New budget build, AMD or Intel?

[MadCow809]

Hi guys, I'm building a pc for my aunt... Struggling here to keep the price down below $500 since I need to buy just about everything (HDD, RAM, CPU, MOBO, VGA, Case, PSU, DVD-RW etc..) Anyway, I've got two options here... Please help me to pick one.


AMD :

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz - $54

ECS A780GM (ATi HD3200, Hybrid Crossfire Option) - $80

TOTAL : $134

OR

Intel :

Intel Pentium E2160 - $70 (Prob gonna change the FSB to 266 or 300, since the E2160 is extremely overclockable, even with stock factory fan)

GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L (Intel GMA 3100) - $67

TOTAL : $137


VGA Card Option :

HD 2600XT 256MB - $75

HD 3650 512MB - $75

nVIDIA GeForce 7600GS 256MB - Old video card that I have, if this 7600GS end up being the slowest card, then I might use this card for the new setup and get one of the above cards to replace the 7600GS.


Thanks guys. Gonna settle this on Monday and place my order down through newegg. Will expect the parts will arrive on Tues/Wed, My aunt will needs this setup for this coming weekend, so its kind of urgent.

[George Hallam]

Ok in this case i would say the AMD set up seems to be the better one, what will your aunty use the PC for?

if its just for simple things you dont really need a VGA card due to the MOBO having onboard VGA

[MadCow809]

Mainly for photoshop cs and illustrator cs

can the onboard hd3200 handle both programs?

she does quite a bit of work on both the programs.

[Ajmukon]

i would get a cheap DX10 capable Card for photo shop.

the 3850 is a good card for that.

[MadCow809]

HD3850 seems like a waste for photoshop, its over 150 bucks, kind of expensive for a cheap pc.

any videocard over $80 will be a waste for her

[mjc]

How much RAM are you putting in it?

Photoshop eats RAM like a geek eats Doritos...so disabling the onboard video and putting in just about ANY video card will help out some, but most modern video cards don't really do much for 2d anyway, so in a way ANY but an onboard card is going to be a waste. About the only reason I can think of for really going with a replacement for the onboard would if she does anything with video files. The HD series of Ati cards are more video specific than game oriented cards like the latest nVidia cards...

[MadCow809]

Hm... so are you saying that the onboard HD3200 isnt up for the job?

and im putting in 2 x 1Gb DDR2 800 ram

[Heartborne]

at the risk of offending everyone here, if you're into photoshop and illustrator your choices are to drop a fortune on a monstrous PC or buy a mac that is equally capable for about half the price.

[MadCow809]

Thats irrelevant, She doesnt want to spend more than 500 bucks on a new system, and photoshop doesnt require a high end workstation card, so i dont see the need to spend a fortune on a new build.

[Ajmukon]

if you can, get 4 x 1GB,
and a simple graphics card.
the 3850 is one i know is cheap and is very good.
but any of the Radeon X1000 series will also do very well.

i will do some research into this tommorow


EDIT: MACS ARE NOT MORE EFFICIENT THAN PC systems.

Look at the values/ benchmarks. (For the Price)

MACs can be 3x times more expensive for the same exact machine with windows

[Heartborne]

Ah, I was thinking video editing. That is a whole other story. For these purposes, 500 bucks should build you a decent machine. I'm using Intel chips for the time being, since when I was shopping around they seemed to get better reviews in general and have a reputation for better stability and performance. I don't think you can go wrong with AMD in this case, though.
I'm sure the athlon 64 x2 will be more than adequate, and pair that up with a geforce 9600 gt or a radeon 3850 I think you'll be quite all right. You may want to buy a large hard drive for your images, but I'm sure you already know that.

I hope my suggestions are helpful, this type of thing isn't really my forte but a machine used for photo editing probably falls under the "general use" category.

[MadCow809]

A 9600gt or HD3850 just for photoshopping??

thats well over $140 for any of the above mentioned cards, and i dont see a need for this since my crappy 7600GS or even my old X800 Pro can run photoshop smoothly.

[mjc]

With enough RAM, so can the onboard...the need for a discrete video for anything other than video work or gaming is overblown.

[MadCow809]

Great, so the AMD it is.

AMD X2 4000 and the ECS 780G mobo is the final choice.

This is gonna be my first AMD build since the Athlon Thunderbird era, i used to be an AMD fan but havnt touched any of their products in a very long time.

Anything i need to know or beware of?

[George Hallam]

I have been using photoshop shop quite alot lately and for the things I as using like applying filters and such it is way more CPU intensive
, so the first VGA card you said the 3650 will work quite suffice for what you need, there are also settings to put more load on the CPU if you don't have such a good VGA card. In my opinion the 3850 may be overkill just for that pc.

Also what os you using and did you diside how much ram to get, xp only recoginse 2.85 - 3.25 Gb of ram so 4Gb is pointless

[MadCow809]

not gonna bother with 4gb, IMO thats just a waste. I dont even have 4gb in my own pc setup, so certainly my aunt wont be needing that.

2 x 1 Gb DDR2 800 is what Im going for, and Im gonna settle with the HD3200 onboard, do you think that will handle Photoshop fine?

Oh and Im gonna have XP installed. Vista chows too much system resouces, so i wont put it on unless she request it.

[Ajmukon]

well, the 3850 was the cheapest (new) one i could think of.

i would put a video card in, if you can find a x800, use it.

and... anything less than 3GB of RAM and Photoshop is going to experience some slowing down....

but you would be able to get by with 2GB. (but RAM is cheap right now.. :p :rolleyes:)

@Heartborne
macs have better pre-built utilities for video editing, that is why there better. I can get the same performance from a PC with the proper utilities installed. Granted, these utilities can cost in the thousands.... (US $)