Hello all, first post in here. New to computer parts/builds in general but have always wanted to build something, but never got around to it.
I'm a college student, so it really doesn't need to be "top of the line" or anything because I know with this type of stuff you can spend a lot very quickly. I just want to build something that can handle some CAD (most likely PTC Creo), photo/video editing, and gaming. Looking for something that will last with the ability to upgrade in the future. I would prefer something that can run quiet, but it doesn't need to be dead silent.
A standard mid tier gaming build is fine for moderate cad and editing. like a 8320, 8gb of ram(16 if you can afford it but as a college student 8 would be fine and you can double it later), and a gtx 760/r9 280/7950 or a r9 270 (if you need to go cheaper).
Yeah, this all depends on budget. It also depends on if you wanting to overclock for some "free" performance or if you just want to run things they way they come in the box. I would probably recommend a lower end e3 xeon processor (8 threads and faster than a AMD 8 core at stock speeds) and a nvidia graphics card for cuda support. I am not sure if all the cad sweets or your video editting software has openCL support.
I'd like to stay as close to 500 as possible on the case and hardware (not including display or software or anything), keeping in mind that I can probably spend some money on upgrades at the end of the summer.
I suppose you will be looking at a system somewhere along the lines of a fx6300, 750ti/r7 260x and 8gb ram. I dont really recommend going lower then that for a system you are going to work on.
I wouldn't go any cheaper than this, but this is a decent gaming/CAD system... somewhat similar to one I run at work... runs Solidworks and Mastercam well... I'm sure it'd be fine at gaming as well... and not too terribly bad over budget.... you're making huge sacrifices going cheaper than this...
If you could scrape together another $80 for a good 120GB SSD it would make it a lot faster, but it's not necessary...
If you are overclocking, then I would go for drunken panda's build. But if you arent, then I might consider an i3-4130. the single core speed at stock speed is significantly faster. The i3 handles 4 threads compared to the 6300's 6 threads, but it does at a much faster speed.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3NYW9
This build has a good dust proof case and you don't need a CPU cooler if you aren't overclocking. The B85 motherboard is low priced but good quality as well.