Building a multipurpose desktop, or not

[cxn]

Hi everybody,

Lately I've been thinking of building my own desktop. Althought I have zero experience, the desire has grown more and more each day. The past four days I've been doing some research and stumbled upon this great site.

It seems to me that building a desktop is beneficial mainly if you're creating a niche system (gaming, video/photo editing, 3D modelling, ...).

When I look at at myself though, I use my (shitty) laptop for a variety of things. The tasks I perform are mainly the following:
- Surfing
- Streaming video
- Every now and then some photo-editing
- Currently learning PHP

My question is: regardless of my interest in building my own system (a very nice feeling I can imagine), is it worth building something which suits my every day needs? Or will it be a waste of cash or time (in case I mess up during the build)?

I would like to mention that in case of building my own system, it would be a mid-ranged system. By nature I am not a great fan of budget-goods or too high-end goods.

Thanks in advance for your time!

 

[g-unit1111]

My question is: regardless of my interest in building my own system (a very nice feeling I can imagine), is it worth building something which suits my every day needs? Or will it be a waste of cash or time (in case I mess up during the build)?

Oh absolutely. I would never recommend going prebuilt because prebuilt systems don't adhere to standard form factors and most of the time can't be upgraded. What you want to do with your system depends on how much you ultimately want to spend and what the primary uses are. For your uses you can build a fairly capable system for around the $500 - $600 mark that will last several years with minimal upgrades like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($68.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($45.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($74.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($92.65 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ Directron)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($42.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($68.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Directron)
Total: $596.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-08 20:42 EST-0500

 

[cxn]

edit: Apologies for the double post.

 

[cxn]

G-unit/Fry, thanks for taking the time to suggest a build!

I still have tons of questions but I don't want to be too much of a pain in the .., so I'll try to keep it short 🙂

Before the idea of building my own desktop I was browsing for laptops around the €1.200 mark, roughly $1.475. Again, in case of gaming or other specific tasks, I can imagine it's worth going up to that price. Is it the same for the type of computer I'm looking for?

Can I make the assumption that the more expensive I go, the lower my future costs will be? Taking into account lifespan of components, ability to upgrade (as you already stated), ...

I forgot to mention that I will probably be using two monitors, will that change the build dramatically?

If I my budget would double of what you suggested, would you opt to get slightly better versions of all components (maybe besides the storage) or would you put the money in some specific components and leave others untouched?

I think I'll leave it at this, for now 🙂

 

[cxn]

Also, why did you opt for that PSU rather than this one:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seasonic-power-supply-m12ii620bronze ?

 

[cxn]

Hi guys,

I can't expect g-unit to watch this topic, but I would appreciate some other builds and some information taking into account my previous post(s).

Thanks 🙂