Decent price here for this rig?

[kcrispin]

In need of a STABLE rig for my daughter's photo editing on CS5. Just found
the following below for $800. Hoping the gurus here may advise on price/stability or even other options.

She only uses CS5 for the photo editing, no video. Really concerned about
reliability and anything I'd need to check on this system prior to purchase.

MSI K9N2 SLi Platinum (nvidia 750a SLi chipset)
AMD Phenom 9850 2.5Ghz Quad-Core Processor
4Gb OCZ SLI READY 800Mhz Dual-Channel DDR2 RAM
2x PNY XLR8 nVidia GTX 260 786Mb DDR3 graphics cards (in SLi mode)
2x 500gb Western Digital HDD on a RAID 0 stripe (931GB hdd space)
Sansung DVDRW drive
Pioneer BD-ROM Blu-Ray drive
1000w Silverstone power supply
Antec Three Hundred solid black case (5 fans)
Fresh reformat Windows 7 Professional

This is pre-built and apparently 1 year used for AutoCad/Solidworks, some games. But claims never OC'd.

Any advice, other options, etc.....VERY much appreciated.

KC

 

[nsafreak]

Having a pair of GTX260s in a non gaming machine isn't going to help her much and the only CS5 app that takes advantage of CUDA at all is Premiere Pro. IIRC the only way you can use CUDA in Premiere even is with a professional level card ie a Quadro. I will say that I'm not a huge fan of the nVidia 750 chipset, it's not bad but nVidia motherboard chipsets as of late don't seem to be performing all that well. The PSU is massive overkill even with a pair of GTX260s in there. The other issue I have is that it's using the older generation Phenom which never really did all that well against the Core 2 Quad platform. The Phenom II is a better competitor and I don't think that board will support it. I'd also be wary as to whether that system was overclocked or not although if done properly it should be ok. Essentially my main issue is that you're buying a well performing but obsolete system. For some reason I'm having issues with newegg tonight so I'm going off the top of my head for prices. Here are the two builds that I would recommend

AMD Phenom II 965
A good Gigabyte or Asus AM3 motherboard
8GB Geil Ripjaw DDR3 RAM
60 GB OCZ Vertex SSD
1 TB Samsung F3 HDD
22x Lite On DVD+/-RW
nVidia GTS250 based video card
Corsair 550 watt PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM


Intel i5 650
A good Gigabyte or Asus P55 motherboard
8GB Geil Ripjaw DDR3 RAM
60GB OCZ Vertex SSD
1 TB Samsung F3 HDD
22x Lite On DVD+/-RW
nVidia GTS250 based video card
Corsair 550 watt PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM

Add a case to either one of those builds and you'll have a system that will blow the doors off the system that you're looking at in everything except perhaps gaming for around the same price. And since your daughter is looking to just use it for CS5 that doesn't really even matter. You can even pare down the price even more by downgrading the video card. I just threw that in there just in case there's some way to use CUDA without having a Quadro card.

 

[jchu14]

That's not a good fit for your purpose.

The problems with that computer
-outdated processor
-dual graphics card means more point of failure, more noise, and unnecessary power usage for your purpose.
-Raid 0 is more prone to data loss (if one drive dies, you lose all of your data). The extra bandwidth is not too useful because in an ideal system, you should have enough RAM to avoid using the scratch disk.
-Does the system come with Windows 7 disk? If not, it's not worth much. Sooner of later, you're gonna want to reformat or build a new machine.

For $800, you can put together a core i5-760 system with 8gb of ram that will blow the OP rig out of the water for your purpose. Check out this benchmark. An operation that took the x4 9850 29.6 seconds to do, only took the core i5 750 18 seconds.

Core i5 760
Asus P7H55-M PRO
2x Gskill 2x2GB DDR3
Corsair 400CX
Sapphire 5450 512MB
Samsung F3 500gb HDD
Antec 300 case
Windows 7 Home Premium

That adds up to $796. You can probably knock $70-$100 off that by finding combo deals and finding stuff on sale.

Getting a Dell is not such a bad idea either. You can get a core i5 750, 8gb RAM, Radeon 5450 system for about $800. You also nice things like warranty support, keyboard/mouse, memory card reader, and a quiet machine. But if you build your own, you can get better quality parts (IMO), more expandability, and windows 7 that you can reuse in the future.

 

[mfenn]

That's not a good fit for your purpose.

The problems with that computer
-outdated processor
-dual graphics card means more point of failure, more noise, and unnecessary power usage for your purpose.
-Raid 0 is more prone to data loss (if one drive dies, you lose all of your data). The extra bandwidth is not too useful because in an ideal system, you should have enough RAM to avoid using the scratch disk.
-Does the system come with Windows 7 disk? If not, it's not worth much. Sooner of later, you're gonna want to reformat or build a new machine.

For $800, you can put together a core i5-760 system with 8gb of ram that will blow the OP rig out of the water for your purpose. Check out this benchmark. An operation that took the x4 9850 29.6 seconds to do, only took the core i5 750 18 seconds.

Core i5 760
Asus P7H55-M PRO
2x Gskill 2x2GB DDR3
Corsair 400CX
Sapphire 5450 512MB
Samsung F3 500gb HDD
Antec 300 case
Windows 7 Home Premium

That adds up to $796. You can probably knock $70-$100 off that by finding combo deals and finding stuff on sale.

Getting a Dell is not such a bad idea either. You can get a core i5 750, 8gb RAM, Radeon 5450 system for about $800. You also nice things like warranty support, keyboard/mouse, memory card reader, and a quiet machine. But if you build your own, you can get better quality parts (IMO), more expandability, and windows 7 that you can reuse in the future.

:thumbsup: Especially the bolded, though jchu's builds are always good. Somebody's gaming build from 2 years ago does not a good Photoshop machine make.

 

[DSF]

I generally wouldn't look at buying a used machine like that unless the price was incredible and you and/or your daughter are comfortable performing tech support. Otherwise, go with a company like Dell.

Are you willing to build your own, or is this purely a thread about purchasing pre-built?

 

[Billb2]

Yeah, that's a gaming machine, overkill and too much maintenance.

And, as said, no OS disk would be a deal breaker.

Look at Dell/HP. Refurbished or off lease to save some $$$

 

[kcrispin]

Thanks a million for the EXPERT ADVICE!

Looking hard at this: http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Studio-sx...ref=pd_cp_pc_1

Not really interested in building myself, unless it was for MYSELF. Not to mention the
hassle of tech support, etc., etc.

Linked system seems to fit the bill, no?

Thanks again for your time, KC

 

[Fayd]

Thanks a million for the EXPERT ADVICE!

Looking hard at this: http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Studio-sx...ref=pd_cp_pc_1

Not really interested in building myself, unless it was for MYSELF. Not to mention the
hassle of tech support, etc., etc.

Linked system seems to fit the bill, no?

Thanks again for your time, KC

looks like a good system for your daughter's intended use.

since you dont intend to build one yourself, i'd say go with that or something that'd come with a monitor.

tho i did see dell 24" for like 160 yesterday...