New help picking a build

[Brockenstein]

I am building a PC for thw wife. She does video editing and Photoshop along with some gaming some with moderate system requirements (Current an near future gaming is Sims 3, Sims Medieval, Tropico 4 and SWTOR). My goal is to build her a PC I won't have to touch for the next 4 to 5 years. Now I know the thought is you can't do that because next year they will have some new game to push the limits of all systems but look at the gaming list above, she isn't playing FPS or anything. I would like something that she can do pretty good video conversion on but its not a need that everything has to be converted in 3 seconds flat or anything.

I have already looked at prices and I am torn between two builds. Keep in mind I already have 4x2GB Sticks of DDR3 RAM that's 8GB total. I also have an awesome case for her.

ASUS F1A75-V PRO AMD A Series Motherboard and AMD Quad-Core A8-3850 2.9GHz Radeon HD 6550D APU Bundle
750watt Power Supply
x2 1.5 TB HHDs 6Gb/s
DVD-Rom
x2 SAPPHIRE 100327L Radeon HD 6750 1GB Crossfired

VS

ASUS P8P67 LE B3 Intel P67 Motherboard and Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Quad-Core Unlocked CPU Bundle
750watt Power Supply
x2 1.5 TB HHDs 6Gb/s
DVD-Rom
x1 XFX HD-687A-ZNFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit DDR5

Besides overall performance on of my concerns is I plan on doing a RAID1 with the two HDDs but the Intel mainboard only has two 6GB/s sata slots. I don't know if that is something I shouldn't worry about or what. Also I don't know if I should have dual cards or just one good card.

Please take a look at the parts I have listed, give me feedback on which one is a better build in your opinion or maybe what you would change on the build. I am not trying to do anything too expensive but I want to build something that will last for her needs for some time.

 

[jeremy1183]

I would take the i-5 all day long over the other. Its power is great for gaming but performs under the 2600k when comes to video editing and other stuff. The type of games she is playing does not need a crossfire system either.

That board has 4 3gb sata and 2 6gb sata connectors and will be fine for RAID.

Also that K series cpu can be overclocked nicely. So that will also help from keeping you to have to upgrade. OC it to 4.0 and you will be good for a while. Most boards these days have an overclock feature that does it for you with one click of a button.

 

[jeremy1183]

I agree...but the addition of adding another 6870 would be even better...plus the price drop by that time would be even better as well (assuming they add the card at a later date)....

Bottom line is that he was asking which was better of the two builds...its obvious its the second....even if the first is crossfired

 

[Brockenstein]

Okay so the processor choice is down, I will go for the i5-2500k, I would love to get better but just not in our price range right now. If she does get super into video editing and this processor starts to have trouble I will look into upgrading then.

As for the graphics card(s) is the Radeon HD 6870 alone better than x2 Radeon HD 6750 Crossfired?

Like you guys said in the future if that processor can hold us over if she does run into performance issues graphically we can always get a second card or see if there is a better card in our price range by then.

 

[jeremy1183]

The 6870 is a great budget card. Here are some benchmarks for you to look at
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/290

That card will play the games she is currently on just fine. Its when you get to the crysis, metro 2033 and stuff like that on high resolutions is when you will have most of your trouble.

here is the 6870 bench in Crossfire vs just one 6870
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/301?vs=290

 

[Brockenstein]

Awesome, thanks for the help guys. And thanks for linking to that website. That has really helped!

 

[jeremy1183]

No problem.