Advice building a Win7 box

[SHRED]

It's been a few years since I have built a computer. Mine that quit has a 6600 quad Intel cpu...4g ram...Raedeon 4870 video...Gigabyte mobo...winXP Pro...etc.

I am not a gamer per se but I'd like to manipulate video cam movies and picture editing along with processing sound recordings.

Not looking to spend a fortune. I think I can use my case and PS.

Also want USB 3.0.

Any suggestions on a motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card...etc would be most appreciated. .. Thanks

[Iterate]

1. There's an 80% chance the problem with your old PC is just the power supply.

You didn't mention the cause if you found it, but I was just looking at the other thread and that was the first thing that came to mind. The other thing that would likely cause a BIOS boot freeze would be a system board or CPU fail, but since you consistently get to the BIOS screen, those are less likely. Besides, they take longer to fail completely and in an obvious way than does a PS problem.

That Gigabyte board was well made with polymer caps (in reaction to the mass capacitor failures just before it was designed). Still, bad board voltage regulation can't be ruled out.

So...by picking up a new, energy efficient PS you can either test it with (and maybe salvage) your old system or have it as the first piece for your new one. Unless you recap the old PS and replace its fan, it may not last much longer. That's not hard to do though.

I'm mentioning it because I'm somewhat in the same boat right now -I use a small, energy efficient (25w) PC for casual use and a much older P4 that was for heavy lifting. It's the P4 that I'm about to upgrade.

Wattage matters most to me, so I've been looking at the Haswell i5 4670T. Not sure yet about that. But I already have the PS. Excess memory doesn't boost wattage that much, and you might not need a separate graphics card.

Obviously I don't like discarding old systems.

[SHRED]

2. Great advice

I'm leaning towards an i5 system. Any PS come to mind you'd recommend?

[Iterate]

3. It might seem backward to pick the PS first,

but I was so impressed with the "BeQuiet!" brand and product line that I picked one up while I could, knowing I'd use it soon. I want ten years use out it, at least.

Here's a review of a similar model:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/bequiet_Dark_Power_Pro_10_550W

I chose a smaller model. Again with the wattage thing, picking too large of a PS means that they won't often run at their optimal output. Not sure if they're available for direct order in the US yet. I think anything rated highly on that site is a safe bet, as you can't easily get silence and good energy performance without good design and build.

[jrandom421]

4. Some parts recommendations

I'd go with the Antec or SeaSonic power supplies. Even when building a killer gaming rig, anything more than 650 watts was just a room warmer.

An i5 processor is a good choice, pair it with an ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, or BioStar motherboard and you've got a good foundation for your system. Pack as much RAM into it as you can, it will make a major difference. 16 Gb is a good start. 32 Gb is even better

I won't get into the religious wars on GPUs, just choose a good one, whether you're an nVidia or ATI/AMD fan

Pick a good case with lots of space and good airflow. Cooling is going to be key. I've had good luck with Antec cases, but your mileage may vary.

As for hard drives, that depends on your budget. I've got a solid state drive for my OS, and a SATA 3 drive for my apps and data. If price is a pain point, all SATA 3 drives are trending down in price. I've had good luck with Seagate and Hitachi SATA drives, and Samsung Solid state drives, but your mileage may vary.

Good luck and have fun!

[PowerToThePeople]

5. I have always wondered

Pack as much RAM into it as you can, it will make a major difference. 16 Gb is a good start. 32 Gb is even better

I have always wondered what the point to this was. Are you running a server? Doing high def video editing? Why the need for so much ram? 2-4GB is still more than enough, even for Windows 7 and Microsoft office.

I truly think that the "industry" is trying to keep Moore's law going. It is obvious that we are reaching a plateau in computing with the differences between newer and older generation computers becoming less and less drastic.

I use Linux mostly. Any old dual core and 2GB of ram will cruise along just fine. Anything more recent than P3 with a gig of ram is very usable. Even a p3 with 512 meg of ram is usable, but you will notice the loss of "speed" in waiting for boot-up and launching applications.

[jrandom421]

6. RAM is like life for my systems

For me, who runs VSphere or Hyper-V, RAM is life. I have 64 Gb of RAM in my system and with the virtual machines I run, especially with a couple of different virtual network infrastructures, it's vital. Even now, it's a bit of a compromise, with a Windows 2012 DC, clustered SQL Servers and a SharePoint 2013 server farm, or instead of the SharePoint, a full Service Center infrastructure.

[PowerToThePeople]

7. Ok

But you are certainly not a typical consumer computer user. You are an IT professional running virtualized server farms. This is well beyond the scope what what any normal person will do. I can boot linux and have a virtualized XP box running on top of it. This is done quite often on a box of mine with only 3GB ram and it has never had any slowdown issues.

[hobbit709]

8. And just how many computer users need all that?

My main system has 8Gb RAM and my RAM usage hardly ever exceeds 1.25Gb. That's with 3 different folding@home clients running in the background, surfing the web, listening to music and processing a video file and playing with my LEAP Motion toy at the same time. Of course running an 8 core cpu at 5GHz, it may not need to hold more data than that in RAM at one time.

[jrandom421]

10. This IS my home system

I like creating infrastructure and working out ways to troubleshoot various scenarios. That's the hobby that my wife says keeps me out of the casino and bingo halls.

[RoccoR5955]

9. My best advice that nobody else will tell you

is to DO NOT scrimp on a power supply.
The power supply is the life blood of any system.
Most cases that include a power supply have junk power supplies.
And the more expensive cases don't have sharp edges.
I have cut myself numerous times on cheap cases.