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!
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!