Building a PC

[Mythste]

Are any of you familiar with such an endeavor?

I've not had need for a PC in some time and Mrs MythSte has a Macbook which is ~6 years old that is no longer serving our new requirements.

Our new requirements are mainly video and photo editing. She's a teacher and has had something of a following develop through creating chemistry videos for schools in the locale. We've invested in some nice camera bits and pieces but the editing is proving too much for the old laptop.

On top of which, I've enjoyed documenting more of my trips and editing HD GoPro footage - we also see a drone in our not-too-distant future. So with that in mind, we have a budget of ~£1k to build a machine that will last for many years. If I can play the occasional bit of Call of Duty and relive my uni days that would be a bonus.

The problem is, everything has changed quite substantially since I last looked!

We already have a good 4k monitor so we're talking purely technical gubbins. Can anyone point me in at least the direction of a reliable resource?

Thanks in advance!

[directdrive]

Can't help much as no direct experience of building PCs. however:

The current crop of AMD Ryzen chips have been blowing Intel out of the water. Especially for graphical stuff I imagine they will be very good indeed. They are known to work best (especially the onboard GFX, although I suppose you will want a card) with dual channel RAM, i.e. 2 chips running in parallel. In my laptop I run 2x8gb = 16gb which is plenty for me, but to future proof a machine like that if you want to edit video I'd go for 32gb.

If you don't go for a standalone GPU, the onboard graphics of the newer Ryzen stuff are leaps and bounds ahead of anything that Intel's managed for years (or at least this was the case last year). With my Ryzen 5 mobile chip I can run some relatively demanding games which is impressive for integrated graphics.

Other than that, SSDs are dirt cheap nowadays, so no spinning rust needed as I'm sure you're aware.

[darbeze]

ebuyer.com seem to be a good source of components...

I have used them before for various bits and they seemed good.

Cheers,

Si

[PaulB2]

I'm completely out of date and these days I'd just go to overclockers since they're not far away, but I used to use https://www.tomshardware.com/uk and https://hothardware.com/ to get an idea of something that's reasonably future proof.

Since you're used to Macs, one alternative is to just get the new M1 based mac mini and spend the money left over on extra memory and storage. You probably would lose some of the gaming potential with that option though.

[johnnystorm]

I'd say line of least resistance and if the primary use is your OH's video editing just buy another mac as mentioned above.

If you fancy a spot of gaming then a Google Stadia set up is about £50 at the mo and Macs aren't so bad on that front anymore.

I don't pay too much attention to the self-build stuff anymore but I'm sure I heard that computer parts are also in short supply like bike parts are...

[ScotRoutes]

I used to self-build but it's over 10 years since I did so and standards gave moved on so much. My last two PCs I've just bought pre-built.

[directdrive]

I'd say line of least resistance and if the primary use is your OH's video editing just buy another mac as mentioned above.

If you fancy a spot of gaming then a Google Stadia set up is about £50 at the mo and Macs aren't so bad on that front anymore.

I don't pay too much attention to the self-build stuff anymore but I'm sure I heard that computer parts are also in short supply like bike parts are...

True, future proofing from a gaming perspective at the moment probably just means being prepared to stream them, so a fast fibre internet connection is probably more important than hardware.

[Mythste]

RE: getting another Mac.

We're kind of loathe too even though we're pretty invested (Phones, iPads, watches, laptop).

The Macbook stills serves admirably for photo editing which we do semi-regularly and we like the portability. But there have been times where we have tried to do something or had a craving for a game that is only available on Windows. As such, this new machine should sit alongside the macbook for a few years at least. And if and when the portable macbook shuffles off this mortal coil we will probably replace with the same. Having a diversity of operating systems seems like a pro not a con.

Thanks for all the insight so far. I was very much hoping there were a few obvious off the shelf options but it seems not. Time to fire up a spreadsheet I think!

[belugabob]

Off the shelf PCs are likely to be slightly cheaper than self build, but are usually specced to achieve a particular price point.
The compromises involved aren't always logical or beneficial.

For example, they often come with a relatively small amount of memory, in favour of having a slightly faster CPU - as the casual custom can relate to speed more than capacity.
In practice, though, it's often better to have lots of memory - even at the expense of a slight drop in CPU speed - as having to swap memory in & out has a massive affect on performance.

It's not always as clear cut as this, but the general principal applies.

The skills involved in the physical act of putting together a self build PC are minimal, TBH, but choosing the parts that work together and meet your needs is a bit harder.


It's a bit like bikes - off the shelf is usually cheaper, but self build allows most compromises to be avoided.

[johnnystorm]

There's a chap on Hotukdeals who always posts up custom PC deals and goes to the effort of comparing with the cost of diying the same spec. He also knows some wheezes for getting upgrades and so on from the various suppliers.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ryzen- ... 2021-03-16

[BreninBeener]

As per the above post Sarden84 on hotukdeals is very knolwedgable.

The big problem at the moment is that graphics cards are at an all time price high. There are very few new ones and secondhand they are selling for more than they were new.

Ian