Advice on new i7 rig

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: within 8 weeks

BUDGET RANGE: 800-1200

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: multiple Adobe and MS Office applications in parallel, video encoding, music, legacy gaming

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: keyboard and mouse, monitors

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: any online dealer is fine with me

PARTS PREFERENCES: i7 920 and X58 board for best future upgrade potential

OVERCLOCKING: NO

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: NO

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 2x 1280x1024

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

-- Ideally, this system is supposed to be stable and quiet. I mainly use it for work (running multiple Adobe and Office products at the same time) and it should be capable of doing some other chores in the background without interfering with my work.

-- I currently run two 19 inch screens, so I would like to have a graphics card that has a dual DVI output.

-- In addition, I'm wondering about adding a mid-sized SSD to the system to improve start-up times and performance of the Adobe products when working with large files.

-- Gaming is really not an issue, so there is no need for any kind of overclocking or SLI/Crossfire.

-- The case really does not need to be flashy at all, but since I need to add a bunch of peripherals (card reader, iPod, camera, headphones ...) it should have easily accessible front panel slots for such plug-n-play items.

-- It would be a plus if I could directly hook the computer up to an HDTV, but that's not really necessary.

-- Finally, I would like to pipe music directly from the computer into my stereo system, so ideally the motherboard should have the appropriate audio output.

Thanks very much in advance for everybody's input. It is much appreciated.

it certainly is possible to build an i7 920 with an X58 board, but unless you plan on upgrading to a 6-core Gulftown just because you can, you'll be spending extra money on a system that is not a production workstation, or high end gaming rig. What would be a more sensible approach in my opinion, go with an i7 860 with a P55 motherboard that will in most non-gaming cases perform better than the 920, and save you quite a bit of money. The P55 chipset will continue to support newer, competitively priced i7s in the future, they just will not support i9 as those will be exclusive to the X58 boards and its successors.

Depending on board and RAM choices, it could be as much as a $300 difference in going with the i7 860. This alone would enable you to upgrade to an Intel X25 G2 80 GB SSD. This is currently the best all around choice for size and performance. Newegg has them now for about $240. Since 80 GB is not a lot of space these days, adding a WD Caviar Green 500GB to 1TB as a secondary storage drive is a pretty good idea.

For case selection, Coolermaster HAF 922 and Antec 900 are my two favorites, mainly for their size and features.

As for video card, a single Radeon 5850 will give you plenty of graphics power for the future, though really a 4850 would be all that you would need for your current usage.

Your last point about connecting to your stereo, most decent quality motherboards will connect without issues. If you consider yourself somewhat of an audiophile, it may be worth the money to upgrade to a soundcard. Any $50 card you can find will give you better sound for a stereo system, and also eliminate any CPU noise that may be present on some integrated sound setups.

Thanks very much for your replies so far.

I like the idea of saving some money on CPU and memory to allow me to throw in the SSD. I would think that for my needs it would probably give a better performance gain. And I guess since the P55 motherboards are quite new, they should be relevant for at least a couple of years. I was definitely planning on adding at least a 500GB hard drive. I already have a 1TB NAS that I use for all digital media storage.

I would probably go with the lower end graphics card -- granted I can find one with 2 DVI outputs. Maybe the Radeon HD 4770 suggested by build might do the trick.

As for cases, I would prefer 'no-frills' type cases with a clean look (rather than ones with colored LED).

Since I am not building anything outrageous, am I correct to assume that a good quality 500W power supply and stock cooling that comes with a case should be sufficient for my purposes.

As for the sound, I think I'll just go with the on-board solution for now and see if in the future I want a dedicated sound card.

Key remaining questions for now are: which motherboard, case and PSU would fit the bill? Which graphics card offers the best value and still delivers to my (small) requirements.

Okay, so here is an updated list of parts as suggested by previous posters:

CPU: core i7 860
~$290

Motherboard: Gigabyte or Asus P55
~$140

GPU: Radeon 4850
~$130

SSD: Intel X25 G2 80 GB
~$240

HDD: WD Caviar Green 1TB
~$90

DVD:
~$30

Memory: 2x2GB (or 2x4GB?)
~$80

Case+PSU: Coolermaster+OCZ combo (cheap option)/Antec Silent Case+earthwatts (quiet option)
~$100/$180

Quiet Case Fans+CPU cooler
~$40

So on the low end (cheaper case and no SSD) I am looking at about $900 and on the high end (silent case and SSD included) at about $1200. Does that sound about right? Is there something else I should consider?

This was one I recently put together w/ a target of $1250. Thought process was get everything towards the top end except graphics as plan was to get a 1920 x 1200 in about 6 months at which time, a GFX card addition (or two) would be in the mix:

Antec 902 case - $125
Antec TP650 PSU - $95 (near top PSU , overkill if never gonna OC or do twin video)
Asus P6T - $239
OCZ Gold CAS 8 DDR3 (6GB) - $129
1 TB Seagate 7200.12 - $89
Win7 OEM Home Premium - $99
i7 920 CPU - $279
Plextor PX-880SA - $52
XFX HD-487A-ZWFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB - $145

Total $1252

I'm waiting for TRIM 2, next round of firmware updates and $1 / GB (okay maybe $1.50) prices before jumping to SSD's