So I figured I've got a few months till I've hopefully moved and settled somewhere and can have a desktop computer again, so I might as well plan things out and try to sort out the best configuration for my budget. I was thinking if I specced it now for my budget, by the time I get round to buying and building it, it should be cheaper if I don't upgrade any of the parts on the list.

What are your thoughts on the following shopping "list"?

http://www.ebuyer.com/lists/list/206645

I quite like the idea of using an SSD for the boot drive. In theory I could save some moolar and use my old hard drives, but I'd like to use SATA. Might get an external caddy and put my old drives in that.

Probably could get away with a cheaper processor and mobo combo tbh?

As Matt said, processor could be downgraded without issue and there's no point paying over the odds for a marginally better spec'd version of the same mobo unless it has specific features you need.

The idea of costing it now, is that say I would stretch to paying £800 on a system. I'll try my hardest to get the best value for money that £800 will get me now.

When it comes to buying it, the spec will be cheaper, and I should hopefully resist the temptation to swap things for newer more expensive components. It might be outdated when I buy it, but only by a few months.

It's also the fact it's been about 7 years since I built my last computer or did any upgrades. There wasn't DDR2 or DDR3 RAM, and quad core processors were a heck of a lot of money. I'd like to use the time I have to make sure I get everything "right". I feel like each build I've done I've always missed the boat by a bit, buying a mobo that is cheap and fine, but 2 months later the hardware moves on and makes upgrading the machine a nightmare. Best example was I built a rig that used SD Ram. 3 months later it was DDR all the way.

Is there really not that much difference between the i5's and i7's? I don't really care much for overclocking...?

The sweet spot for photoshop is 2-4 cores, beyond that its clock speed that gives it the processing power, though they do keep improving it with every release. An i7 is going to be a better chip all round but I'd say get more memory instead of a faster processor, you'll see much more benefit with less paging to disk.

Hmm, I guess if I went with an i5, I could then up the ram to a stonking 32gb. That should be a good help with some of the mapping things I do

Two other questions I have:

Onboard graphics. Those mobo's just say "onboard graphics", I think I recall reading graphics are handled by CPU. I'm assuming it's still worth buying a cheap graphics card.

Touchscreen monitors/windows 8. Is 8 really a gimmick? I'm wondering whether a touchscreen interface would be useful for photographic editing etc.

If you want to do any gaming get a dedicated gfx card, Photoshop can also make use of any applicable hardware acceleration the GPU provides which is another little added bonus. You can get a decent midrange card for around £120 so even a basic one will be cheap enough.

Excellent point, when I load up adobe premiere it goes on about acceleration on bootup and I can smoothly edit 1080p with an i5/8GB/7950

I've never tried it without the GPU though so not sure on what 'actual' benefit GPU acceleration brings to the table.

edit- a quick googlage suggests it's significant.

Right, so the girlfriend has actually said I might as well build it now. So, not trusting ebuyers list system (link here though:http://www.ebuyer.com/lists/list/220129), this is the revised spec:

Corsair 620W HX Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC (gutted from my old machine)
DVD drive from old machine

Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3 Socket 1150 HDMI DVI ATX Motherboard  £99.66                                                 
http://www.ebuyer.com/507048-gigabyte-ga-z87-hd3-socket-1150-hdmi-dvi-atx-motherboard-ga-z87-hd3
Intel Core i5 4670 3.40GHz Socket 1150 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor  £178.60                               
http://www.ebuyer.com/467637-cpu-core-i5-4670-3-40ghz-lga1150-box-bx80646i54670
EVGA GTX 650 Ti BOOST 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card  £139.50               
http://www.ebuyer.com/494305-evga-gtx-650-ti-boost-2gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-02g-p4-3657-kr
Crucial 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Ballistix Sport Memory £104.99                                                                   
http://www.ebuyer.com/389658-crucial-16gb-ddr3-1600mhz-ballistix-sport-memory-bls2cp8g3d1609ds1s00
Corsair Carbide Series 200R Compact ATX Case Black w/ USB 3.0   £54.30                                             
http://www.ebuyer.com/409943-corsair-carbide-series-200r-compact-atx-case-black-cc-9011023-ww
WD 2TB Green & WD Care Extended Service Plan  £74.39           
http://www.ebuyer.com/490833-wd-2tb-green-wd-care-extended-service-plan-wd20ezrx-careext
Sandisk 128GB Pulse SSD Slim   £62.99
http://www.ebuyer.com/387080-sandisk-128gb-pulse-ssd-slim-sdssdp-128g-g25

Total £714.53


Any thoughts or suggestions? I'll be using an existing monitor and keyboard etc. Will be my first foray into SSDs. It's going to be interesting trying to locate all my DVD's for my main applications, including Office and Windows 7. My other main concern is fitting everything in the case, and the power supply being ok. I'm thinking of finding some kind of external box/case/caddy to put the 4 old HDD's from my old computer in. 2x 500gbs and 2x 1tbs.

ssds not big enough. supposed to keep them 40% free. or is it 30%. either way, i filled mine with an os, bare minimum of apps and starcraft. go for the 256.