Please help me build a computer!

[Gunboat Diplomat]

It's that time of decade where I'm looking to build a new computer for myself. However, it's been a while since I've done so and the market is more confusing now than ever!

I'm hoping to not spend more than $800 CAD on the motherboard, processor and RAM but I have no real budgetary limit. Of course, I'm looking to optimize for some metric of performance per money... I will be exclusively shopping at Canada Computers since they're local to me and have very competitive prices and knowledgeable staff (an industry rarity), so you can check their website for inventory...

I need a 64 bit Windows 7 machine for software development and video editing, as well as general computer use. Software development's not exactly a computationally intense activity but video editing and encoding is! I don't plan to play any games on it except StarCraft 2...

My current machine only has a case fan. Both the processor and video card are fanless. I cheated a bit to do this by inverting the case's outtake fan to be an intake fan that blows right onto the Thermaltake Sonic Tower heat sink that's cooling an Intel E6600 processor. I might like to reuse my current video card (NVIDIA EN9600GT) and purchase a new heat sink to duplicate this fanlessness but it's not a firm requirement, especially since I may want to upgrade my video card to some NVIDIA CUDA card for my NLE...

Power consumption is also a mild concern so something reasonably power efficient would be nice. I'd rather not burn a lot more electricity just to be a little faster, especially since I'm the sort to leave their machine on 24/7...

What do you guys think? I'd be very happy to hear your suggestions!
Thank you...

 

[DepricatedZero]

Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E ($115)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_340&item_id=021508&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 (3.2 ghz, AM3 socket)($250)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_64&item_id=030521&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

RAM: Corsair DDR3 1333(2x4gb for $130 (buy 1 now and 1 later or both now for 16gb of ram))
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311_312_611&item_id=032949&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Video Card: Asus GeForce 9800 GT ($99 (this should run Starcraft 2 without issue and is on par with the 200 series unless you're doing lots of physics calculations)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=027408&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

HDD: Seagate 1500gb($85)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_210_212&item_id=019453&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Case: Antec 900 ($110(great case for modding, amazing airflow unmodded))
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=6_112&item_id=011391&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Side Fan: Cooler Master 200mm($17)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=8_130&item_id=027584&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

CPU Fan: Zalman 120mm Copper Heatsink/Fan($60)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=8_129&item_id=028032&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

PSU: OCZ 700w($70)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=33_443&item_id=020479&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Thermal Grease: Arctic Silver 5($8)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=8_128&item_id=021296&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Optical Drive: ASUS SATA DVD-RW($25)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=3_61&item_id=029356&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Total: $969-1099 + s&h + tax

This would be well under your goal of 800 for only the CPU/RAM/MOBO and not much higher for everything(down to the thermal grease)
I don't THINK I missed anything, but I could be wrong.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Operating system?

Also, I'd beef up the graphics a good bit, elsewise you're maybe wasting your money on the processor. I'd look at http://www.tomshardware.com and see what cards they are pairing with that processor. That site tends to put a strong emphasis on balanced system builds, to prevent bottlenecks.

 

[borrofburi]

So do you want state of the art minus a bit so you don't have to pay for early adopter privilege? Do you want a "just good enough to be upgradable for the next 3 to 5 years (and if upgraded usable for the next 5 to 7 years)? Do you want a "middle of the line system for a good price"?

Computer parts tend to follow a sigmoid/logistic curve in a price for performance graph (ignoring quality and potential "upgradability" at the moment), where on the curve do you want to be?

HDD: Seagate 1500gb($85)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_210_212&item_id=019453&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

I strongly recommend to NOT buy this part. Seagates in general are unreliable, barracuda's in particular are unreliable, and this model... well look at the reviews (this is an awful distribution of reviews, I expect around 75% 5 star, 15% 4 star, and 5% to 10% 1 star): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337&cm_re=seagate_barracuda-_-22-148-337-_-Product

PSU: OCZ 700w($70)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=33_443&item_id=020479&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

I tend to only buy antec PSUs (I made an exception for a corsair once), mostly because PSUs are so important to have perfectly reliable. But OCZ is a pretty good company, so this is probably ok.

Operating system?

He said win 7 64 bit.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

He said win 7 64 bit.

Oops. My fever is too high to read anything properly.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

So do you want state of the art minus a bit so you don't have to pay for early adopter privilege? Do you want a "just good enough to be upgradable for the next 3 to 5 years (and if upgraded usable for the next 5 to 7 years)? Do you want a "middle of the line system for a good price"?

Computer parts tend to follow a sigmoid/logistic curve in a price for performance graph (ignoring quality and potential "upgradability" at the moment), where on the curve do you want to be?

I'm not sure how to answer this. I guess I'm looking for the point on the graph where the derivative is 1/2 or so... I've never done incremental upgrades. Every time I've been ready for an upgrade, an entire socket or two has passed. Except for a single application (video editing and encoding), my current computer with twice the RAM would be good enough for my needs...

Gaming is not a high priority for me. I'm willing to play StarCraft 2 on lower settings and I probably won't play it very much anyways. It looks like my current video card is CUDA compatible so, if I'm not mistaken on this, I will try to reuse it...

PSU: OCZ 700w($70)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=33_443&item_id=020479&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

I tend to only buy antec PSUs (I made an exception for a corsair once), mostly because PSUs are so important to have perfectly reliable. But OCZ is a pretty good company, so this is probably ok.

I've never had an issue with power supplies so it's hard for me to imagine that this decision is so important...

On second thought, I did have a PSU die on me once and it was an Antec Phantom 350. They no longer make that model so sadly my computer actually has two fans in it...

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E ($115)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_340&item_id=021508&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 (3.2 ghz, AM3 socket)($250)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_64&item_id=030521&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

You recommend AMD over Intel? Is that because you think it's more bang for the buck?

RAM: Corsair DDR3 1333(2x4gb for $130 (buy 1 now and 1 later or both now for 16gb of ram))
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311_312_611&item_id=032949&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

Isn't there something about matching RAM frequency with bus and/or bus frequency? I think I've heard this once but I'm not sure...

 

[DepricatedZero]

I strongly recommend to NOT buy this part. Seagates in general are unreliable, barracuda's in particular are unreliable, and this model... well look at the reviews (this is an awful distribution of reviews, I expect around 75% 5 star, 15% 4 star, and 5% to 10% 1 star): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337&cm_re=seagate_barracuda-_-22-148-337-_-Product

I didn't bother looking at the reviews, and I personally always use Western Digital. I was going for budget on this one - by all means, a Western Digital 1.5tb would be a good alternative. Sorry about that - this was a corner I thought to cut.

I tend to only buy antec PSUs (I made an exception for a corsair once), mostly because PSUs are so important to have perfectly reliable. But OCZ is a pretty good company, so this is probably ok.

OCZ is what I use in my system. Others I tend to run in to problems with cables being too short or inappropriately paired together.

You recommend AMD over Intel? Is that because you think it's more bang for the buck?

That, in part - AMD is also better for overclocking, if you do that sort of thing, and is more upgradeable. In 2 years if you decide to buy a new processor, you'll be able to find a version of a newer chip that fits in an AM3 socket. On the other hand, each series of intel chip uses a new socket and requires a new motherboard. This may seem like a minor detail, but the first time I wanted to upgrade my relatively new computer I learned this the hard way.

Isn't there something about matching RAM frequency with bus and/or bus frequency? I think I've heard this once but I'm not sure...

In short, yes. Motherboards today aren't like they used to be, you can't reconfigure them to run any RAM you plug in. Instead they're designed to take a certain range. In other news, I actually missed the memo that this one takes 1600 so you might want to step up to that. I just caught that.

This link below would be slightly better, but is about $50 more per pair.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311_312_612&item_id=031223&sid=iojljhsfp4phg4giu18jkj2d74

I'm also a fan of ASUS, I've been using their boards for 5 years now and haven't had any problems. Corsair is generally a pretty good buy as memory goes, and they have a good replacement policy. I've had to RMA a couple sticks before and they were pretty quick and good about it.

I did also cut a corner on the optical drive. If anyone has a preference, do speak up, the one I listed I just picked because it was cheap and a name I trust (though I've never used their optical drives).

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

DepricatedZero, here's cutting corners for you... I'm considering just upgrading my computer!

My new plan is to get this OCZ 120 GB SSD for my boot drive and this WD 1.5 TB HDD for general storage (at the sweet spot of $0.04 CAD per GB). The most controversial part of my new plan is upgrading my ram to 8 GB with these sticks from OCZ. It's not nearly as cheap as I would like and this will be the last machine that can use such antiquated memory. Sadly, they're the cheapest DDR2 PC2-8500 RAM sticks I could find!

The idea behind this new plan is that I'm somewhat cheap and I'm rather loathing putting together an entirely new machine. Also, there are some Intel chips just around the corner that may be more my style (the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge) but I don't think I can really wait for them... so this is a bit of a stop gap measure. My Intel E6600 is actually a fairly powerful and (literally) cool processor that just happens to support 64 bit processing. It's powerful enough to do everything I need it to do except maybe edit HD video smoothly. As it turns out, I think my NVIDIA EN9600GT is CUDA compliant (please correct me if it isn't!) so hopefully it will do the work that my processor can't...

What do you guys think? Is this a crazy plan or what?

 

[scalyblue]

DepricatedZero, here's cutting corners for you... I'm considering just upgrading my computer!

My new plan is to get this OCZ 120 GB SSD for my boot drive and this WD 1.5 TB HDD for general storage (at the sweet spot of $0.04 CAD per GB). The most controversial part of my new plan is upgrading my ram to 8 GB with these sticks from OCZ. It's not nearly as cheap as I would like and this will be the last machine that can use such antiquated memory. Sadly, they're the cheapest DDR2 PC2-8500 RAM sticks I could find!

The idea behind this new plan is that I'm somewhat cheap and I'm rather loathing putting together an entirely new machine. Also, there are some Intel chips just around the corner that may be more my style (the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge) but I don't think I can really wait for them... so this is a bit of a stop gap measure. My Intel E6600 is actually a fairly powerful and (literally) cool processor that just happens to support 64 bit processing. It's powerful enough to do everything I need it to do except maybe edit HD video smoothly. As it turns out, I think my NVIDIA EN9600GT is CUDA compliant (please correct me if it isn't!) so hopefully it will do the work that my processor can't...

What do you guys think? Is this a crazy plan or what?

Using an SSD as your system drive will reduce your boot time by a few seconds and make the computer more shock resistant, that's about it.

Having 8gb of RAM does nothing unless you're running dozens of applications with 32 bit addressing, or your applications are using 64 bit addressing and consuming tremendous amounts of RAM, such as photoshop or autocad.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Using an SSD as your system drive will reduce your boot time by a few seconds and make the computer more shock resistant, that's about it.

It should launch applications faster (I don't really care about that) and it should swap much faster (that I really do care about). It's also quieter and more energy efficient, which are nice bonuses...

Having 8gb of RAM does nothing unless you're running dozens of applications with 32 bit addressing, or your applications are using 64 bit addressing and consuming tremendous amounts of RAM, such as photoshop or autocad.

Both Chrome (if you have a lot of tabs open) and Premiere use gigabytes of RAM, both of which I use...