first time building from scratch - could use a 2nd opinion on compatibility

[PastaFeast]

Since Feb. 2004 I have been using an off-the shelf HP that has never been upgraded. It was pretty much obsolete a year after purchase, but I've stuck with it despite not even hardly being able to play YouTube anymore, among most other things. I really have no experience in building a PC nor knowledge of how it all works inside, but have tried to research it the last few days. Even so there is a lot I don't understand still and I am just praying when I get all these pieces they will work together and I will have no issues. So opinions on a) whether it's even a good build at all, and b) will it work, will be greatly appreciated.

Short background: it's not designed to be a gaming PC, so I have chosen not to buy a graphics card yet. My understanding is the motherboard will cover for now my basic needs. But I would like to keep the option open for the future, should a good game come along. Right now my main goal will be buying a drawing tablet, working on drawings and coloring them with Photoshop 10, editing pictures, presumably running HD videos, and so forth.

CPU- $200- Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Chosen because between i3 and i5 I figure this will give me some leeway in the future if I want to expand. The last thing I want is another PC that will be obsolete in a year and from what I can tell i5's will support many things in the years to come.

Motherboard- $110- Asus Z87-K ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
This is the most confusing part to me. It sounds like it has integrated graphics capabilities to work with the CPU, so I hope (please confirm if you can) that this will let me do my drawings and videos.

RAM- $75- Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

HDD- $60- Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
I don't know if Seagate's a trustworthy brand. Pretty much every HDD I looked out had at least some people saying theirs was DOA, so it sounds like it comes with the territory. I probably will never need the full 1 TB but went with it for the price.

Power- $70- SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
I don't know what a good wattage is, PCPartPicker estimated this build's usage to be 183W, and some articles said to double it then add a bit more to make sure you're covered. I figure 620W will give me room to grow should I need more RAM or a video card in the future. It was only $5 more for this one than the 520W version, so I figure why not.

Optics- $20- Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer

Case- $60- Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case

OS- $90- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)

Total estimated price comes to about $680, which I'm fine with, though if you can help shave a few dollars off I certainly wouldn't mind. I have a few questions though.

1. almost every HDD I looked at said it came "bare", which was explained to me to mean that it will not ship with any wires. I have none on hand now, so what kind of wires will I need to connect it to my motherboard?

2. my old computer came with DVD writing software pre-installed. I'm assuming this disc drive will not, so will I have to buy software to burn discs, are there free versions to download, or will Windows 7 have something with it to let me?

3. are there any other wires or accessories I will need to buy to get this all put together? I hear I will need thermal paste but am not sure for what or if a small tube of it comes with a certain part. If there are any misc. small pieces I should buy let me know. Everything I listed is what's going in, nothing more, so I hope I don't forget something important.

Otherwise thanks for any feedback, I appreciate it. I'm very scared to spend this much money on something I am afraid I might wreck, but if it's just a matter of making sure all the wires go in the right slots I hope it will be okay.

 

[xroe]

It would work together although I would recommend swapping out the seagate for a western digital blue 1tb, although that's just a preference thing. As per the integrated graphics, they are embed in the processor and the motherboard's connections just act as a bus for them.

 

[Sienipiiras]

The SATA cables for the HDD come with the motherboard.
If you're going to use the stock intel cooler it comes with thermal paste preapplied.
Everything else should be good.
Sorry, I don't know anything about CD burning though.

 

[xroe]

I apologia for not even seeing those questions.

1. As stated previously, the motherboard should come with a SATA cable provided it is new.

2. For the most part windows can burn cd's/dvd's on its own just without some of the features of paid software. If you feel you absolutely have to have those features, then I can guarantee there is a free piece of software that is open source and just like it.

3. Again as stated, thermal paste will be pre-applied. The only extra thing you may need is a Phillips screwdriver.

 

[FTPATQ]

If you tell us your budget i'm sure we could recommended an alternative system. You've made some decent choices but I think I could save you money on your build considering what you want to do with it.

 

[PastaFeast]

although I would recommend swapping out the seagate for a western digital blue 1tb

Is this the piece?
http://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B0088PUEPK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387397772&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+1tb+blue

I am comfortable with that one. It has a lot better review score, so assuming it is compatible I'll go with that.
Thanks to you and Sienipiiras both for the help.

FTPATQ: My budget was primarily to be under $700, so I'm comfortable with this build. I am hoping it will last a long time with maybe only the occassional upgrade. I am open to suggestions, of course, but I am eager to get going on building it too. One concern I have is how limited I will be in choosing a graphics card in the future. I haven't really looked into them yet since they are not a primary concern at the moment. I just hope this motherboard will leave open enough good choices for the coming couple years. Otherwise I like what I have seen of the Asus board so far, especially for its price. I should ask that I need to make sure it has an ethernet port, since that is how my modem connects. The site lists it as having 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s), so from what I can tell that is the same thing.

 

[xroe]

although I would recommend swapping out the seagate for a western digital blue 1tb

Is this the piece?
http://www.amazon.com/WD-Blue-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B0088PUEPK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387397772&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+1tb+blue

I am comfortable with that one. It has a lot better review score, so assuming it is compatible I'll go with that.
Thanks to you and Sienipiiras both for the help.

FTPATQ: My budget was primarily to be under $700, so I'm comfortable with this build. I am hoping it will last a long time with maybe only the occassional upgrade. I am open to suggestions, of course, but I am eager to get going on building it too. One concern I have is how limited I will be in choosing a graphics card in the future. I haven't really looked into them yet since they are not a primary concern at the moment. I just hope this motherboard will leave open enough good choices for the coming couple years. Otherwise I like what I have seen of the Asus board so far, especially for its price. I should ask that I need to make sure it has an ethernet port, since that is how my modem connects. The site lists it as having 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s), so from what I can tell that is the same thing.

First off, Yep that is the right hard drive and second as for a GPU later down the road your current setup should run any current GPU with no bottlenecks and most likely any GPU(excluding 1000 dollar GPU's) for the next 2 or so generations. As for Ethernet connection, yes RJ45 is the standard Ethernet port.

 

[giantbucket]

is there a reason you went with a Z motherboard and a non-K processor? typically the Z goes with the K since that enables overclocking. if you don't give a rat's ass about overclocking, then a non-K processor and an H motherboard are more cost effective.

also - do you need i5 or could you do just fine with an i3 for about 40% less cost? onboard graphics are the same (or just slightly different if you go for the lowest i3). either i3 or i5 or i7 will be similarly obsolete in 5 years. today, does it matter whether you are running a Core2Duo or a Core2Quad? probably not...

also - yeah, I prefer WD drives over Seagate. WD Black for OS, WD Green for all data / media / docs.

also (#3) - do you need Win7 or can Win8 work? I'd tend to prefer newer stuff since it'll get supported longer, which means Win8.1 so why shell out the same coin for an older Win7 OS?

also (#4, this is getting annoying) - try to get a modular power supply, it makes cable management easier since you don't need an octopus in your case for just 2 drives.

 

[PastaFeast]

is there a reason you went with a Z motherboard and a non-K processor? typically the Z goes with the K since that enables overclocking. if you don't give a rat's ass about overclocking, then a non-K processor and an H motherboard are more cost effective.

I don't know what any of that means :/
I asked in another thread what some compatible motherboards would be and this is the list I got:
ASRock Z87M Extreme4
MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate
Asus Z87-K Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP
MSI Z87-G55

I went with the Asus because that's the only brand I'd heard of and the price was pretty good. I admit I don't understand all the differences between them.

do you need i5 or could you do just fine with an i3 for about 40% less cost?

I probably don't need the i5 right now, but I thought it would be more useful in the future. I read the i3 was from 2010, and I saw a pre-built at Best Buy that had an i3 in it, so I figured if I was building it myself I would go for the newer chip. I'd rather just pay the $200 upfront now instead of buying an i3 for $100 now, and pay $200 more down the road to change it to an i5 if I needed.

do you need Win7 or can Win8 work?

I'm familiar with Windows 7 since I got to use it on a laptop last year. That and everyone I've talked to has hated Win8 so I don't want to spend money on it just to find I hate it too.

Though speaking of Windows 7 I have been reading about the differences between the OEM and retail versions. This may be a moot point since I can't even find anything except the OEM version on sale, but my understanding is once I install it that OS will be forever locked to my motherboard. I would have liked the freedom to use it on other builds down the line if I decided to (not likely, but you never know), so being able to just use it on my new computer is not TOO big a problem. I just want to make sure if I have to do a full system restore, or my HDD fails, or who knows what happens, will I still be able to use my Win7 without having to re-buy it? Also is the OEM version still capable of getting new service pack updates? It seems like it's the same version they sell you on pre-builts, and I could update my XP, but I just want to be sure. It doesn't really look like I have any choice here but to buy the OEM version.

 

[giantbucket]

Well if you buy a motherboard that has H87 instead of Z87 in the part number, you might save a few bucks and it's unlikely you'd miss any features. And that means you'd buy a CPU that doesn't have a K at the end of it which again is cheaper. This is what you should do if you don't intend on overclocking. If you don't understand, then you're not going to be overclocking. So buy either an H87 or Z87, whichever is cheaper or in stock or has other things you might like.

The i3-4xxx is as new as the i5-4xxx (actually newer by a few weeks) so age isn't an issue. The i3-3xxx / i5-3xxx is older, and 2xxx is older still. Just that i3 is generally $130 versus $210 for i5 (prices in Canada, probably similar ratio in US or UK or OZ)

But yeah in some cases an i5 may be more suitable for some applications. Hit up Google and see what others say about which processor (i3 or i5) is better for your most important app.

OEM of Win7 is locked to the first CPU/motherboard it gets installed on, but other than that it's the same for updates and service packs. If things crash, you CAN just reinstall from fresh ON THE SAME MOTHERBOARD, so no worries there.

People liked Win7, hated Win8, and are starting to appreciate Win8.1 so I'd say the options are 7 and 8.1 for you. From what I gather people loathed 8 because it didn't have the Start icon. That's mainly it. Whoop-dee-doo-ding-dong. Win8.1 will be supported while 7 will go end-of-life, and 8.1 gives you the option of buying a touchscreen monitor which might be nice.