I am getting ready to buy the parts to assemble my first new PC since about 2001 (not counting my spare-parts linux build a few years ago).  I do most of my web browsing on my tablet, and I don't really play serious games.  I need the ability to do digital photo editing, and ultimately, I would like to have a bare-bones setup that I could add a nice video card in the futre if I decide that I might want to play a few games.  Other than that, consider this to be a basic home PC for general use.  Once it is built, based on past experience, I am not likely to change much until it is obsolete.  

So far, these are the components I am leaning towards, and I am pretty much set on the CPU and OS.  I am open to changing the other parts.

CPU/Motherboard - Intel i5-3570k & ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA

Hard Drive - Western Digital (Blue) 1TB

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

DVD - ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium

Power Supply - ?? 550 Watt?

Case - Not sue.  The old Antec I have has no front ports, which would be very useful, so I probably need a new case with USB 3.0 front ports.  I'd like to keep this under $100.

Case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197

psu:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095

I've always been a fan of Small Form Factor computers and just recently, IMHO, they have become truly viable for a high performance machine.

My suggestion is to look for an ITX board. I'm going to assume from your post that you won't be overclocking, so you really won't need a Z77 board.

My suggestions for an ITX build:

Case: Fractal Design Node 304, BitFeniex Prodigy (this case is a little large, but you can cram a whole lot into it, even a complete watercooling system), or Cooler Master 120 Advanced - All these cases can fit a larger 2 slot graphics card should you so desire as well as full ATX PSUs. Note: the Fractal Design case does not have a bay for an optical drive.

PSU: Newegg is running a sale on the Corsair CX600. If you go the ITX route, try to find a PSU with a length of 140mm or 5.5" to make building the system easier.

Motherboard: Take your pick. Although, it you get this ASRock Z77e-ITX, it has a mSATA port on the bottom and you can add a Crucial M4 64GB SSD and use Intel's Smart Response Technology to get fast performance (though not as fast as a dedicated SSD boot drive). Or you could go the traditional SSD boot drive + storage HDD drive with another motherboard.

Memory: 16GB is pretty overkill these days. 8GB is plenty for your specified uses, if you want to try to save a couple bucks. Also, highend memory isn't necessary. With an ITX board, you will be limited to 2 slots, so same ones as your posted for $85. Or 16GB for $60

Do you have a MicroCenter near you? Even with tax, their in-store, out the door prices can potentially beat Newegg. They also pricematch Newegg. They are also advertising 2x4GB memory for HyperX $30 for this black friday. Or Corsair XMS for $40 w/ a $20 MIR.

I like some of the suggestions already posted.

I wanted to reiterate the importance of making sure you buy an SSD for your OS drive and your programs that you want to be fast. It really is that big of a difference.
Try to find a 250gig for $150-$200 and find a 2-3 tb cheaper HDD to store large files on/archive stuff to.

From there save all your super important stuff to an external drive or big flash drive in case your cheaper drive does fail.

The money you saved for not currently going with an expensive GPU for now should cover all the drives.

I am about an hour away from the closest microcenter, but I am also going to be at a work seminar near one soon.  Maybe I can swing by to pick up.some of the deals they have going on.  I haven't considered a smaller build, most prior PCs I've dealt with have been a large mid tower or full tower small business server sized.  I will have to think about that.  

Thanks for the advice, keep it coming!

At $200 the 3570K is worth every penny.

You could imagine how I feel about the 3570K at the price Nehpets99 posted.

Just FYI,  Newegg has the GSkill memory 2x8GB for $60 today only.

The SSD for your OS is a nice plus but not neccassary.

If you are planning on doing ANY gaming I would recommend throwing in a GTX600 series. In fact I would skip the SSD to get that. IT will play any of the Call of Duty series games with no problem at all. The biggest thing with this card will be driver support and stability. When I built a gaming rig a few years back I went with an ATI board because it had a few more features. I also built a media pc and also used an ATI board. This was a mistake. ATI frequently releases drivers with jack things up. I updated the drivers in my media pc and could no longer watch HD video on netflix without it shuttering. When I asked ATI they told me that flash needed to come out with new drivers to support theirs. Noooo that isnt how it works... you dont break something and expect someone else to fix it.  I also had all sorts of other quirky issues on my gaming computer. ATI also has a history of stopping support for one board when a new one comes out. The change back to nividia chips with a much needed thing. With any of the new 600 series chips you get support of to 4 monitors. Why would you need this you ask? First I used 2 monitors almost exlusivly in college for typing papers with word on one monitor and my source material on the second. Editing photos and editing videos is great with the extra desktop area. Finally, about 2 years ago I found 2 monitors that were the exact same as my primary that were half price on clearance. I picked them up and used 2 nividia cards to play games on a wide 3 screen setup. This is very adictive. Playing fps shooters with the extra field of view is very nice. In fact I will not play any games that do not support the feature now. Big thing with the 600 series is that you only need one card for this. In theory you could play a call of duty game on 3 monitors and use the forth for a playlist. Or just one for surfingthe web and the second for your playlist if you only had two.

I'm also going to chime in for getting a SSD for the OS.  I was skeptical when I built my current computer, but got a good deal (at the time) on a SSD and I am wowed by the performance.  With the deals on SSD's I have seen lately there is no reason not to get one. One warning, every other computer you touch without one will annoy you because they will be so slow.

I used this case to build another computer.  It is very quiet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

A SSD is getting up there to being a must on any modern day computer build. A graphics card can always be easily added later. Adding a SSD later involves a little more work.

An ssd requires almost no work to install later... you can use one of the many utilities to clone your OS files or just install windows on it and switch your boot drive in the bios. Anyone who can build a pc should have no trouble with this. I would under no circumstances run the embeded graphis system for your pc. Anyone that tells you to just run that stock card uses their pc for nothing else but a moderate web bowser with probably a budget store monitor. Granted the current i7 graphics core is a little better... If you are going that route you might as well buy a $200 atom barebone system or a tablet becaue it will be much more suited to your needs and actual technical knowledge level. You will save yourself a lot of headache and you electric bill will be cheaper. I dont think this is where the OP falls under.

In fact using several SSDs I am still skeptical about their reliability. Remember they have a limited number of read writes. Supposidly they will last some insane amount of time before exceeding those with their load leveling technology. However, a second gen SSD I had required a total format and reinstall three times in bairly over a year. Once I was able to repair the bootsector but the other two times I lost everything. And yes even if you have your software and files on a secondary drive you will still need to reinstall all programs with a reinstall on windows. I recently purchased a second SSD that will replace the first one which is slightly out of warranty now for my OS. I find that my laptop running a good 7200rpm sata3 drive will boot almost as fast if I watch which bloatware starts when windows does. Also, if you have enough ram, very few OS components will actually load off of any OS drive once windows has booted.

All of this being said SSDs are much cheaper than you would think. Budget the extra $70 into your build for a 64gb model and save buying a graphics card twice. If you are not sold on SSDs look at one of the hybrid drives that is out like the momentus 500gb. I really wish I had gone with this in the first place instead of a standard SSD.

I built a PC last year for my wife and went with a simple 7200 rpm sata2 750gb hard drive. She uses it for word, photoshop, autocad, and several other 3d imaging tools (3d studio max and some other stuff if I remember correctly.) I also went with a high resolution monitor and a moderate graphics card with 2gb of graphics ram. She also has 8 gb of system ram which is not huge. It has absolutly no trouble running all that software at a decent clip. She has never complained about running any of her 3d software. I recently replaced her laptop with an I5 and she did not want me to spend more on a decent embeded GPU. Well she can not effectivly run any of the 3d stuff on that system.

Which is still more work than plugging in a graphics card, especially when the OP says:






He didn't say anything about needing to do 3D processing. The integrated Intel HD4000 is plenty for Photoshop or any other 2D photo editing (Yes I am a moderate web browser with a budget monitor ).

Great input so far.  I have been changing around a few plans and will probably end up making the drive to micro center this weekend.  I am warming up to the idea of a SSD for windows and a platter drive for data.  The Intel SSD I looked at had a five year warranty.  I still am a little suspicious of the durability, but the tech guys where I work seem to love them.  

My brother in law is also going to donate his old video card to me so I will have something to start.  It is a couple of years old, but was a nice model when he bought it.  Again, I am willing to upgrade that later.  The down side is that the project is growing in cost.

I am going to stick with the I5-3570, but am going to go with an MSI board, with the micro center combo deal.  Ram will be similar to what I poster, and I will likely go with an antec three hundred two case and antec modular power supply.

New intel ssd's use sandforce controllers (with intel firmware) but are not as good as the 100% all intel drives of the past.  I would look into samsung's 830 and 840 pro ssd's.

MSI is kind of flaky with their newest Z77 motherboards, I would look at Asus/gigabyte motherboards first.

As for SSD usage, that is the grea thing about intel smart response technology.  You can use the HDD as your main storage device and the SSD as a cache, it's very easy to set up and has minimal drawbacks.