Hey guys, friend of mine is interested in upgrading from his crappy laptop to a decent desktop for him to make phat beats on. He also dabbles in film production.

•Budget: 1k-2k
•More specific use (what games, what programs): Pretty much not a gamer at all. Just rendering audio/video and whatnot.
•Planned time until purchase: undecided
•Do you need an Operating System?: no
•Do you have any specific preferred components?: no
•Do you need a sound or wireless card?: yes, most of the budget can go towards the audio card, as he needs as many inputs/outputs as possible. Basic wireless card will do.
•Do you want stock cooling or do you plan on overclocking?: stock cooling, no need for overclocking.
•Do you need a monitor? mouse? keyboard?: Gonna need a monitor. Nothing fancy. Will figure out keyboard/mouse separately.
•Zip code/location? (Shipping costs): San Jose, CA 95111

i7, 16-32gb ram and an ssd

No.

build a pc 4 audio n video rendering
that doesn't include those then
ye u dun fucked up

Actually, video rendering tends to be very CPU-intensive, and generally uses HyperThreading, so an i7 is worth it in this case. Depending on the software you use, it may support GPU rendering, as well, so I would check the specs of the editing software to see if it uses CUDA or OpenCL, and get the appropriate GPU from that info.

Why, no?


Z97, i7 or xeon, 32gb ram, big ass hdd and a load ssd

Bump. Still need an actual build.

What are the programs he is going to be using?

ableton live 9 suite

izotope ozone 5

those 2 are basically all he cares about.

Most people don't use audio cards any more. Most hardware is USB based with dedicated dacs over USB.

You're going to need to list a lot more information. Video editing is one thing since the software will define most of the build, but for audio we will need to know what exactly he is using or planning to use. Is he using midi controllers? Is he planning to do studio recording? Are they going to attempt to hook up a mixer and cdj's to it? Does he even have any gear or is he just point and clicking in ableton?

There is a ton of questions to be answered here. If he just needs an audio card for previewing tracks he might as well get a USB dac/amp and some bookshelf speakers or headset instead as they will provide better sound most of the time. If he needs to record then there is another slew of questions.

Also you have to make sure you are building the computer correctly. A bad ground can introduce a fuck ton of noise into a recording/playback.