[phillpower2]

Budget and the Wife being happy
Ram
Raid I can`t help you with so I will ask iammykyl to advise you on that.

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How about this SDD? Pretty nice deal, great reviews.

I know there aren't mounting brackets

Edited by Crunchy409, 24 February 2014 - 09:44 PM.

[Crunchy409]

How about this SDD? Pretty nice deal, great reviews.

I know there aren't mounting brackets

Edited by Crunchy409, 24 February 2014 - 09:44 PM.

[iammykyl]

Gday folks.
To make things clear for anyone switching from your other topic, (and me) > http://www.geekstogo...18#entry2377418
What MB and CPU are you ordering?
What RAM?
The brand/model of all your HDDs.
What GPU?
PSU brand/model?
Are you going to use a existing case? need to know the brand/model to see how many drive bays you have.

What version of Adobe Lightroom are you using?
Please list any other software used for photo/video editing.

[Crunchy409]

Gday folks.
To make things clear for anyone switching from your other topic, (and me) > http://www.geekstogo...18#entry2377418
What MB and CPU are you ordering?
I will be ordering an i5 4570. Deciding currently on a MB in the $100-$140 region

What RAM?
The G. Skill Ripjaw RAM is on its way currently.

The brand/model of all your HDDs.
Currently have TWO 1 Terabyte Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00RKKA0 and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

What GPU?
512MB ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series

PSU brand/model?
I currently use what came with my case, the Antec Sonata III

Are you going to use a existing case? need to know the brand/model to see how many drive bays you have.
yes, see above

What version of Adobe Lightroom are you using?
Lightroom 5.3

Please list any other software used for photo/video editing.
A very small amount of photoshop elements. Thinking their may be some video editing in the future, but nothing now besides the included Sony software that came with the camera

Would love any feedback. Thanks so much!

[Crunchy409]

Holy cow- the 4670K is on sale for $210 today at Tigerdirect... I think I should snap that up? Worth $20 above the 4570?

Edited by Crunchy409, 25 February 2014 - 11:23 AM.

[iammykyl]

Gday.
Yes, best price I have seen for a while, unless you can reasonably get to a Micro centre.

[Crunchy409]

Can't get to a micro centre. Sure wish I could!!

[Crunchy409]

Struggling to decide on a motherboard. Thoughts between..

This Asus

This Gigabyte

or this MSI (nice recommendation PhillPower2

i5-4670 and SSD on the way! Just need a motherboard!

Edited by Crunchy409, 25 February 2014 - 08:23 PM.

[iammykyl]

Gday.
The EVO is a SSD I often recommend, very good. No mounting bracket as you have observed.
As your case has a limited amount of internal 3.5 bays (4) I have included a ICY Dock, fits in a case 3.5 front bay and will take (2) SSDs, means you can mount your 3 existing HDDs and leaves room for one another, (Backup?).
With the software you are using, there would be no benefit in using any type of RAID array. A better configuration would be.
SSD, OS, Lightroom, (catalogue and previews) Essential programs, No games.
500GB, CR cache/Scratch disc.
1TB, My Docs, Downloads, Programs, Steam? (Original source files. other use will depend on the software used.
1TB, OS Pagefile, Completed projects (again other use dependent on software used.)

Included a different MB for your consideration.
> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/306Kv
Some info you may find useful.
> http://thelightrooml...talog-creation/
> http://helpx.adobe.c...html?sdid=KBQWU
> http://digital-photo...tional-hardware
> http://helpx.adobe.c...op-cs4-cs5.html

EDIT
Select all the MBs on Newegg, include mine, then you can click compare, What is essential for you to have, what would you like, whet are you not prepared to pay.

[Crunchy409]

iammykyl-

Wow- thanks for the fantastic articles. Those are great reads. I was about to shift my focus to searching for those types of articles, so I appreciate your help!!

I've been doing all kinds of searching on the newegg site with the comparison tool you describe and part of the problem is that I don't know exactly what I'll want to have available in the future! I also found that the specific manufacturer websites have better comparisons when the products are the same company.

I like the idea of going Asus. Is the "NFC EXPRESS EDITION" the same exact thing as the Z87-A just with the extra NFC express feature, or did they cheat something else in order to add that feature?

Also, I really appreciate your HDD set-up recommendation. Is there a reason that you split things up between the two traditional hard drives? I was kind of anticipating running on the SDD and one HDD, leaving the other as a pure backup.

Thanks so much for your great help!!

Edited by Crunchy409, 26 February 2014 - 07:17 AM.

[phillpower2]

You may wish to confirm this for yourself but as far as I was aware NFC is for Windows 8 and 8.1.

[Crunchy409]

Yeah I had definitely seen that. I hope this motherboard will last me for 6 years or so like my current one has, so I figure by then I may have upgraded past Windows 7. Not planning on doing that anytime soon though.

[phillpower2]

Thanks for confirming that

I have never used Windows 7 long term, I kept XP on my office desktop and only upgraded that to Windows 8 when I built a whole new replacement late last year, the Vaio notebook that I have came with Vista pre installed which many people do not like, I never had an issue with it and only upgraded the notebook to Windows 8 when I also upgraded to 8GB of Ram and 64-bit, so I agree with your sentiments and upgrade to Windows 8/8.1 when you feel it appropriate.

[iammykyl]

you're welcome Crunchy40

I like the idea of going Asus. Is the "NFC EXPRESS EDITION" the same exact thing as the Z87-A just with the extra NFC express feature, or did they cheat something else in order to add that feature?

I l have not been able to spot any difference between the boards.
Phillpower2 said

You may wish to confirm this for yourself but as far as I was aware NFC is for Windows 8 and 8.1.

Yes, agree, but given the reply above, I thoughtworth having for the future. There are also a number of laptops/HP/Lenova with windows 7 installed running NFC, so possible Asus will supply a driver update. There was also this, "Yeah, I'm really thinking my Win 7 is retail." Reply #9. not 100% that

Is there a reason that you split things up between the two traditional hard drives? I was kind of anticipating running on the SDD and one HDD, leaving the other as a pure backup.

The HDD configuration was a suggestion, will depend on what is supported in your software preferences. As a general rule, you should try to read from one HDD and write to another one, this means that two streams of Data transfer are done simultaneously. If read/write is done to the same HDD, only one can be done at a time.

[Crunchy409]

Great tips about the HDD. I had never considered trying to break up the writing/reading but that makes total sense. I think I may need to keep that 2nd 1 terabyte drive for backup. RAM came yesterday, CPU and SDD expected in the next day or two, and I'm watching prices on motherboards. Definitely excited!

I'm working on going through my programs and looking up how to save progress, not to lose people tags on picasa, etc.

Will keep you all posted!