New Budget Computer Build Specs

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
June 28, 2023
3 replies
2041 views

Hello,

Were adding another computer to the office, and looking for a budget build. The budget is $800-1000 (for the tower only. We already have dual monitors/keyboard). The computer proabably won't be used every day, this is trying out a new designer that will also help with production work in the shop.

What we are looking for:

-Windows computer

-Run adobe illustrator

-We mainly design race car wraps, logo deisgn, vehicle lettering (Some of the files do get large)

- No video editing

- not a ton of photo editing

- No ripping/printing from this computer

I showed our local computer guy the specs on illustrator, and he said it doesn't take much to run the program. But he has never used design programs before.

This is what he came up with for a budget build for $789.99

Mid-Tower (Window-less) black, with i3-1200 3.3Ghz cpu, 16Gb
(2x8Gb) DDR4 RAM, Samsung 1Tb NVMe SSD, Windows 10 Home 64bit, 650W ATX PSU

This has on-board video (i.e. does not include a discrete video card).

He built our last computer which works awesome, but it was $2400. So he is trying to keep it on a budget for this one.

Could any of you tell me if this would work decent? Or what we should upgrade to?

Thanks!

Performance

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T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Just my opinion ... " he said it doesn't take much to run the program. But he has never used design programs before." You may be right, he probably hasn't. Design programs are notoriously resource hungry. You can cross check against the system requirements https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/illustrator/system-requirements.html He seems to have done a decent job for a frankly unreasonable budget. The i3 chip might be intolerably slow. Looking at the system requirements, you can see that you won't be able to get the GPU performance feature with a generic GPU - and suitable GPUs are $$. Does it matter? (1) Turn off the option for a week and see if it is ok for you (2) Assume a future Illustrator may make this a requirement, not a nice-to-have, Adobe keep pushing the system specs with each new release.

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

While Adobe Illustrator has its own system resource requirements it's also important to remember most computer users will have multiple applications running simultaneously. The computer's OS alone will eat up its own share of system resources. And, yes, every time a new version of an application is released that new version will ratchet up performance requirements.

Generally speaking, anyone buying a cheap PC to do graphics work will be replacing that PC in a short amount of time. Spending more up front can translate into having a computer system that lasts several years or longer. Not only that, the more beefy system is going to get work done faster. I'd very much rather my computer wait on me to do something than me wait on the computer.

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

In my humble opinion, a Windows PC with a Core i3 CPU, 16GB of RAM and an integrated graphics chip rather than a discrete graphics board is definitely not going to run Adobe Illustrator well at all. That especially goes for designing things like vehicle wraps. If the computer was doing basic vector-only work such as creating "flat" vector graphics and sending them to a vinyl cutter an entry-level PC might work okay. For designing full wraps I would say 32GB would be the minimum for RAM. A Core i5 CPU would be significantly better, but I would still recommend a Core i7. A top tier graphics accelerator board is not necessary, but I would recommend at least some kind of discrete board (preferably NVidia) that had its own pool of GDDR RAM. Computers with integrated graphics chips rather than discrete boards will siphon away system RAM for their purposes. I don't like that.

I'm also not a fan of the "Home" version of Windows. I don't understand why Microsoft even still sells that. Such versions of Windows are limited. IIRC a PC with a "Home" version of Windows cannot join a network domain with more than 3 other computers. I'd strongly advise spending a tiny bit more for the "Pro" version.