Help with PC Building

[nightwatch]

A friend of mine is looking for a new rig after her Macintosh finally crapped out on her. I convinced her that building a custom machine gets you the most for your money and she asked for help picking out the pieces. She does video editing professionally for a design firm (and also freelance on the side) so it needs to be pretty powerful and able to run some of the heftier artsy programs simultaneously. Think Premiere, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.

This is what I've picked out so far, but if anyone has any pointers or suggestions I would be glad to hear them.

pcpartpicker

The SSD is one I happen to have lying around, so that's set in stone but the rest is flexible.

Thanks!

 

[Freyja]

The only thing I'd recommend for a rendering machine where you're running lots of programs simultaneously is bumping up the ram to 16gb. Things like photoshop and that use that a lot and very fast, and adding more ram isn't terribly expensive. The rest seems good (from my limited knowledge), someone else better at this than me can probably make a better comment.

 

[duppy]

You might want to run it by the folks on reddit's /r/buidapc. Looks good to me though...almost similar to the one I built beginning of 2013. Only thing I'd change is the RAM...16 gigs would be best. Those "artsy" programs are quite memory hungry.

Also, you may know this already, but Nvidia should be coming out with new GPUs real soon now (rumor is September). Might be worth waiting for a price drop or the possibility of getting a better GPU for a similar price as the 770 that's on your list.

BTW, I got my i7 3770k for $230, and 32 gigs of G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series RAM for only $106...Black Friday prices :lol: Crazy to see what they're priced at now.

 

[nightwatch]

16GB of ram sounds like a good idea. In fact, I'm not sure why I didn't choose that in the first place because I've always had the feeling that 8GB isn't enough even for some gaming applications.

The high prices you see here are due to a couple reasons :first, I'm Canadian, so I pay ~10% more than American listings in general, and second because I deliberately choose to use newegg exclusively for the least headache and their good customer service. Thanks for the advice!

 

[DonutVikingChap]

These threads seem to be getting popular, glad I finally get to use my computer part expertise for something I guess

The general idea of the part choices seemed pretty good! But here is the list with some modifications I made that I thought made better sense with the reasoning after each part:

(Yellow = modified, Green = unmodified)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($364.98 @ Newegg Canada) (Why would you go with the 1.5 generation old platform when the new CPU is actually cheaper?)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($33.98 @ Newegg Canada) (This is good enough for some light overclocking I guess, you could always go for an H100i or something instead if you want to do a proper overclock)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($163.98 @ Newegg Canada) (A very solid Z97 motherboard for the price)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($183.98 @ Newegg Canada) (16GB [which is much needed for "artsy" programs] of solid 1866Mhz Vengeance Pro RAM from Corsair with good timings and CAS latency)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00) (This is a great SSD, why would you just have it lying around? )
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($185.98 @ Newegg Canada) (I have this hard drive and I personally find it very loud in my case, but it's really fast so it's probably worth it)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB Dual Superclocked ACX Video Card ($389.98 @ Newegg Canada) (This is basically the exact same graphics card except it has a dual boot function and it was cheaper for some reason, so yay)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($114.98 @ Newegg Canada) (I really like Fractal Design's cases and the Define R4 is one of the best reviewed sound-dampened chassis on the market. It is also smaller and cheaper than the 750D)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($129.98 @ Newegg Canada) (A cheap 80+ Bronze PSU isn't good enough for such an expensive system IMO. This EVGA Supernova G2 power supply is 80+ Gold rated and is also one of the only PSUs to have recieved the "Top class" rating from SweClockers [a popular Swedish computer hardware site]. I think it suits this system perfectly)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($24.98 @ Newegg Canada) (The DVD drive doesn't matter so much since she shouldn't be using it that much anyways, so I don't really have any comment here)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro (OEM) (64-bit) ($144.98 @ Newegg Canada) (I don't blame you/her for wanting Windows 7, Win8 seems a bit stupid from a Win7 user's perspective, but the cold hard truth is that it is the latest OS and it will get support & updates longer than Win7. It's also faster than Win7 in the back-end and in some applications, and once you get used to the interface and/or install programs to make the interface more like Windows 7, it's not really that bad at all. [Unless you already have a copy of Windows 7])
Monitor: BenQ XL2411Z 144Hz 24.0" Monitor ($249.99 @ Newegg Canada) (A 144Hz TN monitor seems like a very odd decision for a designer due to the poor viewing angles, contrast and color accuracy, unless she does a lot of gaming. I'd personally recommend a nice IPS panel with the best possible color accuracy and appropriate features. But anyway, if she really wants 144Hz, I think this is better than the ASUS model)
Total: $1977.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-15 12:07 EDT-0400

I hope this helps, feel free to ask any questions about my part choices and good luck!