Shadstaru

The Xeon idea sounds cool as well, I'll show him this topic on Sunday when I speak to him and see what he thinks. I feel like I'm really bad at budget builds...I'm always looking for things which I would buy for myself rather than trying to cut down on the costs so it's nice to see what others have to say. I would like to opt for a Semi-Modular PSU as I dislike bundles of cables at the bottom of my builds, and I'll have to ask about how much software he's planning to cram onto his PC (as far as I'm aware all he needs is windows, adobe suite, office software and antivirus, very small chance of him playing any games on his pc) to possibly save a few pounds on the SSD by getting a 120gb one or something. Thanks for the help so far guys!

Looks promising. I talk to him on Sunday so will let ya'll know how it goes when I get round to building it!

Thank you for the replies, Looks good overall, will post images of the build once I begin!

PART 2: The 2nd build which I am putting together is for a friend who has just finished college and is starting up as a freelance video editor. He does play games on some consoles but will most likely not play games on his PC. I am in university myself learning how to do 3D modelling and video editing myself, and have recommended that he spends a decent amount of money on his PC, since he will most likely be using it for a long time for editing, but I understand that not everyone can afford to do this, and so he is trying his best to cut the budget as much as possible. He will be using the Adobe suite a LOT for his work, mostly premiere pro and photoshop, with a little after effects here and there for intros and credits but nothing more than that. So far I have decided on 4 main things for this build: - The processor: I am urging him to get an i7 just because of the performance boosts it gives when it comes to rendering video footage compared to the an i5 (which is what he had originally wanted to get) - I have decided that, as this is for editing, it should have no less than 8GB of RAM, but ideally 16GB since it's an entry level editing rig - As far as I'm aware, premiere pro and after effects are both capable of using graphics cards to accelerate the speed at which they render things. So I have recommended that a fairly decent graphics card would be beneficial in the long term. as someone who has used both AMD and Intel products throughout the years (My previous PC was an AMD gaming rig containing a phenom2 X4 955 and a Radeon 4890, then a 7870 before I upgraded to my current rig) and have also experienced firsthand the differences between AMD and nvidia from a gaming perspective and an editing perspective. I feel that, from MY experience, nVidia delivers better performance in rendering video using after effects and premiere pro when compared to AMD cards. I also feel that most nvidia cards run quieter and cooler than AMD cards so would therefor like to stick to nvidia for graphics cards. - Lastly, I have recommended that he should consider an SSD to boost performance even further however he has said that he finds it unnecessary (he's never experienced the difference firsthand as his previous computer is an 8 year old laptop) The budget for this PC is around £800, but once I've added an i7, a Z97 board and a GTX 770 to the package, it's hard to keep the rest of the PC under £1000. The other parts in this build such as the case, power supply and so on, are all similar to what I have in my build (750W PSU, full tower rig or a mid tower NZXT H440, currently my most recommended case, a be quiet! dark rock pro 2). I will add my build to my signature in the next minute or so. Thank you in advance to anyone who does comment, and I appreciate any help I get!

Ok, I shall separate the post into 2 threads.

As the title says, I am building some PC's for a few of my friends. The first has been using a MacBook pro 2011 (13", i7 with 8GB of RAM as far as I remember). Most people I have built PC's for in the past or helped out have been gamers or developers of some sort, and therefor I am kind of confused as to whether I may be overspending on his behalf or not. My friend is someone who does NOT play games on his PC, however he does watch a lot of movies, and requires a triple display setup for work reasons. His work involves watching graphs which update in real time and usually he is required to watch around 10 to 12 graphs at once. I'm not quite sure exactly what he does myself but it is something to do with the stock exchange to the best of my knowledge. So my question here is whether I have over-budgeted for his needs, he is used to "fast" computers since he uses his macbook pro currently and it still runs super fast, but he requires a more professional setting for his work (i.e. multiple displays rather than a 1366x768 laptop). I am also taking into account that he wants the PC unit itself to be quite small and the fact that he requires 3 displays. He has 2 of these displays already, both are 24" 1080p displays and he is hoping to buy the following as his 3rd: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-006-AO Link to the build The build costs a total of £560 (around 700 USD i think?) excluding price of the monitor and I was wondering if there is anything else I could change up to make it cheaper without sacrificing too much of the performance. EDIT: Moving 2nd build to a second topic.

I've been watching the LinusTechTips channel on youtube for a while now. gotta say I really love how you people from across the pond are so hilarious in presenting data to us. I'm an avid gamer, I love anime and of course, COMPUTERS! Currently I have a Phenom II 955 with 16gb of corsair vengeance & a radeonhd 7870. I have been using this same processor since the day of it's release practically and upgraded parts of it over time! Games I play include but are not limited to League of Legends and Counter Strike Global Offensive. I am soon going to be starting university to study media technology, which is basically anything and everything to do with video editing, a little music production and a lot of special effects.