First time build - need some clarifications

[chelos]

Hello all, I’m currently in the planning stages of building a new machine. This will be my first build, so please bear with me! I’ve spent a few days reading through the various threads here, and watching instructional videos, etc. I’ve done some minor upgrades on my machine before (adding RAM, new video card), but this will be my first time attempting a full build.

1. Used for – Gaming (Old Republic, maybe WoW), Photoshop/Illustrator, some 3D modeling (SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer).

2. Budget ~$1000

3. Country - USA

4. Brand preference - None

5. Current parts – None, my current PC is 5 years old

6. Overclocking – For now, I’ll run at default, I need to do more research before I OC, but I would like to do it eventually.

7. Resolution – 1 monitor @1920x1200 and 1 @1280x1024

8. When – By end of May

9. Software – Windows

I’ve mostly chosen the recommendations by mfenn (fantastic thread btw!), with some exceptions, primarily the case, I already have a HAF922, so I’ll be using that. I was going to go for Ivy Bridge, but after reading some comments in various threads here, I think I’ll stick with Sandy Bridge and maybe upgrade a couple years down the line.

CPU: i5 2500K
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212
MB: ASRock Z77 Pro3
RAM: G.Skill DDR3 1333 8GB
GPU: Radeon HD7850
SSD : Crucial M4 128GB
HD : Seagate 1TB
DVDR: Lite-ON DVD Burner
PSU: OCZ ZS 550W
Case: Cooler Master HAF922
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit

Questions:

1. Do I need any sort of network adapter? If so, can I just reuse what I have on my machine now? I'm pretty sure the MB takes care of that, but just want to be sure.
2. Do I need a sound card?
3. I’m currently running two monitors, one DVI and one VGA. Looks like I’ll only be able to connect one of those to an HD7850 card (I see one DVI connector and an HDMI). Any way I can use both? I absolutely need 2 monitors, that’s absolutely non-negotiable for me.
4. Is there any point with going with more than 8GB RAM? A sample build from another site had 16GB Corsair Vengeance Blue DDR3 SDRAM instead of the G.Skill here. More pricey, of course, but will it improve performance?

 

[nsafreak]

Questions:

1. Do I need any sort of network adapter? If so, can I just reuse what I have on my machine now? I'm pretty sure the MB takes care of that, but just want to be sure.
2. Do I need a sound card?
3. I’m currently running two monitors, one DVI and one VGA. Looks like I’ll only be able to connect one of those to an HD7850 card (I see one DVI connector and an HDMI). Any way I can use both? I absolutely need 2 monitors, that’s absolutely non-negotiable for me.
4. Is there any point with going with more than 8GB RAM? A sample build from another site had 16GB Corsair Vengeance Blue DDR3 SDRAM instead of the G.Skill here. More pricey, of course, but will it improve performance?

1) Nope, the network adapter that is built in to the motherboard should be plenty. The only time I've even thought about getting a separate network adapter was for some servers that had high demand & high load for networking purposes.

2) That depends. For the uses that you listed I doubt that you'll notice a difference between the onboard sound card and something like a Xonar Essence STX. Generally you want to have pretty good headphones and/or speakers before investing in a soundcard.

3) There are HDMI to VGA adapters available from monoprice.com pretty cheap. Although I would recommend considering an upgrade to the monitor as well since there is a noticeable difference in image quality between VGA (D-Sub) and DVI connections.

4. For the applications that you listed there is. You'll get better overall performance out of Photoshop, Illustrator Solidworks etc. from more RAM. It doesn't benefit gaming as much so for gaming builds 8GB is typically sufficient. But for those tasks they do benefit and RAM is so dirt cheap nowadays why not.

 

[mfenn]

1) Nope, the network adapter that is built in to the motherboard should be plenty. The only time I've even thought about getting a separate network adapter was for some servers that had high demand & high load for networking purposes.

2) That depends. For the uses that you listed I doubt that you'll notice a difference between the onboard sound card and something like a Xonar Essence STX. Generally you want to have pretty good headphones and/or speakers before investing in a soundcard.

3) There are HDMI to VGA adapters available from monoprice.com pretty cheap. Although I would recommend considering an upgrade to the monitor as well since there is a noticeable difference in image quality between VGA (D-Sub) and DVI connections.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

As for the RAM, the brand doesn't have any bearing on the performance, only the specs and reliability. I always pick the least expensive kit from a good brand. 16GB of memory will only help if you need more than 8GB for large PSDs or Solidworks models. Otherwise, it just sits there doing nothing.

 

[chelos]

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

As for the RAM, the brand doesn't have any bearing on the performance, only the specs and reliability. I always pick the least expensive kit from a good brand. 16GB of memory will only help if you need more than 8GB for large PSDs or Solidworks models. Otherwise, it just sits there doing nothing.

In that case, since the Motherboard had 4 slots, I'll just get 2 sticks of RAM for now, and if I see my models getting sluggish, I can always expand later.

Thanks.