Member Avatar for mahela007

Hello everyone!
and Seasons greetings!

I'm thinking of putting together a new PC and I don't know what type of specs would suit me best.
Here's what I usually do with my PC:

1 : To be honest, it's web browsing. But I want to be able to play 4k video with now stutter.
2: Photoediting, graphics design (vector graphics like inkscape), desktop publishing
3: 3D modeling: I don't depend on graphics editing and 3D modeling professionally but I do find myself using these apps quite often.
The main problem i have with 3D modeling on my current PC is very long render times.
4: video editing: again, not regularly but on and off. I dont need to be able to edit super high resolution video.. just 1080p should be enough.
5: gaming: I'm not an avid gamer but i do use a lot of sims (flightgear, dirt rally) and the occasional RTS and i want decent (>60 FPS) frame rates.

Finally of couse the budget: I'm looking to keep it under 950 $ if possible.

I'm looking for broad suggestions. For example, should I spend more on a multicore processor or more on a graphics card? or RAM?

Any help is appreciated. Thank you! :D

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rproffitt

Dani AI

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Short, practical recap tied to the thread: your workload is mixed (web, photo/vector work, occasional 3D, 1080p editing, and >60 FPS sims), so build for balance rather than an extreme single-purpose box. already outlined the priorities well, and was right that an SSD as the OS/boot drive is the single most noticeable upgrade for day‑to‑day responsiveness. (tomshardware.com)

If long render times are the top pain point, decide whether your render pipeline is GPU‑accelerated or CPU‑bound. Modern Blender/Cycles and other render engines often run vastly faster on a supported GPU (OptiX/CUDA for Nvidia, HIP for AMD), but GPUs have limited VRAM and can be slower on scenes that don’t fit in memory. If you use CPU‑only renderers, favor more cores/threads. Use a balanced chip with good single‑core speed for interactive modeling and decent core count for batch renders. (docs.blender.org)

For photo and video work: 16 GB RAM is the practical minimum for Photoshop/Lightroom; move to 32 GB if you edit large RAW stacks, multitask heavily, or work with 4K timelines. Video editors (Premiere, Resolve) also benefit from a GPU with enough VRAM (Adobe recommends ~6 GB for 4K workflows) and a fast drive for media/cache. Plan storage as: NVMe/SATA SSD for OS + active projects, and larger HDD/SSD for bulk media. ()

Practical budget approach under ~$950: prioritize a 500 GB NVMe (or 240–500 GB SATA if you must save money) for OS/apps, 16–32 GB RAM, a modern midrange discrete GPU with hardware video decode (for smooth 4K playback), and a contemporary CPU with decent core count and strong single‑thread performance. If renders dominate, shift more budget to the GPU; if project/export CPU times dominate, favor the CPU. Don’t skimp on a quality PSU and a motherboard that allows future upgrades. Also confirm your chosen GPU supports the codecs your player/editor uses (NVIDIA’s NVDEC, Intel Quick Sync, or AMD equivalents) for smooth 4K playback. (battleforgepc.com)

Short checklist to act on now: SSD boot drive, 16→32 GB RAM, check whether your renderer uses GPU (choose GPU with enough VRAM) or CPU (choose cores), and reserve budget for a solid PSU/motherboard so you can upgrade later.

Member Avatar for rproffitt

If I were building today I'd look at PCMR https://www.reddit.com/r/PCMasterRace/wiki/builds for the basic machine (there's Intel and AMD builds.) Then because you want to play UHD 4K video I'd tweak those up to say at least the RTX 2060. Why?
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/9qeu7f/gtx_1060_6gb_watching_4k_movies/

Another thing is that I'd never build such with a HDD boot drive. Stick with 240 or more GB SSD.

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