Building computer for friend

[Nakalo]

Budget: ~$1250-1500
Resolution: 1920x1080
Games / Settings Desired: Recent releases, high settings
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc): Music recording and editing, going to need large HDD and SSD for the OS
Country: USA
Parts that can be reused: None
Do you need an OS? No
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)? Monitor, mouse (he likes the logitech g700), keyboard

Friend wants to start recording music but would also like to play some recent releases such as The Witcher, Evolve, Star Wars: Battlefront and Assassin's Creed. I offered to help him with his first build and figured I'd turn to the forum that helped me with my first build, also introducing him to the kind of community that surrounds building your own PC over buying a premade box.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Deleted]

I don't really know how demanding music editing is since you didn't mention what software is used. I can only guess that your friend could use an i7 and 16gb of ram. I tried to fit a gtx970 but it goes over a little without cutting down alot from peripherals. If its not the case the you could get an R9 290 tri-X for around 250bucks.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($325.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 87.0 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($101.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($93.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($97.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.67 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($319.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.98 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus MX239H 23.0" Monitor ($202.31 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Logitech G105 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($39.79 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Logitech G502 Wired Optical Mouse ($57.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1511.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-29 16:53 EDT-0400

[Kagthul]

I don't really know how demanding music editing is since you didn't mention what software is used. I can only guess that your friend could use an i7 and 16gb of ram. I tried to fit a gtx970 but it goes over a little without cutting down alot from peripherals. If its not the case the you could get an R9 290 tri-X for around 250bucks.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($325.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 87.0 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($101.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($93.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($97.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.67 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($319.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.98 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus MX239H 23.0" Monitor ($202.31 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Logitech G105 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($39.79 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Logitech G502 Wired Optical Mouse ($57.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1511.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-29 16:53 EDT-0400

Overall, this is a decent build, however, i'd make some changes:

Audio doesn't require a lot of fast I/O from the HDD - a lot of times, even working with large lossless samples, the entire clip will easily fit into available system RAM. CPU speed and number of cores is most important (as Audio can be processed massively parallel pretty easily).

To get back within budget, i'd recommend the following changes:

Drop the SSD and HDD for a Seagate 2TB SSHD (Hybrid Drive). It will give you all the benefits of an SSD for this build (Snappy OS and App response), cost about 80$, and save you almost 80$.

Drop the OS (not sure if Kost noticed when you said you didnt need an OS)

Find a cheaper monitor (200$+ for a 24" 1080p panel seems a bit overpriced to me; dont get me wrong, it's a nice monitor - i have the 27" version - but when on a budget..).

Consider dropping the 4790K for a Xeon E3 1231v3. It's usually available almost 70$ cheaper, is still -plenty fast- for Audio (where more cores will generally improve performance more than a few Mhz of speed), and is still a 4 core/8 thread part. Doing this would let you drop to a cheaper H97 motherboard too.

--

Also, if you live near a Micro Center (within an hour id say is worth it) you can build this rig way cheaper. Both the Xeon and 4790k are almost 90$ off MSRP in-store, they have a 40$ discount if you bundle with a motherboard, and 20$ off the RAM if you bundle it with the CPU/MoBo. Their in-store prices on SSHDs are also cheaper.

[Deleted]

- Yeah seems i missed the no os part so you are inside the budget then.

- The Xeon Kagthul mentions is a good option paired with a h97 board if you want to save money. Obviously it will not be as fast as then i7 4790k but again you will get what you pay for. If the budget was lower i would consider it first but since the 4790k fits the budget then i don't see the reason why not. IF you are close to a micro center and you can grab a good deal to save money then i see less of a reason to go for the Xeon.


- About the sshd, i would think about it if it was a laptop and space is limited. Thats isn't the case on a desktop tho. The hybrids if i recall correctly only have 8gb of "ssd" which is mostly used for cache not your actual o/s and applications/games. Also mean its ok ish for read but sucks big time for writes.

Personally on the list above the money you save from o/s i would get a bigger 2tb hdd if you need it and/or a little better case or just save the money.

[Kagthul]

- About the sshd, i would think about it if it was a laptop and space is limited. Thats isn't the case on a desktop tho. The hybrids if i recall correctly only have 8gb of "ssd" which is mostly used for cache not your actual o/s and applications/games. Also mean its ok ish for read but sucks big time for writes.

This was true when the first released, sort of - management of what went where was done at a driver-level in the OS (at least, in OSX, Apple was the first early-adopter, shipping them in iMacs).

The newer line intelligently manages this on-drive at the drive level, no OS involvement needed. Seagates new line has 8 or 16GB of solid state (depending on model) and the desktop size drives (3.5") use full-speed 7200RPM platters for the "normal" drive portion, making them no slower than a traditional HDD for the stuff not stored on the Solid State portion.

In the US at least, the Seagate drives are only about 12-18$ more expensive than a traditional HDD of the same sizes (though they only go through 2 TB right now) making them, in my opinion, a no-brainer for budget builds who really shouldn't be wasting money on SSDs (as they provide no real performance gains in gaming) but still want that snappines in OS and frequently used applications (and low boot times).