New Build Dillema

[jaycup]

I am about to build a PC for the first time and have chosen the following spec.
CPU - Intel E6750 ; Motherboard - MSI P35 Neo-FR;
Memory - Corsair 2 x 1012 mb.; Graphics - Sapphire Radeon 1650Pro. ; Hard Drive - Samsung 320Gb.
Case - Akasa Zen ; PSU - Atec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500PGB 500 Watt.

I am not a 'gamer but I am into 'graphics and video and music and TV on line. I run some heavyweight programs such as Photoshop C3.

My dillema is, could i get away with a cheaper CPU e.g., Intel E4440 which has a good reputation for overclocking if required. This would save about £50. which could be used elsewhere.

All advice most welcome as well as comments on my proposed system.

 

[Grenage]

I'd probably consider RAID, since most motherboards support it now. The speed boost from a RAID array makes it one of the best 'bang for buck' choices.

As for over-clocking, it's always an option. I 'personally' find it to be more effort than it's worth.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[ceh4702]

Might be worth it to use an Intel E6550 processor to take advantage of the 1333 FSB and the 4 Meg Shared L2 Cache, instead of using a slower bus than trying to overclock. I think the faster bus speed and the larger L2 cache can make a difference in both speed and capacity.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Nelviticus]

If you're going to be working with video then processor speed is an extremely important factor. Compressing an hour of video can take more than an hour so even a 10% speed improvement is a significant gain. Unless you don't mind waiting around I wouldn't skimp on the CPU. Don't forget that the faster processors are just as good at being over-clocked as the slower ones and end up even faster when oc'ed.

From what you wrote it sounds like you're on a limited budget so I would recommend going for a motherboard that supports DDR2 memory rather than DDR3 because at the moment DDR3 performs about the same as DDR2 but costs more. You can also save money on the case - I'm not sure how much an Akasa Zen costs but I only spent about £35 on a Coolermaster Centurion when I built my PC and I'm very happy with it.

Depending on how much video you're working with I'd say that a 320GB hard drive won't be big enough. Ideally you'll want to do your editing with uncompressed video, which takes up a heck of a lot of room. Even if you decide to edit compressed video you'll still need space for your source files and your modified files.

To answer your original question, yes you can get away with a slower CPU but I wouldn't recommend it!

Nelviticus

 

[jaycup]

Thanks for the advice, my budget is not too limited, it is just me thinking that I was going for 'overkill'. My case costs about the same as yours and I will be adding my existing Hard Drive which is another 160Gb. I have also got an external drive = 80Gb.
The motherboard supports DDR2 ram which is what I am getting.

I do take your point on the cpu, that if I start of with a fast one then that too would be capable of being speeded it if it became necessary.

 

[kmcferrin]

I'd probably consider RAID, since most motherboards support it now. The speed boost from a RAID array makes it one of the best 'bang for buck' choices.

You can't do RAID without a second drive, and that means more money. And even then, you can only do RAID0 (faster, but even less fault tolerant than a single disk), or RAID1 (twice as fault tolerant as a single disk, but with no real speed improvement). You would need to go to either RAID10 or RAID5 to get a performance improvement without worsening fault tolerance, and that means either 3 (RAID5) or 4 (RAID10) disks minimum, along with a RAID controller that supports those modes.

In this case, CPU is probably the last thing that I'd cut back on. At this point, buying more CPU power is really quite inexpensive, and you will see a noticeable improvement by going with a faster chip.

 

[Grenage]

Less fault tolerance indeed, but that hardly means you're going to fail every six months. It's still the best bang for buck performance increase, especially considering how cheap hard drives are.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[kmcferrin]

Less fault tolerance indeed, but that hardly means you're going to fail every six months. It's still the best bang for buck performance increase, especially considering how cheap hard drives are.

It's only the best bang for the buck until a drive fails, at which point you've lost all of you data. Then it looks like penny-wise and pound foolish.

The only case for RAID0 that has ever made sense is when you need high-speed temporary disk storage. A lot of video and animation workstations are configured with a fast RAID0 array for "scratch"/temp storage while they work, but they always save to a more fault tolerant array.

 

[Grenage]

None of the drives from my last five or six computers have failed, I used Raid0 in all of them.

Yes you lose the data if one fails, but that's hardly a frequent occurrence. It's a personal choice, I make backups. Compared to a machine with one drive the chance of failure is doubled, but since that chance is very small, it hardly makes much difference.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[jaycup]

My original posting seems to be getting hijacked by the pro/anti 'Raid' set-up arguement. I will not be using this.

I thank everyone for their contributions and I have made up my mind to stay with my original specification. I will be buying the best processor I can i.e., Intel E6750.