Building the perfect computer

[royaldeadman]

$it's like 2,000 and there are no payment plans.

[4damind]

This time I would go for the newest generation, that's Haswell. Actual board, CPU, 32GB RAM. IMO you don't need such a big and expensive board. I would not invest more then 200€ for a board.

Some parts I would pick (Noctua because it's very silent max 19db(A) and has enough air stream also for overclocked CPUs)

GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD3H
Intel® Core™ i7-4770K
Noctua NH-C12P SE14

Corsair 32 GB DDR3-1600 Quad-Kit Cl9289
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 550W
Antec P280

Because RAM prices are relatively high this days, 16GB would be also fine. Normally people always have a SSD/HD so this components are not included.
No graphic card, I would use the graphic on the CPU because this is more then enough for DAW usage, video and gaming. If it needs more graphic power I would think about a passive cooled card.
550W power is normally a bit too much, but this has enough power for more PCI-cards like UAD cards, a lot bus-powered USB devices. A power calculator will eventually recommend a 440W power supply for a 80+.
Anyway, for such system with the listed components you need a budget of about 1000€ (~900 with 16GB)

[royaldeadman]

I just cleaned out my computer case and found a crap load of dust build up inside the core i7 fan. Wow that was seriously gross. I vaccumend it all out and now I have the case side off for more airflow. Things should be ok now I guess time will tell. Also I re ran my windows assessment score and it's still at a 4.2 and I looked that up and it says for a score of that I can run multiple programs high end. So who knows.

[ughnonumus]

Perhaps, you should add "for today" and date/time stamp when mentioning a perfect computer? Typically, I build one for right around $500, regardless of when...2 years, ago; 5 years, ago, etc...

One the power supply, I pretty much require something with two rails; 600W or greater, as I have a lot of SATA drives to power up.

Been using MSI mobos and AMD procs for years have I...cannot find a reason to switch.

Right now, 16G of DRam seems more than sufficient. My quad (core) also does the trick (with a few UAD cards). So, building a "better" machine is not even being entertained at the moment.

Does your mobo offer HDMI out? If not, this might be a reason to investigate a mobo/video card combo. (Using a big screen monitor might be an option you deserve.) My card was under $50 and is prolly a lot more advanced than most on board installations. The key is acquiring one without a fan (to limit noise) and- if possible -something that works well with the mobo. Of course, MSI cards are a perfect match for MSI boards.

If you smoke, make sure to clean out the box at least once per year...otherwise you could overheat...happened to me once. This situation forced my hand at buying and setting up a new machine with down time.

[Kaboom75]

The best desktop i7 supports a max of 32GB RAM. Fastest Ram only runs at it's marketed speed if you overclock it to that speed and 1600 RAM is actually 800Mhz when fully overclocked. Go for the lowest latency numbers instead If you are not going to overclock.

[Kaine]

The best desktop i7 supports a max of 32GB RAM.

64GB not 32GB

Fastest Ram only runs at it's marketed speed if you overclock it to that speed and 1600 RAM is actually 800Mhz when fully overclocked.

1600Mhz is supported by the Intel chipset without overclocking, but it is as you say dual data rate memory (i.e DDR = two data transfers per cycle) so that's what is meant by it being double the speed of the base clock... not quite overclocking through. If you go to 1866Mhz memory however, well then your overclocking whether the MB manual makes it clear or not as the chipset doesn't support that standard yet.