Budget Reccomendations?

[MangoAlias]

Budget (including currency): What I'm trying to find out

Country: United Kingdom

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 2D and 3D art

 

Hello! Beginner here.

I have decided to start saving to make my own computer for making art with, and I was wondering what goal I should shoot for. My current goal is £2000, is that overboard for what I'm trying to achieve? (I currently have £150 saved up) I don't plan on doing SERIOUS HARDCORE GAMING with this ideal computer, the only reason I'd need a good graphics card is for rendering stuff in Blender or whatever, and I know that the biggest bottleneck in price is usually the graphics card.

 

Thoughts? I appreciate any and all input

[Dukesilver27-]

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but say you save 100 a month, you still need at least 18 months to reach your goal. 200 a month about 9 months, 300 a month 6 months, 500 a month 4 months. 1000 a month 2 months.

So, what I'm saying is, wait up till you have the money, because by then, price changes could affect your entire build plan. General suggestion is to plan your build within a week of purchase.

 

Now, regarding the build, even a 1000 pounds build could do blender, it's just going to take longer. How much time means to you directly affects the hardware chosen.

[Queen Chrysalis]

If you are saving like this, you are probably best off looking on facebook marketplace for a used complete system.  Buying parts is gonna drain you.  You may be able to find a used system with a dedicated GPU like a 970 or such for under $300 if look hard enough, and that should be enough to get plenty of 3D art done on.  It won't be as fast as a brand new system, but having no computer for a year means no art, so I'd rather get started on my art.  

 

A PC like this will get you started, and it has a standard ATX PSU 460w that can support a GTX 970, as it has a pigtailed 6 pin connector:

 

Dell XPS 8700 i7-4770 3.4 GHz, 8GB, 1TB, 1GB GRAPHICS CARD,WIRELESS, WINDOWS 10 | eBay
 

You would also want an SSD to install windows on, this would suffice:

 

Patriot Burst Elite 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (PBE240GS25SSDR) - PCPartPicker (240GB, 17 pounds)

 

Patriot Burst Elite 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (PBE480GS25SSDR) - PCPartPicker (480GB, 27 pounds)

 

This tower would be better but it is an auctioon so you would have to try to win it, though it's cheaper, already has an SSD, and has more RAM.  The seller has 3 different listings though, so you may get lucky and get his other one.  Just search eBay for 'XPS 8700'.

 

Dell XPS 8700 i7-4790 3.6 GHz, 240GB SSD, 12GB RAM/Windows 10, | eBay

 

A GPU like this would greatly improve your performance in blender, but would not be necessary right away.  It has a blower cooler which should be good for a case like this one:

 

PALIT Geforce GTX 970 4Gb (4096 MB) DVI/2-mDP/HDMI Graphics Card | eBay

 

In total this system would be about $230.

 

The computer only has 8GB of RAM, which may be an issue.  If you want to upgrade to 16GB of RAM, it would be another 20 pounds.

 

16GB Hynix HMT451U6AFR8C-PB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Desktop 240-pin PC3-12800U 3700857036074 | eBay

 

That would put you at $250, but you could sell whatever crappy GPU the tower has in it right now along with the old 8GB RAM kit for about $20-$25 total, putting you around $230 spent.