Rig for $800?

Hello Digital Storm,

First of all you should know I am coming here because after some research Digital Storm won me over with the customer service. I was originally gonna buy from Cyberpower but because of bad reviews I have heard I no longer wish to purchase from them.  I intend to buy a computer for a gift to myself for my birthday which I will use to start my own business.

Budget: Anything close to $800.

Expectations: I expect a nice smooth performing computer which will last me for a while.

Usage: I will mostly use it for light gaming (World of Warcraft) and mostly using it for performance on my design work. (Photoshop and 3D modeling)

Special Needs: I have a monitor, keyboard, mouse. I even have Windows 7. I don't really need a Hard drive over 500 Gbs.

Here is the spec I am looking at which costs $786:

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master Elite 430
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 630 (2.8GHz) (Quad Core) (2 MB Cache) AM3 Socket
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785T-M/CSM (AMD 785G Chipsets) (Socket AM3)
System Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 500W Digital Storm Certified
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: Standard Factory Heat-sink and Fan
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
Boost Video Card: FREE: Yes, Overclock the video card(s) as much as possible with complete stability
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: FREE: Yes, Disable and tweak all of the non-crucial services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) 
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Small)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty
let me know what you guys think. I am open to suggestions!

Id vote on the wait till you can go to $1200 -$1600 before making the investment.
You will want more horsepower than you would get with an $800 system for the design work.

thanks for the suggestions guys. Are there any builds you guys can think of around $1200 bucks. If so I might save up till Black Friday and just purchase it then. I really want to buy from here rather than Cyberpower!

Originally posted by JStones First off, ditch the radeon and go with nvidia. For games radeons are fine but for content creation apps like photoshop, maya, lightwave, 3dmax, zbrush, etc nvidia is the better solution. Instead of having ds install vista you can probably tell them in the notes that you have win7 and either send it to them or install it yourself when you get the pc. That will save you a few bucks. I would recommend saving a bit more money before you buy a rig. If you cannot wait then just get the best nvidia card you can for your budget and as much ram as you can. Good luck

What makes NVIDIA better for those apps besides Photoshop as you can utilize cuda?  Actually, I think even photoshop is able to utilize an ATI GPU.

I use both Photoshop CS5 and Maya 2011, and I see no noticeable difference in performance with ATI versus NVIDIA.  Rendering for most if not all of those 3D apps is handled by the CPU.


In regards to the build, this is what I would recommend: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=451083

It is over your budget at $1326, but will last longer without having to upgrade versus saving that $100-200 and having to upgrade sooner.

Understood, though I don't think that the problems that existed in the past for ATI exist today.  I could be wrong on the other apps since I have not personally used them, but currently I don't forsee there being any conflicts based on what I have seen with the two I use.

Kinda interesting to me that the bigger studios use NVIDIA.


Edited by venom - 24 Oct 2010 at 11:08pm