Building custom desktop

[Maelstrom]

So basically, my sister wants (desperately needs) a new computer to run Photoshop, do some video editing/rendering, and light gaming off of. And since I'm the most computer savvy person in my whole extended family she asked me to help her with it (build it for her).

She's upgrading from a Vista 32-bit laptop with 2GB of RAM. The thing is ancient and she's actually wanted to get a new computer for a while.

Even though I've messed around with replacing HDDs and thermal paste and other stuff on other computers before, I've never actually built one from the ground up. Much less one that I custom selected the parts for.

So before I jump into the deep water I wanted to post the parts I'm looking at ordering and seeing what you guys think or if I've made any crucial mistakes. I'm ordering everything from Newegg except for a few accessories which my sister will decide on later.

I've tried to only select parts that had good ratings as I don't want to have anything fail on her. The budget for this build was roughly around $1200. And with that said, here's the parts!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156098
- She didn't want a massive behemoth taking control of her room and the barebones/mini computers were to small for the hardware. So I settled with something that came with its own power supply and had decent size for a good price. She also really like the green led on the fan

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293
- The motherboard is the piece I'm least sure on as they all seem different. I tried to make sure it was compatible with the case and that it had all the slots needed for the other hardware components.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115234
- I figured she wouldn't need an i-7 or anything to drastic so I went with a 3rd gen i-5 quad core. If you thing another processor will do then don't mind telling me.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127703
- A GTX 650 is what I went with for the GPU. I'm pretty sure it's more than capable of handling whatever light gaming she decides to do on it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
- Pretty much all the RAM that has 8GB at 1600MHz was the same price so I just went with the highest rated one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147163
- I decided to go with a Samsung SSD boot drive. I think we all know Samsung's reputation for their SSDs and I figured I'd show her how much faster it is than whatever she has in her old laptop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840
- She takes a lot of pictures (never goes anywhere without that camera :/ ) so I figured that a 1TB HDD should suffice for storing what she needs. She already has an external 1TB HDD so I'm not to worried about her running out of space.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102003
- This I'm not to sure on. She does like listening to a lot of music but is having the sound card necessary? I was under the impression that there was one integrated into the MoBo. I don't know so I'm just throwing this out there. She definitely doesn't need any high end sound cards but I thought this might work if one is needed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
- Standard DVD-RW drive. Nothing fancy needed here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824016174
- Now she REALLY wants a touch screen monitor so I selected this since it was relatively cheaper than the other ones out there. The only question I really have is how do touch screen monitors work with Win7? She wants Win8 but I was going to boot Win7 onto the computer first to see how she likes it. And I really don't know how the touch interface works with Win7.

I plan on ordering the parts over the next few days so If I forgot anything or if something doesn't look right please let me know!

 

[sway]

To do video editing and Photoshop, she would need an i7 BC of the extra hyperthreads. You could go with the sandy bridge i7 since it should be cheaper than ivy bridge, doesn't have to be unlocked either. There's been reported voltage issues with those asrock extreme 4 boards, Id go with a gigabyte ud3h it's a few dollars more and one of the best mid range mobo you can get next to the ud5h. I have the ud3h and it's awesome. For a case check out the corsair 200 & 300r both pretty small mid range cases but look awesome have good cable management and airflow. Don't forget a modular psu, which again I recommend corsair BC they have the best psu.

If she's set on touchscreen then I def go with w8 bc it's made for it. Imo since it's mainly for photos and video editing I would say a nice ips display, like the Dell 24".

Do you have a microcenter near you?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[Maelstrom]

To do video editing and Photoshop, she would need an i7 BC of the extra hyperthreads. You could go with the sandy bridge i7 since it should be cheaper than ivy bridge, doesn't have to be unlocked either. There's been reported voltage issues with those asrock extreme 4 boards, Id go with a gigabyte ud3h it's a few dollars more and one of the best mid range mobo you can get next to the ud5h. I have the ud3h and it's awesome. For a case check out the corsair 200 & 300r both pretty small mid range cases but look awesome have good cable management and airflow. Don't forget a modular psu, which again I recommend corsair BC they have the best psu.

If she's set on touchscreen then I def go with w8 bc it's made for it. Imo since it's mainly for photos and video editing I would say a nice ips display, like the Dell 24".

Do you have a microcenter near you?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

The issue with your suggestions is that it goes over her budget
I would much rather put in an i-7 rather than the i-5 quad I've selected now but it's just to expensive. On a side note all the the Ivy bridge CPUs were cheaper than the Sandy bridge ones. No clue why that is.

Edit: I also forgot to mention that it isn't impossible for me to upgrade the rig at a later date.

 

[Commy1]

I think the i5 will work just fine, my rig runs an i5-2500K and I can do anything with it as fast as I need, never felt any lag or need to upgrade it. Hell I run Photoshop CS6 on my Macbook with a Duo @ 2GHZ perfectly.

I think it's a good looking build, it'll definitely serve her needs, only problem I have is with the touch screen thing, if she absolutely neeeeeds touch then I'd recommend a Wacom product, because it will actually come with the drivers to run it properly and it'll be hell of a lot cheaper.. or extremely expensive which ever. (Me wants the Cintiq 24HDTouch *drool*) Tablets (as we used to call them) come with stylus pens to, so editing will be easy easy and she'll have the control she wouldn't get with a mouse.

Touch isn't a big thing yet, it will be, but not yet. With Google coming out with the Pixel, a lot more people are sure to follow it and make it standard, as such software and browsers will have to adapt for touch screen options.

 

[sway]

If you can upgrade later than thats good, for editing vid that i7 will def be needed. Sure the i5 is fast but not with tasks like that. I would stick with that mobo I mentioned though.

Check out tigerdirect.com too, sometimes they're cheaper than newegg

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[Maelstrom]

She mainly wants a touch screen so that she can fully use Win8 if she decides to upgrade to it (already have a Win7 disc so were waiting to see if she wants to upgrade). And were already going to order a Wacom graphic tablet for her to draw on.

Edit: I've changed the MoBo like you suggested to

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128544

Also, should I just ditch the audio card and use the integrated one? I'm sure the one on this MoBo is better than the one on her laptop so I'm not really sure if it's necessary. And I'm not missing anything else am I?

 

[sway]

Only thing I see missing Is a psu (power supply).

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[Maelstrom]

Only thing I see missing Is a psu (power supply).

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

There is a 500W one that comes with the case.

 

[sway]

There is a 500W one that comes with the case.

Oh OK I missed that, I'd ditch the sound card, the one on the mobo is pretty good.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[Shadowspike]

Y not got in for a single 8gb memory module ?
Itll leave a lot of room for upgrading later on plus he mobo supports upto 32gb of memory
One more piece of advice is check the cabinet and psu u goin in for I mean see if 500watts is ok for the config uv chosen

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Y not got in for a single 8gb memory module ?
Itll leave a lot of room for upgrading later on plus he mobo supports upto 32gb of memory
One more piece of advice is check the cabinet and psu u goin in for I mean see if 500watts is ok for the config uv chosen

 

[jorlanm]

I always use ASUS Motherboard, ASUS Video Card as my foundation...But for Desktops I tend to go the AMD route for CPU since it tends to support the same socket for a long while giving me an easier upgrade path and not to mention easy on the wallet...compared to Intel where I have to buy a new Motherboard every single CPU release...