First Time Buying PC

[Shuuda]

Hello, I'm considering buying a new PC, but as this is my first time and I'm not very knowledgable in what makes a good PC, I was hoping that I would be able to get some advice off this forum as to what might be best for my purposes. I have budget of around £1000, but I would be willing to go just slightly above that if there was a good enough reason to do so. I'm mostly worried that if I just select the specs for myself I'm going to end up choosing something that's not well optimised, or not good for what I want to do with it.

I want a computer that can run a lot of creative and design software with ease, mainly programs such as Autodesk Maya and the Adobe package. Video editing software is also a future consideration. My current computer can run these programs, but it seriously slows down as the files get bigger, and the speed of rending even a single still image in Maya is very slow when I start using Mental Rays. Certainly, trying to render an animation in 3d off my computer would be an isane thought.

I do want to play a couple of games on my PC, the ones I play right now are rather old or not very demanding in terms of graphics (Morrowind, Minecraft, Mount & Blade). However, I want to be able to play Skyrim on any new computer I buy with the settings turned up reasonably high at least. It might just be me being suspicious, but the term "gaming PC" has always been slightly irksome to me. It always conjurers the image of spending a lot of money on a PC that can play games, but isn't too good at anything else.

I'm hoping that someone one this forum will be able to give me a recommendation as to what sort of specs would be suitable for my purpose, or at least give me a starting point to work off.

P.S: Sorry if this got posted more than once, I had little bit of a hicup so to speak.

 

[Fear]

Well here is a start but it's £79 over budget but is a good spec, just to point out as you are dong lot's of editing there is only 8GB ram in the spec but by the sounds of it you might want to go up to 16GB so you could get the machine with 8GB and add another 8GB at a later date if you need it.

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,076.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Shuuda]

That certainly looks like a good place to start, so thank you very much. I do believe it might be best to start out with 8 gb ram and upgrade if needed. I am however, curious about the suggestion of a second hard drive. Does this give any benefits beyond just having more space? It's probably worth noting that my current system only has around 150 gb of space, and that was actually enough for me for the longest time.

 

[Fear]

In that case you can if you want drop the second HDD i just added it in as you seem to be doing lots of editing and thought you would need the extra storage space also if you want to lower the first HDD if you do not need the 750GB you can change it to a 500GB but stick with the caviar black, just before i forget could be worth having a second drive or maybe buying an external HDD for saving any important data you need as it's always good to back up incase a drive fails.

 

[ace1]

That certainly looks like a good place to start, so thank you very much. I do believe it might be best to start out with 8 gb ram and upgrade if needed. I am however, curious about the suggestion of a second hard drive. Does this give any benefits beyond just having more space? It's probably worth noting that my current system only has around 150 gb of space, and that was actually enough for me for the longest time.

second hard drive is just good for more room or as a backup so get if you want one/both of them and if not just save some cash there

 

[Shuuda]

Okay, I've decided to got with the 500 gb HDD along with the second 1 tb HDD.

I'm wondering however about cases. How does the PCS Maelstrom T900 Case compare to the Coolermaster 690 II Case?

Also, I'm thinking of downgrading to the 1 gb GTX560 rather than going with the 570 to save on cost. How noticable would the difference be?