Build plan for $500 content creation PC

[Rafoo]

Hi guys,

 

I'm Rafoo, new here but I've been a PC enthusiast for the last 15 years. Just to give you a bit of history, I was a hardware geek back in the day when I used to play with OCed Athlon XPs, designed my own waterblocks for custom watercooling rigs using heater cores from small cars and aquarium pumps etc etc. The thing is I grew up and my time for gaming and playing with PCs went away, which means I dunno what is what anymore, and things have changed so much that I have to re-learn everything.

I've been running a Dell Precision M6500 for the past 6 years for running Catia and Lightroom, and upgrading to Windows 10 did not go well with it. It's getting old and overheating whenever I do anything. Time for a change.

 

I've been watching Linus's videos quite a bit lately and their latest series for budget gaming PC under $500 picked my interest.

 

What I am doing with my PC that requires power today is mostly Lightroom, and I am starting to play with video editing running Premier Pro. I am about to pull the trigger on a 4K mirrorless camera, so I'll need to be able to run those too.

Ideally, I want a tower that I can connect to one screen, and I have all the peripherals. I have been looking into buying one of those older workstations and slap a PSU and a GPU on it like those cheap gaming builds I've seen, however I am not sure this is optimized for my needs.

 

What I understand is that I need in order of priority:  a CPU that has as many cores possible, the highest boost frequency, at least 8Go of Ram, a GPU with at least 2Go of ram, and possibly a small SSD. What do you think the right balance should be ?

Now, note that I am very much open to overclocking GPU and CPU.

 

The 2 ways I have been looking are either using an older Xeon on an overclockable mobo in an old workstation, and in this case I need help on choosing what, or go the consumer path with a less old I5 or I7 also from a workstation.

 

I know my request is very broad and could go in many directions, but if you guys could give me some guidance, that would be great.

 

[The Sloth]

get older OEM PC with  i7 3rd gen i7, throw in SSD, GPU such as a used 970( Cuda will help with editing) and a new PSU. 

[Damascus]

I'd swap the GPU out for a second hand GTX 970 if possible and if you need storage you can drop  the 1600 (6c/12t) to a 1400 (4c/8t) and save 40 buck though I STRONGLY RECOMEND the 1600 over the 1400

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/L6sGgL

 

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($195.69 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($65.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($60.98 @ Newegg) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 460 2GB OC Single Fan Video Card  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Apevia - X-QTIS-BK MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: EVGA - 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $469.62

[agobran]

8 minutes ago, Rafoo said:

Hi guys,

 

I'm Rafoo, new here but I've been a PC enthusiast for the last 15 years. Just to give you a bit of history, I was a hardware geek back in the day when I used to play with OCed Athlon XPs, designed my own waterblocks for custom watercooling rigs using heater cores from small cars and aquarium pumps etc etc. The thing is I grew up and my time for gaming and playing with PCs went away, which means I dunno what is what anymore, and things have changed so much that I have to re-learn everything.

I've been running a Dell Precision M6500 for the past 6 years for running Catia and Lightroom, and upgrading to Windows 10 did not go well with it. It's getting old and overheating whenever I do anything. Time for a change.

 

I've been watching Linus's videos quite a bit lately and their latest series for budget gaming PC under $500 picked my interest.

 

What I am doing with my PC that requires power today is mostly Lightroom, and I am starting to play with video editing running Premier Pro. I am about to pull the trigger on a 4K mirrorless camera, so I'll need to be able to run those too.

Ideally, I want a tower that I can connect to one screen, and I have all the peripherals. I have been looking into buying one of those older workstations and slap a PSU and a GPU on it like those cheap gaming builds I've seen, however I am not sure this is optimized for my needs.

 

What I understand is that I need in order of priority:  a CPU that has as many cores possible, the highest boost frequency, at least 8Go of Ram, a GPU with at least 2Go of ram, and possibly a small SSD. What do you think the right balance should be ?

Now, note that I am very much open to overclocking GPU and CPU.

 

The 2 ways I have been looking are either using an older Xeon on an overclockable mobo in an old workstation, and in this case I need help on choosing what, or go the consumer path with a less old I5 or I7 also from a workstation.

 

I know my request is very broad and could go in many directions, but if you guys could give me some guidance, that would be great.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Nx6HTH

if u wanna go thats about what u can get

[Damascus]

3 minutes ago, agobran said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Nx6HTH

if u wanna go thats about what u can get

Or drop the ssd and lose some GPU power for 4 times the cores (included 1tb hdd this time)

 

Also, 1600 OC's really well

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2PnDsJ

 

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($195.69 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($65.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($60.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital - RE2 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($42.00 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 460 2GB OC Single Fan Video Card  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Apevia - X-QTIS-BK MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: EVGA - 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $511.62

[agobran]

Just now, Damascus said:

Or drop the ssd and lose some GPU power for 4 times the cores (included 1tb hdd this time)

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2PnDsJ

 

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($195.69 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($65.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($60.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital - RE2 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($42.00 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 460 2GB OC Single Fan Video Card  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Apevia - X-QTIS-BK MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: EVGA - 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $511.62

thats a good option

[Damascus]

Just now, agobran said:

thats a good option

It can OC really well on the stock cooler as well

[Damascus]

Just now, agobran said:

thats a good option

 

[iRileyx]

Please don't use that EVGA power supply.

 

Miles better option, especially if you buy soon and get that $20 rebate

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FQ648d/corsair-power-supply-cp9020101na

[Damascus]

Just now, RKRiley said:

Please don't use that EVGA power supply.

 

Miles better option, especially if you buy soon and get that $20 rebate

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FQ648d/corsair-power-supply-cp9020101na

HOLY BALLS 30 bucks for a CXM?  DOOOO IIIIT

[lukart]

13 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Or drop the ssd and lose some GPU power for 4 times the cores (included 1tb hdd this time)

 

Also, 1600 OC's really well

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2PnDsJ

 

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($195.69 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($65.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory  ($60.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital - RE2 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($42.00 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 460 2GB OC Single Fan Video Card  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Apevia - X-QTIS-BK MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: EVGA - 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $511.62

 

This! But.. do yourself a favor,save a bit more and get a SSD as well.

[Damascus]

4 minutes ago, lukart said:

This! But.. do yourself a favor,save a bit more and get a SSD as well.

Just throw one in later on down the line

 

[Navbryce]

Buy a used server off ebay. You can get a two-cpu machine with in total 8 physical cores and 16 threads and SOME RAM (at least 4 GB but probably around 24 GB) pre-installed off e-bay for $100. I recommend buying a server from the IBM x3650 series. You will also probably have to buy a hard drive/ssd ($80). Note: SAS controllers are compatible with SATA drives. 

 

Like this bad boi: http://www.ebay.com/itm/401350477309?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&fromMakeTrack=true

 

Then buy a like 200 Watt cheap power supply ($30), a PCI 16X to 8X (MiniPCIE) adapter (https://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Riser-Flexible-Ribbon-Extension/dp/B00H8VVD00 for ~$10).

 

Does 8x vs 16x matter? 

 

Amount left after buying the server, PSU, adapter, and an $80 SSD/HDD: 

$280.

 

Now buy yourself a decent graphics card (1060?) with that money.

 

Jimmy rig it all together. Use the PSU you just bought to ONLY power the graphics card, not the server. Use the adapter to connect the graphics card to the server. Sort of like this guy but with a better adapter and server and without a case for the GPU (You can always use a cardboard box): 

.

Would leave you with a PC that has:

- 8 physical cores, 16 logical cores

- ~12 GB of RAM

- 1060 GPU

- A good HDD or SSD ($80)

Pro:

You can install a LOT more drives and RAM.

 

Cons:

Will probably be loud as hell, but you can always buy long cables and throw it in a closet.

 

[DocSwag]

I don't know why people are recommending 1600s with weak GPUs. Lightroom is pretty single threaded so a g4560 would be as good if not better, and with premier gpu is more important than CPU most of the time so a stronger GPU might be a better idea.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($68.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-B250-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($61.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws 4 series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($59.92 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($48.44 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3GB ARMOR OCV1 Video Card  ($212.98 @ Newegg) 
Case: BitFenix - Comrade ATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ NCIX US) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $512.29
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-19 18:26 EDT-0400

 

That said, there are some parts of premier that are more CPU dependent (like scrubbing, for example)

[Damascus]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

1600s with weak GPUs

OP asked for threads "shrug"

[Rafoo]

Damn guys, you are reactive ! Thanks a lot for all those replies, this is a great community.

 

For the guys proposing brand new configs, why do you recommend going that route instead of going the used route ? I've always thought I could do much more with used than new for a given budget.

 

For instance, I find those old servers with a single Xeon E5-16xx quad coreover 3Ghz, or the lower clockspeed 6-8 cores E5-26xx quite appealing with their stock features.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z420-WORKSTATION-Quad-Core-XEON-E5-1620-3-60GHz-16GB-256Gb-SSD-Win-10-Pro-A0/311896736442

 

This is missing a good GPU but the rest is very tempting don't you think ?

 

Also, I did not necessarily ask for threads, hence my question about the balance of the build based on my usage.

[agobran]

1 hour ago, Rafoo said:

Damn guys, you are reactive ! Thanks a lot for all those replies, this is a great community.

 

For the guys proposing brand new configs, why do you recommend going that route instead of going the used route ? I've always thought I could do much more with used than new for a given budget.

 

For instance, I find those old servers with a single Xeon E5-16xx quad coreover 3Ghz, or the lower clockspeed 6-8 cores E5-26xx quite appealing with their stock features.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z420-WORKSTATION-Quad-Core-XEON-E5-1620-3-60GHz-16GB-256Gb-SSD-Win-10-Pro-A0/311896736442

 

This is missing a good GPU but the rest is very tempting don't you think ?

 

Also, I did not necessarily ask for threads, hence my question about the balance of the build based on my usage.

thats a great deal throw a 1050ti in there and u got a beast of a machine

[Rafoo]

Is there any way to OC those Xeons on the original mobo of those workstation even if just base clock ?

[Rafoo]

For those who care, I found bitchin machine local to me. When quite a bit over budget at $750, and it may have less cores than the Xeons I was looking at but I think i made a great deal. It is based on a 6700k a GTX980, 32GB of ram and a 500 GB SSD

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PyH6bj