Refreshing my PC w/ items from teksyndicate rec's

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Hello all,

I have a aging PC that I built about 5-6 years ago and I need a refresh.  I am a photographer that works mainly in Lightroom and Photoshop but also play games on Steam.  I am mainly a console gamer but that is because my rig is pretty beat.  

So let me list what I have now that I think I will be holding over into the refresh

Western Digital Raptor 160gb 10krpm hard drive I also have a 900gb WD caviar green drive but I use it for storage.

Thermaltake 800w modular power supply. I forget the model but if needed I can dig under my desk.

For procs the AMD Phenom II X4 955 recommended in the (Build a PC under $550 vid) looks like a great choice but I wonder if for $5 more the 965 would be a slightly quicker? Since I am clueless about Processors these days I also see for $20 more the AMD FX-4170 Zambezi 4.3ghz,  whats the deal on this proc?

I plan on getting the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 as I want the 6Gb/s SATA and the 4 memory slots, rear eSATA, and USB 3.0 ports etc.

Memory I was looking at the recommend Mushkin Enhanced Redline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) or the G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)?  I would like to start off with 8gb and upgrade to 16gb down the road. 

For video the HIS IceQ H787Q2G2M Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 shown in the youtube video sounds like a great choice and the reviews look really great.  However if there is anything slightly cheaper with comprable performance I wouldn't mind taking a look at it.

And I will probably get a 120gb SSD for the OS and access my photos and videos off the Raptor with the other SATA as storage.

I have a old beat up case and I would like to replace but its not imperitive right now.

If this seems like crazy and random I apologize,  I've wactched alot of vids and read lots of reviews but my brain turns to mush trying to get it all together.  I eventually just give up and buy whatever looks good and hope it works.  I would like a stable and quick machine for the best possible price, who doesn't right?

Thanks!

-Chris

 

 

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Maybe try looking at a radeon 7950 instead to get extra games (sleeping dogs + hitman absolution) via their never settle bundle.  If you decide to sell the games it could end up being cheaper than buying a radeon 7870.

You don't really need ram THAT fast but it doesn't hurt unless it costs a lot.

3 HDD is what I'd think is ideal as well.  SSD for boot+most frequently used apps, Fast HDD for loading things fast, Slow HDD for archive/storage.  I recommend the OCZ Vector, Corsair Neutron GTX, Samsung 840 Pro, or Plextor M5S models in the 120-128gb range if you were to get an SSD.

Since I odn't know what your budget is I can't comment on the CPU.  All I know is 955 is very capable and with that motherboard you can upgrade to a piledriver cpu if you ever start doing thread-heavy jobs.

PSU is fine if it's working now and isn't on its way to explosion

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Thanks jeffrly! I like those suggestions, especially the graphics card with games,  I don't have any PC games other than what I bought on Steam which is just old stuff like Doom, Heretic and Portal.  

My budget is $500, the memory is pretty cheap so I thought even if it is overkill it couldn't hurt.  The processors I am not up to speed on though and the AMD's are so cheap I don't mind spending a little extra to get great performance out of my apps (Lightroom and Pshop, Photomatix HDR software etc.)

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Looking at benchmarks, it seems like the piledriver cpus are pretty good but they also cost almost $80 more. AMD FX-8320.  They're almost comparable with an i5.

Depends if you want to pay for the performance, the Phenom II X4 955 is pretty good value imo.