I need help with a system build - many thanks!

[Chunga23!]

Hello,

Many thanks in advance for any and all advice on my system build – feel a bit overwhelmed with all of the options and any help is greatly appreciated! I’ve tried my best to be respectful of your posting guidelines to minimize my pain-in-the-assness level. This is not just for idle chat – I WILL be building a system in the next month and am willing to be flexible on parts costing if the benefits are explained/match my wants/needs as below.

1. PC will be a used for a variety of tasks including audio recording and manipulation (Cubasis etc.), extensive image manipulation (Lightroom, Photoshop etc.), and moderate gaming (i.e. I don’t have to have the best, but I want to be able to play some demanding games with relative ease). Goes without saying that this workhorse will also stream heavy video/audio from the web.

2. I have two budget spreads. One for a PC build can rock out all of the above tasks, and one that may have some strengths and some weaknesses. The upper spread is $1300-1560 and the lower spread is $900-1100.

3. Buying parts from Canada and US (I’m in Canada).

4. Not a fanboy per se, though I feel safer with an Intel CPU.

5. Not using any current parts.

6. Will be looking at music recording peripherals that harness a good sound card (e.g. M-audio interfaces for midi and other input; analog keyboard etc.).

7. Never overclocked. I guess some advice could be useful here.

8. Will be using a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (Philips 246EL2 24inch )

9. Plan on building as soon as I can.

10. I may decide to purchase a windows OS (I still use XP and love it). Some suggestions here would also be very much appreciated re a windows OS.

The only parts I thought that I may want to include would be a boot SSD for startup speed and/or program launching.

Thank you to any and all who reply to this request.

 

[DSF]

What sort of games do you plan on playing? Battlefield 3, for example, requires either Vista or Windows 7, and other games will probably eventually follow suit.

 

[mfenn]

You really want to move away from a 2001-era OS. Aside from games as DSF mentioned, SSDs are much happier on a trim-enabled OS like Windows 7.

You also say that you're not reusing any parts, but then mention a Phillips monitor. Do you already have the monitor, mouse, keyboard or does that need to be included in the budget?

 

[Chunga23!]

Hi DSF. I enjoy games like Half Life, Bioshock. I'm not into MMPGs, except for maybe EVE, and only really ever play single player modes. I suppose Windows 7 may be a good bet?

 

[Chunga23!]

Hi mfenn. Sounds like Windows 7 is a good bet. Oh, yes - I will be using the Phillips monitor (I bought it a year ago and haven't used it yet so didn't think of it as an older part). I would def like to upgrade my keyboard and mouse.

 

[mfenn]

Hi mfenn. Sounds like Windows 7 is a good bet. Oh, yes - I will be using the Phillips monitor (I bought it a year ago and haven't used it yet so didn't think of it as an older part). I would def like to upgrade my keyboard and mouse.

OK, check out the parts in my midrange system builders' guide. In your case, I could see upgrading to 16 GB of RAM (just double the 8GB kit), adding a Windows 7 Home Premium license, and maybe an i7 3770K if you want to stretch the budget.

As for mouse and keyboard, the Logitech G400 and Microsoft Sidewinder X4 are popular and fairly inexpensive choices. Personal preference rules here though, so don't be afraid to go into a B&M store to try a bunch out.

 

[Chunga23!]

OK, check out the parts in my midrange system builders' guide. In your case, I could see upgrading to 16 GB of RAM (just double the 8GB kit), adding a Windows 7 Home Premium license, and maybe an i7 3770K if you want to stretch the budget.

As for mouse and keyboard, the Logitech G400 and Microsoft Sidewinder X4 are popular and fairly inexpensive choices. Personal preference rules here though, so don't be afraid to go into a B&M store to try a bunch out.

Your midrange build looks good. I appreciate the quieter GPU option - having a quiet PC means a lot to me and I am willing to spend more to achieve it (I've heard there are special screws you can use for attaching all components to the case that are rubber coated to reduce sympathetic vibrations etc?). The $1000 mark is great and leaves me with some room so I am wondering where you would beef up with another $400-$600 that will see the most performance increase?

Assuming that I go with the I7 3770K and 16GB from Samsung, do you see any appreciable advantage to upgrading (within that 400-$600 window) the mobo/GPU/power unit? I've never overclocked but am interested in the advantages - how would this capability affect price and what components are affected? If I'm not into really hardcore gaming, so I'm not even sure more is better in my case, I just want to be able to add more power in a year or so etc., so I guess the most important piece for expandability would be the mobo?

I'm sorry for being such a noob, but hey, I guess that's what I am when it comes to hardware.

Oh, and I guess I should ask - do you have any assembly plans for the builds you suggest (i.e. what goes in first, second...make sure to xyz before you xyz etc)?

Yup. Big noob. I can't believe how helpful you guys are though for all that have posted here. It's both encouraging and disturbing that perfect strangers have been more helpful so far than my friends 😛

 

[mfenn]

Adding the RAM, Windows 7 HP, i7 3770K, mouse, and keyboard will put the build at about $1300 or so, leaving you $260 to play with. If you want to OC, really the only thing that you'd need to add is a decent HSF like the Hyper 212 Evo. Given that you don't consider yourself a hardcore gamer, I can't really recommend a GPU upgrade; the 7850 may already be overkill. If you really really really want to hit $1560, you could also upgrade the SSD to the 256GB version.

As for building the PC itself, my midrange build doesn't require anything special beyond a normal PC. Ars has posted a really good two-part guide covering the hardware and software aspects.