Please help me with my first build

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dm76

New Member
After several months of checking the forum and trying to decide if I should buy or build one, I think you guys have convinced me to build one. Since I am not a gamer, I'm sure I could buy a decent one that would suit my needs, but if a build your own is going to be a lot better and around the same price, I think it might be fun to try it and I will have all your help here.

So again, this will just be the main computer in the house. I don't play any games but I do use Photoshop to edit a lot of pictures and also am starting to take a lot of HD video on a camcorder and will need to start editing and organizing that. So those will be the most intensive things I do on it. I tend to keep my computers about 5-6 years so I would like to continue that trend, and to keep the budget around $1000 give or take a little.

I don't know a whole lot of the details on certain things like the motherboard, but as some of you suggested, I put together a list and will let you guys look over it and tweak it.

CPU - $290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211

Motherboard - $210
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423

Case - $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

Power Supply - $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

Hard Drive - $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145304

DVD Drive - $20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

Memory - $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224

Windows - $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754


I am up to $940 and I didn't choose a graphics card because I was hoping for help with that. What is something decent that is not too expensive? Like I said I am not doing any gaming, so just something that will work well for what I mentioned. If you guys see anything else that can save me some money or if I added stuff that is an overkill, please let me know. Or if there is a DIY combo that would suit my needs and save. A premade system I was going to buy was around $1000, but if I can get all this for near that price, I don't mind putting in another couple hundred for the monitor (especially since I am saving $100 in sales tax buying from newegg). For example, I noticed this case with power supply included that would save over $100 from the case and power supply I chose. Is this a bad idea?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147091


I look forward to hearing back and finally getting this underway. I am not worried about assembling, as I built one a long time ago in class, and I work in the IT field and replace parts from time to time. The only thing that makes me a little nervous is spending this much money and if something goes wrong over the next couple years and I don't know how to troubleshoot it. But from what I hear on the forums, there is more likely to go wrong with a premade system so hopefully I will be fine. Thanks in advance for your help.
 
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I recommend getting sandy bridge as I don't think you will run dual video card.

Will you overclock the machine?
If yes, get core i7 2600K. If not, just get i7 2600.
Or if you want to save more, get i5 2500/ 2500K

Motherboard - Gigabyte?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3128460&cm_re=LGA_1155-_-13-128-460-_-Product

case + PSU - PSU come with case are usually rubbish, unless you get something over $100

PSU - If you running single video card, you probably won't need 650W. A 500W should do the job.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194038

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030

Video card - I don't know how much you want to spend on that. May be a GTS 450 1GB??
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.578338

HDD- I tends to get Seagate/ Samsung/ WD. Hitachi used to have bad reputation, i don't know if they improved yet

RAM - 2 x 2GB or 2 x 4GB?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145324
 
I dont think I need to overclock. For what I am going to be doing, what is the difference between the i5 and i7?
 
If you're not overclocking, the reviews on the i5-2500 and the i7-2500 are doggone near identical. Save the $100 and get an i5-2500.
 
dm76 said:
What is overclocking for exactly?
Click to expand...

its when you take a CPU say rated at 3.2ghz and make it perform at say 3.9-4.0ghz. Its a cheaper way to get a faster cpu. Although it involves a good heatsink because of the added heat it will give off, and you also have to play with the ghz and voltages and all that good stuff to get a stable overclock.
 
Are the faster cpus generally needed for gamers? For photo and video editing, what is most important? The cpu speed or more RAM?

I didnt know anything about sandy bridge until I just looked it up right now. Is that just a newer generation of the i-series processors? So are you saying the i5-2500 has similar marks to the i7-950 I was looking at? Is it important to get a motherboard that supports triple channel memory, or is the 2 channel 1333 fast enough?
 
Dual-channel 1333 should meet your needs. Faster RAM does give better performance in some situations, but it's not a huge difference. Most enthusiasts opt for 1600, since there's not a lot of price difference in the two.

As long as you have enough RAM that you don't fill it all up, video/photo editing will benefit more from CPU power. Nothing you get is going to be "slow", though. If you use a lot of effects and large resolutions with the video editing, you may want to grab 8GB instead of the standard 4 that most gaming computers have. Two 4GB sticks would be best.

As for gaming, a faster CPU will usually give better results unless your video card becomes the limiting factor, which would be the case with a GTS450.
 
I don't have enough CPU knowledge to know the hows and the whys, I just know that the i5-2500 benchmarks are on par with the last generation i7s, and are only a whisker slower than the i7-2600. Tomshardware.com has tons of great information on the Sandy Bridge platform. Their editors selected the i5-2500k as a "best buy". This is only the second "best buy" processor they've awarded in 3 years.
 
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