Building a $400 Editing rig From old Parts

[commandojack]

You always see build guides online about $500 and $750 builds. Then you see the $400 and $300. These mainly involve an AMD APU, a cheap case, PSU, Ram and motherboard. I however, wanted to have a nice motherboard, case PSU, ECT. But stay in the $300 price range. One of the best options for doing a fast, cheap and good quality build is buying old parts. Not last gen, from about the 2008 era. I build a amazing system for $400 using old parts.

 

For those interested in the specifics here's the exact part list:

Asus P5KC $100

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 $50

4Gb DDR2 ram at 1066 Mhz $50

2Gb DDR2 ram from a spare computer $0

Corsair Cx 500 $50

Cooler Master hyper 212 plus $30

Cooler Master N60 0$90

6 Random old hard drive $0

and 2 9800gt (for triple displays) $30 for one.

Approximate total: $400

 

This system is optimized for me, I mainly video edit and do a little light gaming on the side (Minecraft and some indie games). This system handles everything like a pro. However, you could cheap out on some of the parts IE: The case. But I wanted a silent and good looking PC. The 9800gt is by far the weakest part of the system because of the lack of Direct X 11 and things like CUDA.

 

How does it preform:

I just want to start out by saying that all of these parts can be upgraded. The Core 2 Quad is fast, but there are faster ones out there. I have overclocked the CPU to 2.6 Ghz and the GPU has stayed at the stock 600Mhz. It is plenty fast for the standard gamer. Just use a faster GPU and you will be all set. It plays Minecraft at 1080p Far render and smooth lighting at about 150 FPS. Brutal Legend runs at 1080p, 2x anti-aliasing and high texture quality at about 40 FPS. Slender the Arrival can be pulled off at 1600x900 mostly high settings. Battle Field 4 will not run at 1080p regardless of the settings. Because of the slow GPU and the lack of Direct X 11. I did manage to get it running, and at 1080p, low settings I got about 20FPS. Again the GPU is the weak link here. Time for compute benchmarks. In the Windows Experience Index, it gets a 7.2 on the CPU. When rendering a 1080p video, its about an hour per 10 min of video. Not that fast. But Again, a modern GPU would speed this up. When editing 1080p, there are no frames dropped at normal speeds. But when you do things like time lapses, it struggles to maintain FPS. After adding advanced color correction, music, multi-cam and a vignette, the playback started to slow down to about 30fps, not bad for a $400 computer. Again, I keep hitting on the GPU, If I had a more modern GPU, playback would be as smooth as silk.

 

The final verdict:

This PC might not be the fastest, but it does have a lot of IO on the back and can be upgraded to a monster Core 2 Quad, 8Gb of 1066 Mhz ram and a fast gpu, like a 770. I would definitely recommend doing this if you are tight on money and need a fairly fast computer.

[TheSLSAMG]

But why do this when you can get a similarly performing AMD Six Core for the same, if not a bit more?

 

Still, pretty cool. Can't wait!

[LogicDeifying]

Nicely done sir,care to share some pictures?

[Garden_Phantom]

A monster core 2 quad might bottleneck a fast gpu like a 770. But i like the idea of this build! Can we have some pics?

[commandojack]

Nicely done sir,care to share some pictures?

I plan to post some when I get back from a trip.

[commandojack]

But why do this when you can get a similarly performing AMD Six Core for the same, if not a bit more?

 

Still, pretty cool. Can't wait

I mainly did this because I had some old intel parts I got for free. My friend had givin me an HP machine that would not boot because of a bad motherboard. Plus I needed a desktop at the time for a school project. So I just build a nice machine around the crappy Core 2 Duo and upgraded that when I got more money. But going with a six core amd would not be a bad choice.

[commandojack]

A monster core 2 quad might bottleneck a fast gpu like a 770. But i like the idea of this build! Can we have some pics?

Plan to upload some when I get back. Yes I agree, a 770 would bottle neck, I was just giving an example. But something like a 650ti would work fine.

[Jack.EXE]

I mainly did this because I had some old intel parts I got for free. My friend had givin me an HP machine that would not boot because of a bad motherboard. Plus I needed a desktop at the time for a school project. So I just build a nice machine around the crappy Core 2 Duo and upgraded that when I got more money. But going with a six core amd would not be a bad choice.

I wish I bought the 1055 instead of the 965 when I had the chance. that was when I did not know a thing about multi-core, I just knew this one was 3.4 for $120 and the other one was 2.8 for $100, my how far I've come.

 

 

Anyway, I can imagine this to look like a really nice build once we get some pics, SLI/crossfire can never look bad.

[WDan96]

Awesome, would be cool to see some pics. I'm also building a new system, based off a desktop I found on ebay. For some reason I enjoy using second hand stuff more  

 

I have some local tech exchange dealers that often have good prices on used hardware here in the UK