Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

1st computer build (I need advice)

Feb 28, 2018 7:39AM PST

I'm currently trying to find all of the right components to build my 1st computer and I would like to keep the price under 800$. I only need the tower. My 3 three programs that I use are Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and logo design. Zero gaming. I would like the computer to definitely be fast because what I'm using right now is pretty slow which drives me crazy. I'm not sure on which CPU to use? What motherboard should I use? I was looking into building a gaming device and using it for my programs but it seems like their graphics cards are over kill for my programs. I forsure want 8 gigs of ram or more. and I'd say an ssd for storage but what size would be good for my programs? What type of graphics card should I use? Please keep the feedback respective and informative. I am a newby but I wanting to learn.
Thanks!!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Sometimes you only need to fix why yours is slow.
Feb 28, 2018 8:11AM PST

My favorite fix today is to install a solid state drive. But let's hear what you have so we can see if it could use a simple cheap upgrade.

As to building, if I were to build today I use the following builds as recipes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PCMasterRace/wiki/builds

- Collapse -
Answer
Use google
Feb 28, 2018 2:17PM PST

Look up the reqs for each program you run.
That will give you an idea of what you need to build.
If these programs use the gpu to speed up things then you will need to include that in the mix.
If these programs are multi threaded then you want some quad core or better.

You build based on your needs and budget.

Run a speccy and post a link.
https://www.ccleaner.com/docs/speccy/using-speccy/publishing-a-speccy-profile-to-the-web

Let's see where you are now.