If you want to read more: (Click to View)

After a PSU and graphics card upgrade (245w to a 600w and nvidia 7050 to a GT 240) and some bus speed overclocking, I fried the motherboard in Sept 2011, so I didn't have a computer to use, especially since school had just started.

My old computer was good enough for my needs back then, these were the specs: (Click to View)

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 775 (wolfdale) 2.6GHz (OC to 3.2/3.6GHz)
Mystery CoolerMaster cooler
4GB DDR2 RAM
Seagate 7200.12 750GB 7200RPM HDD, running at 5400RPM (shady OEM brand)
XFX GT 240 1GB GDDR5 OC-550->750MHz

I used to only play GTA: SA:MTA mod and LFS and ETS, maxed them all out with 60+ fps. I did edit video until Aug 2010. I wanted an upgrade from the Pentium to handle FRAPS in LFS.

Since 2009, my needs have changed dramatically. Currently I edit photos on a daily basis, I do a lot of research (meaning about 12 tabs open per Chrome window), I edit a lot of video along with recording video. I also run 2 distros of Linux (sometimes simultaneously). In the future I do want to get into programming and would be testing software on a variety of OS's in a VM. I do play more demanding games with GTA IV being the most demanding, and probably will be since most games don't interest me. I do sometimes compress large files and move them around the hard drive when I'm organizing, and I find that it normally takes about 3 hours to move 300GB and that bothers me. My laptop locks up, freezes, BSODs, and in general runs slow. I do run out of ram on multiple occasions. I want something faster that can handle whatever I want.

Laptop specs (Click to View)

Intel Core i5-2430m (HyperThreaded - 2.4GHZ - usually turbos itself to about 2.8GHz during games)
6GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
640GB 5400RPM HDD
Intel HD Graphics 3000

(2012-08-12 02:40)Tommer Wrote:  If you're gaming/multitasking you won't need an i7 that's overkill, even an i3 will be smooth flying.

(2012-08-12 02:49)Zipppy Wrote:  I'm in a similar situation, and I bought an Asus sabertooth 990FX motherboard, it's pretty solid.
and I believe AMD will release Piledriver in the fall, and it is claimed to be 20% faster than Bulldozer. Anything is faster than my current triple core however. AMD won't reach Intel, but it's good enough.

From what I've read over the web, is as follows;
If you compare ATI vs NVIDIA on GPUs, you'll find ATI's cards are cheaper and are quicker, but have sub-standard quality on drivers, which bog them down. NVIDIA however, has a bit less performance but has well-optimized drivers, and they cost more, with more power consumption than ATI's, except for the GTX680.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  The Piledriver core has been proven to be at least 15% faster than Bulldozer, as Piledriver is currently available in the new APUs, so proper comparisons can already be made.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  AMD Bulldozer/Piledriver pros:
AMD currently excels at multitasking. It usually wins multithreaded multimedia benchmarks (including compression, video encoding etc) even against more expensive Intels. It's also has better IO throughput. It's not usually so good in the gaming type benchmarks, which is what most people shout about.
Bang/buck Bulldozer currently wins on the whole.
AMD motherboard chipsets usually have much better specifications than Intels and are often cheaper at a similar spec.
Also being able to throw 8 cores at your VMs can only be a good thing

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  The hyperthreaded Intels typically do better on the single-threaded/unoptimised stuff. Games often fall into that category, but as ever it depends on the game.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  If you get an Intel, get an Ivybridge. They're more power efficient and very slightly faster than Sandybridge and are typically around the same price.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  If you go AMD it is probably worth waiting for Piledriver (possibly depending on price when it's released).

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  Radeon v nVidia
Last time I checked, nVidias typically use more power and therefore generate more heat.
nVidia have had design issues with some chips which have resulted in very high failure rates. The problems I've heard about Radeons tend to be more random and often down to poor cooler or component choice by the OEMs. However there are a number of OEMs for Radeons, some being better than others notably Asus, Gigabyte and XFX.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  In your case, it may depend on what is supported by your video editing software. I've heard Vegas 11 Pro doesn't yet support GPGPU acceleration with the latest nVidias, but that may well change. I dunno about the others.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  RAM - you're probably alright with 8GB for now. If it becomes a problem, you can always get an extra 4 or 8 in the future - just make sure you get a motherboard with 4 slots.

(2012-08-12 16:18)Elmo Wrote:  I'm interested to know how it can take so long to move files on a harddrive, unless it's moving to another drive/partition. Moving on the same drive doesn't involve reading/writing the files themselves, only metadata.
Either way, a large (1TB+) 7200 RPM drive will be much faster (120+MB/s sequential) than your laptop drive. A 120GB+ SSD for system will still be worth it if you can afford it.

This is a Newegg wishlist I made a few days ago...still incomplete. (Click to View)

I did put 16GB of ram into there but I think I would rather go with 12GB (3x4GB) and I was going with the 8120 instead for $25 less, and I still need to add a hard drive and graphics card. For a graphics card, any specific recommendations?

(2012-08-12 18:17)Zipppy Wrote:  Just to ask, what were you doing when you ran out of memory?

EDIT: I'm using an ASUS GTX560 DC/2DI/1GD5 since I bought it last November. I got it for $195 on newegg, before the 6 series came out. It is cheaper now because of the new GFX. I went on general consensus when getting it, as it was the most recommended. But the Ti would be a bit better performance-wise.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121466

(2012-08-13 03:52)Zipppy Wrote:  Maybe 8 GB should be the lower-end of what you'd manage with, my brother has the same amount of memory on his MacBook, and he runs a VM with Windows 7 when he plays certain games (Borderlands being the most intensive), last time I checked. He doesn't have any issues as far as I've seen.

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  Yes, but I've heard that Ivy runs a lot hotter. I'm not sure if it's true, but I wouldn't be surprised considering it's a die shrink.

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  So far I like XFX mostly because I've had a good experience and my GT 240 has a double lifetime warranty from them, which I assume would be with their new Radeon lineup.

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  Currently I'm using WLMM (eww) until I can acquire better software. What's GPGPU?

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  I used to use Bandicam to record LFS, but the file size was no different than with FRAPS. So when my C: drive partition gets full, I wait 20 years for a couple hundred GB of video to mosey its way to my other partition. I now use Game Booster to record, and I get way smaller video files (from 30GB per video to 500MB, both about 30min long), so I wouldn't be file shuffling as often.

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  ...I think I would rather go with 12GB (3x4GB)...

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  ...I was going with the 8120 instead for $25 less

(2012-08-12 17:13)Kenwood Wrote:  For a graphics card, any specific recommendations?

(2012-08-13 16:30)Kenwood Wrote:  I chose the 8120 because it's only a 500MHz difference which is easily overclockable to 3.6GHz. Why spend money on something you can achieve yourself for less?

(2012-08-14 14:03)Nitros Wrote:  

(2012-08-13 16:30)Kenwood Wrote:  I chose the 8120 because it's only a 500MHz difference which is easily overclockable to 3.6GHz. Why spend money on something you can achieve yourself for less?

Why ask for advice on it, if you have already made up your mind?

(2012-08-16 13:30)Nipper Wrote:  Wait, you are still indecisive after having purchased the parts you decided on?

Isn't this an expensive habit? Buying loads of parts you decide you undecide to use.