[Landrover]

I am going to be building myself a custom PC, but I'm not sure what kind of components I should use. I'm going to collage and I need something that can run the Manga making software "Manga Studio EX" with no problems. I also have a Wacom Intous 4 large sized tablet and need to make sure it can run that. It doesn't have to be a high end gaming computer but I want something that can run a few simple games without any problems. I would like to use an AMD processor and my price range is about 500-800 dollars, if anyone has some suggestions for a setup it would be greatly appreciated.

[LiveBrianD]

Any machine can run a wacom tablet. AMD processors aren't necessairly the best. What games do you want to play and at what resolution and detail settings? For the occosional game, an AMD A6 or A8 is good. Otherwise, get a i3 or i5 and a decent GPU. (an i7 is a waste of money with your price range) I'll get back to you with some build suggestions later. Also, manga studio is some sort of drawing software, right? Like photoshop?

[Landrover]

Yes Manga Studio EX is a drawing program that you can make B&W comics with and the more RAM you have the better it runs. I have Gimp for the colour jobs. I would like to use AMD processors because I have one in my laptop and the little guy runs great, but if an Intel would do what i want better than an AMD I'd consider it. To tell you the truth I have no idea which processor is better, I'm kinda new to this. The type of games I would be playing would be Minecraft, Total war shogun 2, and Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The resolution doesn't need to be to high, just good enough to see what I'm doing. More importantly I would like to be able to just play the games with little issues or glitching. I thank you very much for your time and the suggestions they are greatly appreciated. I look forward to any more ideas. If you need more info let me know.

[LiveBrianD]

I came up with this for $820:
LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM - $18, typical, cheap, good enough
Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $60, good airflow, very sturdy, I have this case and like it, Antec stuff is high quality.
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $130, nice and fast, 1TB, and since you get a much better drive for just a tiny bit more money I figured this was good (ex. a 500GB WD Blue drive for $90)
ASUS EAH6770/DI/1GD5 Radeon HD 6770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - $110, this should allow you to play today's games at 1080p pretty well
SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply -$70, this has enough headroom to upgrade to a 580 or add a second gpu (the board supports crossfire, though not sli, btw). If you're only going to stick with a single mid-range card like a 5770 or below, an Antec Earthwatts 380W will suffice. (note: that one's BYOPC, bring your own power cord, one isn't included)
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL - $47, this should be plenty (ram is dirt cheap nowadays, so why not go for just 4GB? 1600MHz should be fast enough. Note that you may need to change the ram speed in the bios, otherwise it'll run at 1333MHz, reducing performance a little)
ASUS P8H67-V (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS - $105, this looks like a pretty good board, full ATX, though I recall there is a cheaper micro-ATX LGA1155 asus board that looks good, though it lacks USB 3.0, for instance.
Intel Core i5-2300 Sandy Bridge 2.8GHz (3.1GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000 ... - $180, quad-core sandy bridge. Yes, I know it's not unlocked, but I was trying to trim costs. This CPU can't be overclocked though because of that. I also figured that it wasn't worth putting in an aftermarket CPU cooler, though if you want one to reduce noise under load, the cooler master tx3 and 212 are good ones to look at.
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM - $100, duh!

Basically, this should last you for several years, through college without a doubt, and the GPU is good enough to play current games at 1080p, high detail. (I have a 550ti, similar to the 5770/6770 in performance, maybe a tad more, and it's capable of 1080p, high detail, at ~50-60fps.)

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 06 March 2012 - 09:06 PM

[Landrover]

Thank You!! I really can't thank you enough for the time you put into making this list, it really helped. The price is good and I get a decent machine for it. I looked at all the parts and it sounds like they can do exactly what I want. I really wasn't sure as to what to get, but with your help I now know exactly what I need. As a first time PC builder your help was invaluable and again I say THANK YOU!!! I will hopefully be building this PC soon and be using all the components you suggested. Thank You again and wish me luck!!!!

[snorg]

You can go to Build Your Own PC and play around there, you can mix and match and it shows you the costs.

AMD Phenom II X4 960 Black Edition Quad Core Processor AM3 3.0GHZ 8MB Cache 95W Retail Box Part# HD96ZTWFGRBOX $138 would be good for you, thats a canada price, your cost would be less.

[LiveBrianD]

snorg, on 07 March 2012 - 10:52 AM, said:

You can go to Build Your Own PC and play around there, you can mix and match and it shows you the costs.

AMD Phenom II X4 960 Black Edition Quad Core Processor AM3 3.0GHZ 8MB Cache 95W Retail Box Part# HD96ZTWFGRBOX $138 would be good for you, thats a canada price, your cost would be less.

The problem is that Sandy Bridge just blows AMD's stuff away. Granted, value-wise the AMD APUs might be a little better than the Intel i3. Once you start looking at mid-range or gaming machines though (unless the amd apu's graphics are enough for you), Intel is the better option.

[Landrover]

What would be a good monitor, keyboard, and mouse to go with this setup? For a monitor I found the Asus VS LED series are those any good or can you suggest anything else?

Newegg link for Asus VS LED 20"
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16824236200

Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

[coastie65]

As for keyboards and mice, it is pretty much up to ther individule. I have a Microsoft Sidewinder Keyboard ( wired ) and it is fine. Although I am using a wired mouse, I do like wireless. This wired mouse is a bit od a problem as the pointer isn't none too stable ( cheap microsoft mouse ) and jumps. Not good when you are gaming. I think My wireless mouse finally gave up the ghost. Incidently, these used to be pretty good monitors : http://www.tigerdire...21&sku=V18-2235 The 24" model is $40 more.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 08 March 2012 - 05:36 AM

[LiveBrianD]

I'm not sure about asus, but I've heard they're good for gaming (not sure about color accuracy though). One thing's for sure - DO NOT GET AN ACER! I have one, and viewing angles and color accuracy are the WORST I've EVER seen on a TN monitor. Just the other day, I was looking at a page with a tan sort of background, and it looked like the page had a moderate gradient from top to bottom, being more red at the bottom. Guess what? There wasn't ANY gradient in the page, it was a solid color all the way through (I took a screenshot and used the color picker tool in paint.net to check). I'm planning to sell this monitor (Acer S231HL) and buy a better one for those exact reasons (and I want something bigger). HP ones seem good, from what I've seen (ex. color presets, OOTB color, and viewing angles are good). Samsung is also good. I don't really have experience with any others.

Coastie, keep in mind that, for a 1080p monitor, you want it to be AT LEAST 23". On a 22" one (probably 21.5" really), things are too small to comfortably read. As it is, I find my 23" screen a bit small and am planning to get a 25" one to replace it. Edit: Yep, that viewsonic is actually 21.5". Come on manufacturers, if it's 21.5" don't say it's 22"; if it's 23.6" don't say it's 24".

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 08 March 2012 - 03:41 PM

[Landrover]

I think I am going to go with the Asus. From what I hear it has a great color contrast with no bleeding and has very bright and sharp detail, perfect for my color Manga work. But what size should I get? I need something that I can look at my artwork in detail with. Should I go with a 23" or does it matter. Can you suggest a good size for my needs? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[LiveBrianD]

I'd get one that's at least 20" 1600x900, preferably 24"+ 1920x1080. Don't get a 1366x768 screen - they're fairly small.

[myloginname]

ASUS monitors are very good, great color accuracy and very fast response time, probably the best for gaming, especially FPS like COD. Plus, they are cheaper than Samsung's, which are pretty much overpriced.

LBD, I have the Acer S243HL, and I have heard very bad reviews from Acer monitors, but mine seems fine. The mini-HDMi to HDMI adapter that came with it was broken, at certain angles there would be no pictures, and the color was way off. But I switched to a VGA cable and it looks pretty good. I think that you just have to spend some time calibrating it, I spent quite a bit of time calibrating mine.

[LiveBrianD]

Do you know what the asus color settings (cool, normal, warm) correspond to in degrees Kelvin? (I've heard the normal preset is a bit blue. Is it something like 9300K, 8000K, and 6500K; or 9300K, 6500K, 5000K?) I know the ones on hp monitors are pretty good - I've looked at the hp 2511x in store and it seems pretty good. The ASUS VE258Q I was looking at is 2ms and has some 30 million to 1 contrast ratio, but that's pretty much just advertising BS most of the time. (who cares about the DCR?) I don't get why Acer makes their monitor calibration so bad OOTB - that's a major reason for me to not recommend them now.

[myloginname]

LiveBrianD, on 13 March 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

Do you know what the asus color settings (cool, normal, warm) correspond to in degrees Kelvin? (I've heard the normal preset is a bit blue. Is it something like 9300K, 8000K, and 6500K; or 9300K, 6500K, 5000K?) I know the ones on hp monitors are pretty good - I've looked at the hp 2511x in store and it seems pretty good. The ASUS VE258Q I was looking at is 2ms and has some 30 million to 1 contrast ratio, but that's pretty much just advertising BS most of the time. (who cares about the DCR?) I don't get why Acer makes their monitor calibration so bad OOTB - that's a major reason for me to not recommend them now.

Yeah mine was open box (on display), it was $50 off. $160 for 24" LED monitor with 2ms response time, and so far after calibrating it looks pretty good. It's true though, I looked at some other Acer monitors and they look horrible, you really do have to spend time calibrating and even then it will vary with each unit.

I'd recommend ASUS, HP, or Samsung, probably ASUS because they are probably the cheapest and easiest to find, while offering excellent performance.

[LiveBrianD]

Around here, HP and Samsung are easy to find, and not so much ASUS. My monitor's an Acer S231HL that I got on sale for $130 (normally ~ $160).

Say, do you know if asus monitors show a logo when you turn them on? If so, how long does the logo appear for? Sometime I'll get around to going to an electronics store that has asus monitors so I can take a look.

[Kathi201]

yes I think it will take approximately $800 to build.

[myloginname]

LiveBrianD, on 13 March 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Around here, HP and Samsung are easy to find, and not so much ASUS. My monitor's an Acer S231HL that I got on sale for $130 (normally ~ $160).

Say, do you know if asus monitors show a logo when you turn them on? If so, how long does the logo appear for? Sometime I'll get around to going to an electronics store that has asus monitors so I can take a look.

I'm extremely lucky to live in an area with two huge computer stores, plus Best Buy and Future Shop. I ordered either online with in-store pick up for free shipping, or I checked the stock online and bought it in-store. This computer store called Canada Computers is huge, the size of a supermarket, but they actually sell computer components unlike Best Buy and Future Shop, so it's really nice to live near it. It has like, everything stock, so if I see a good price, I can pretty much get everything in a day or two, no shipping costs, and I usually find it cheaper than newegg.com prices.

I'll ask my friend about it, I think he has an ASUS monitor, but the Acer logo appears for about a second (you probably know that). It is really ugly though, in my opinion.

[coastie65]

Al I have around here is BestBuy & hhgregg, although it would appear that Sears is selling computer components ( at least online ). Walmart has very little and not the kind of stuff I would buy.

[LiveBrianD]

myloginname, on 14 March 2012 - 05:42 AM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 13 March 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Around here, HP and Samsung are easy to find, and not so much ASUS. My monitor's an Acer S231HL that I got on sale for $130 (normally ~ $160).

Say, do you know if asus monitors show a logo when you turn them on? If so, how long does the logo appear for? Sometime I'll get around to going to an electronics store that has asus monitors so I can take a look.

I'm extremely lucky to live in an area with two huge computer stores, plus Best Buy and Future Shop. I ordered either online with in-store pick up for free shipping, or I checked the stock online and bought it in-store. This computer store called Canada Computers is huge, the size of a supermarket, but they actually sell computer components unlike Best Buy and Future Shop, so it's really nice to live near it. It has like, everything stock, so if I see a good price, I can pretty much get everything in a day or two, no shipping costs, and I usually find it cheaper than newegg.com prices.

I'll ask my friend about it, I think he has an ASUS monitor, but the Acer logo appears for about a second (you probably know that). It is really ugly though, in my opinion.

My Acer takes 7 seconds from when I push the power button to it displaying my desktop, a few of which is due to the unnecessary logo show.