and motherboard for a good price in the January sales. Is it worth going used on any of the parts or should I just buy new?

Don't buy computer parts bit by bit..
Save up before buying..
There will be sales, there will be new stuff, better prices.. shit can happen in a week.. you'll also save on shipment..
It's better to buy everything at once..
Intel releases the Haswell architechture in March, I believe..

I just posted this last week:
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/backline/851031-computer-management.html

My MusicPC has a Intel Core i5 3570K..
My InternetPC has AMD FX 4100..
Both are overclocked to 4,2GHz, and the Intel is way faster.. although the RAM is also faster.. but all tests show they're on different levels..
That's why my recommendations go to Intel..
However, if you are on a really tight budget, you could go with the FX-series..
It'll work fine for a few years, or more, depending on what you do..
I've heard that Windows 8 will work smoothly with AMD now..
Windows 7 has had issues with the FX series, but there are two hotfixes to download for free from Microsoft..

 

[LiberaScientia]

Definitely getting the i5 3570k, since the processor is the one thing I don't want to cheap out on. I am on a tight budget, but I'm totally fine with saving cause I'm not desperate for a new PC at the moment. Not going to bother with Windows 8 tbh, especially since I've heard it's fairly unfriendly as far as gaming is concerned.

 

[LiberaScientia]

So yeah, this is pretty much it.

Pretty much the same as the build trolaso_pedaso posted, though I had to swap some of the parts cause they weren't available in Overclockers.

 

[trolaso_pedaso]

So yeah, this is pretty much it.

Pretty much the same as the build trolaso_pedaso posted, though I had to swap some of the parts cause they weren't available in Overclockers.

That will do for sure. But that RAM is way too expensive. I would use the DDR3 8GB module/s you had. Or buy another set of sticks, the HyperX BLU's are very good, and the price is good, too. Same applies to HyperX RED's. Both from Kingston.