I am taking some classes next semester that will require a better computer than i have right now. I have done some searching and believe i have found a computer + Parts that will suit my needs.

I will require it to render photos and video decently fast, as well as programming and usual day to day stuff.

I am starting with this Barebones kit From tigerdirect.com


I am using this Power supply Mostly because the power supply in the case has been found to be a bit too short on cables, and its does not allow for the full use of the ports. This has 8 sata which should allow for me to use everything the motherboard has to offer.

I cant decide between two video cards. I need something decently cheap that will perform decently well. I dont need blazing fast, but i cant sit forever waiting for renders either...

This is the MSI Gefore

XFS Radeon

I believe both are compatible with the motherboard.


I also need a good 1TB or more Hard drive. I know there are a couple brands to not touch, i was thinking western digital was one. I know seagate makes some iffy external drives, but other than that not sure. What are some good brands to look for?
Is there anything else i may be over looking? or any suggestions to change?

0) What exactly can your current computer not do?
1) The original PSU in that bundle looks pretty terrible, but a $70 750W PSU is also very suspicious.
2) I've found Western Digital to actually be the most reliable of the brands I've used.
3) The 7850 has twice as good a rating as that GTX 550-Ti.

Hard drives are fungible. Get whatever's the best value and keep good backups. Basically anything is fine, but people with experience tend to gravitate towards certain brands simply due good or bad experiences with such drives.
One person might say they always use Seagate and never have problems, whereas I'd had three Seagate drives fail in the same fashion and tend to prefer WD. Just keep backups and get whatever's the best value. It may be worthwhile to get a slightly more expensive drive with a longer warranty, particularly if you don't expect to be needing additional space while the warranty is still in effect.

I second this query.

Ok
replies
0) I used my computer for making a video awhile back. I know render times are slow but a 1hour video should not take 36hours to render and export. Also i cant play hardly if any of the newer games coming out because of my lack of ram and video card capabilities. and since i only have an old dell, instead of getting a bunch of new parts for this case (which does not fit much) i figured i would just get a whole new one.



1) Do you have a decently cheap alternative for a psu? I would like 8 Sata power so i can use all the sata ports. as well as PCI E and what i would need for that mobo.

2) Thanks i will go look and see what i can find

3) I did nto see that when i was looking before (3am) thanks.

Edit: where did you get the ratings from for thsoe video cards? one has a 4.7/5 one has a 5/5 rating on the site. not really double the rating, unless i misunderstood...

I hate to stifle your enthusiasm, but why would you need 8 SATA devices? Even an optical drive, a boot SSD, and three hard drives in RAID 5 would only need five SATA ports. I don't think you'll be using that much hardware.

Edit: Capability ratings, not user ratings:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

^^ thanks for the ratings.

and since i will be doing video editing i plan on eventually having 2HDDs in mirrored raid just for backups and to store the videos and photos on. 3 HDD in Raid 5 for the boot. 2 optical drives for burning and duplicating. and a boot SSD once i have money for one. I would rather get a power supply that will work the first time, instead of buying another one in 6months when i can afford to get everything.

I would claim that a RAID 5 boot is a waste of hardware, but that's just me, especially if your documents are already on RAID 1.

ok. Well i will rethink the plans... Still guess i need to find a new PSU if the one i picked out is fishy.

For a PSU just go with anything from Corsair - they haven't made a bad PSU yet. As such, they are my default go-to brand for PSUs (other companies have good PSUs as well, of course, Corsair is just the only one with *only* good PSUs)

The rest comes down to budget.

ok. i will look into corsair. I am pushing it at 600 dollars which is right about what this build comes too right now. So much more than 70-100 dollars for the PSU is pushing it unfortunatly..

thanks kllrnohj

I highly suggest you avoid that TigerDirect barebones kit. You can get a great AMD CPU in the 100-150 range, a good Motherboard in the 70-100 range, 8GB of good RAM in the 30-50 range, and a case in the 30-60 range. That added together is a range of 230-360. That kit is $340 for some really sub-par parts.

When I was building my computer a few months ago, I searched day and night for weeks through Amazon, TigerDirect and NewEgg. There was not one item that was cheaper on TigerDirect than on NewEgg. Some Amazon items cost the same as on NewEgg. I suggest that you just browse NewEgg instead of anywhere else.

The AMD A10-5800K Trinity Quad-Core looks great, and is $120 at the moment. You can also look in to AMD 3 cores and try to unlock the 4th core, but that isn't guaranteed to work.

You can get a HD 7850 for $180. This seems like a fantastic card for what it costs.

Antec and Corsair make fantastic GPUs. Cooler Master and Rosewill make some decent ones too. You're probably going to spend $90+ on a 8 sata 600W+ PSU. ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020 )

G-Skill Ripjaws is pretty cheap and reliable RAM, at about $5 a gig. $40 will get you 8GB. You should also try to get 1600Hz or better. 1333 is becoming a speed of the past.

ASRock makes some good low-end motherboards at the $85 price point.

You can get a case that just works for around $35

Optical drives are about $20 for a normal combo drive, $30 for combo + BluRay-ROM, $50 if you want to burn BluRays.

1TB hard drives are around $100 each for WD

120+180+90+40+85+35+20=570

You may need to get wireless networking, a keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc. That'll cost more, but if you already have those, here's a $570 machine for you.