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Newb here, critique on my planned build

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Hello everyone, would like a little advice on the system I'm planning here. Will be using it for
home movie and photo editing, Quickbooks, Quicken, regular web and emailing and some
light gaming maybe and most of that will be web based (iracing.com).

Here are my planned components

Rosewill Challenger mid-Tower Case
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
i-5 760 (i-7 a better choice for future proofing?)
DDR3 RAM 2 x 4GB 1600 mHz (considering 1333 and/or 2 x 2 GB)
WD Caviar Black 1 TB 7200 RPM 6.0 Gb/s
5770 1 GB video card (would eventually like a triple monitor Eyefinity set up)
Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU
Win7 Pro

I'd like to stay between $1000-1300 or so. The things I'm not so solid on are the
memory and the video card, would go up on those if it would benefit me. I like being
as future proof as possible too so something more than I need right now is OK with me.
It's more about getting the most for my budget than anything.

Here is a Shopping Cart I have put together so far:

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?Sub...

Thanks in advance for any feedback provided.

Erik

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Go for 6gb RAM, andget an i-7. there is no such thing as future proofing in PCs, but an i-7 will last you a few months more! as for hte GPU, just make sure its a XFX, as they are the most reliable.

Otherwise it has my approval!

For "light gaming", no point spending the extra on a i7. Stick with an i5. With standards changing regularly, the i5 is just as future proof as the i7, for the most part.

Also, as a side note, the comment above is quite far from true. While XFX is a very reliable brand for Nvidia chipsets, they have only just entered the ATI chipset market, For ATI chipsets, Sapphire is known to be one of the best brands.

xbonez said:
For "light gaming", no point spending the extra on a i7. Stick with an i5. With standards changing regularly, the i5 is just as future proof as the i7, for the most part.

Also, as a side note, the comment above is quite far from true. While XFX is a very reliable brand for Nvidia chipsets, they have only just entered the ATI chipset market, For ATI chipsets, Sapphire is known to be one of the best brands.


I agree that they have just entered with ATI cards, but i know for a fact that the 5770 is VERY reliable from XFX. Sapphire has SLIGHTLY better stock specs, but the XFX is more reliable and a better OCer in my opinion. I have owned 1 from last year with no problems whatsoever, and compared to the stories ive heard bout other brands, XFX is the best in my words...
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Truth be told, I'll be lucky if I get any time for even "light gaming". This means one game max, iracing.com, which I believe carriers most of the video load on it's servers. I should really pay more attention to putting together and viewing my home movies effectively.

I know nothing is future proof but my current system I built like 7 years ago (1.7 ghz celeron) so I seem to get some mileage out of each one I build.

Would like to hear some thoughts on 1600 vs 1333 ram and the 5770 GPU vs a newer 6xxx option.

Thanks for all the input so far!

the newer 6*** series are just perfected 5*** series, and in my words are up to personal preferance... as they have similar specs and prices.

1333 is more commonly used, and 1600 will be overkill for your usage!

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Homebuilt system Authority

The i5's are good chips but only 2 cores + 2 Hyperthreads. The i7 has the 4 + 4 so if your Movie making is anything like video conversion and is very processor intensive then you will want the extra cores, especially if you're like me and do other things while it's compiling in the background. Gaming has yet to use 4 cores so that won't enter into the picture for awhile.
As far as the video card is concerned if you're going with the ASUS P7P55D-E Pro board then it only supports 1 video card at the X16 lane so no matter which card you get make it a good one. I like the ATI & Sapphire cards myself, They have never given me trouble.
As far as the memory goes I would stick with the 2 X 2GB pairs since the board and processor only support Dual channel. These look like they will work fine as long as your processor speed is at lease 2.8GHz, Mushkin 996657. You can get them here for only $159 and they are the 1600MHz with latency timmings of 7-7-7-20 at that speed.
If you need the win 7 pro 64bit it looks like you can get it here for only $85. It's an OEM version that's why the price is so cheap.
You can get the Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1 GB GDDR5 at Newegg for only $255 and this card ought to hold you for quite a while.

So that makes -
Rosewill Challenger mid-Tower Case from Newegg For $55
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro from Newegg for $180
i-5 760 (i-7 a better choice for future proofing?) I would go with this processor - Intel Core i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I7870 from Newegg for $280
DDR3 RAM 2 x 4GB 1600 mHz (considering 1333 and/or 2 x 2 GB) These look good and will work on your motherboard Mushkin 996657 XP 4GB (2 x 2GB) for $159
WD Caviar Black 1 TB 7200 RPM 6.0 Gb/s from Newegg for $90
5770 1 GB video card (would eventually like a triple monitor Eyefinity set up)You might like this card instead, it's the SAPPHIRE 100314SR Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity for only $255 from Newegg
Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU from newegg for $70
Win7 Pro from here for $85

And that gives us an approx. total of $1,175. Puts us inside your price range and you shouldn't have to think about upgrades for awhile.
Homebuilt system Authority

As far as the 2.1 goes - PCI 2.1 supports a large proportion of the management, support, and troubleshooting systems planned to be fully implemented in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0. Nothing whatsoever with performance. And anything in 2.1 is backward compatible so it will work in the 2.0

The difference in the processors is the hyperthreading. The i7 has it, that's what gives you the extra threads. It mostly allows you to multitask quicker using those. It's good to have if your movie making takes a lot of processing power and you want to do other things at the same time. If you're making movies it mostly depends on the size of them when you do the compilations. If you did a lot of editing and splicing and then your program takes over to actually put it all together and finalize it it will use a lot of processor resources. The more cores/threads you have the faster it does it. Not better, just faster. My opinion is to spend the extra $80 now, if you can afford it because, probably like me, once you buy something you will want it to the best you could get and afford at the time because you won't be replacing it anytime soon.

Thank God I have a bunch of little independent PC shops in my community (ie Mysterybyte, Robotnik) that I don't have to resort to newegg for cheap prices. A lot of people seem to use that as their primary outlet of PC peripheral purchase.
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