Help with powerful, budget (£500) PC build

Shrimply

Hi guys,

I'm considering building myself a new computer, I could really do with something with a lot of processing power, not totally sure where the money is going to come from but it will be greatly beneficial to me, so thought I'd get some opinions before I make my mind up about what to do. If I was going ahead I wouldn't be wanting to spend much more than £500.

I'm comfortable with putting a PC together but not really sure what is currently the best way to go in terms of components.

I don't need an OS, and I don't need a large hard drive, although would probably want an SSD (maybe 128GB) to install the OS and programs on. Graphics really aren't important, as long as I have two HD display outputs. And I guess I'd ideally like to be spending most money on components that I'm less likely to be able to upgrade in the future, so that the base is as good as possible, if that makes sense.

Thanks in advance for any help, and if you have any questions, or I haven't made sense, please let me know.

billett05

You really need to work out your budget fully on this one to cover what you call lots of processing power.

I would start by making a list of all the components you require. Then look at the components you are not interested in buy top spec, like graphics, case, etc..

Then pick you SSD

Then with your remaining money from your budget look at somewhere like overclockers and pick a good motherboard, RAM and CPU bundle to ensure they are compatible. Using overclockers they will even over clock them for you to get the most out of it for less.

The second option is to buy the bundle first, but you will then run the risk of going over budget with the remaining items.

Cisco001

What is the main use of the machine?
Do you after list of component only and build it yourself?

Edit

i5 4690K (release on June) & Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H & Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler & Kingston 8GB DDR3 2400 if you overclock

i5 4690 & Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H & Kingston HyperX 8 GB DDR3 1600

Samsung EVO 120GB

XFX R7 240

Corsair 200R

XFX 550W PSU

Shrimply

Thanks to both of you, yes I'm happy to build it from scratch if that works out cheaper, quite like that sort of project.

I'll take a look at the links above, very helpful.

The main use for the machine, or rather, what I need processing power for is data analysis type stuff. I'm starting a PhD in quantitative genetics this september and have a project to do over the summer in a similar areas. So data and statistical analysis, computer simulations and the like, things that take days to run.

I realise that in many cases for a computer to be really useful programs have to be able to access multiple cores, and I'm not sure that what I'll be using can. But I really have very little technical knowledge in this area.

paddyrg

Find out what the software you're using is in advance - some can actually run better in GPU than CPU for parallelized analysis stuff - if that will be the case for you, then a lighter processor in favour of a hefty GPU may get more bang for buck. The course tutor can probably advise.

Shrimply

Thanks,

Obviously it's impossible for anyone to predict what software I will end up using over the next 3 years, it will entirely depend on which directions I chose to take things and how the project develops. In an ideal world, I'd probably wait until September and ask my supervisor what specifications they would recommend, but I could to with an upgrade to get me easily through the summer.

I don't know much about software but generally it will be, relatively, simple programs, coded in C or Python etc. And I think it would be safe to presume that generally they will only be able to utilise a single core at a time. Although I might wish to run multiple programs, or instances at once.

Does that help?

As an example, the statistical software R will probably be being utilised often, and the main piece of software I will be using over the summer is freeware called Structure.

paddyrg

C is extremely capable of multi-threaded applications, so there's no way of knowing.

Structure can apparently run threaded https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/structure-software/threading/structure-software/cEkn0PX-BZY/m-t_aDzumSoJ so more cores might be helpful for you - that might be an i7 processor which can present upto 16 virtual cores (8 physical) if you get the right processor.