Looking to Buy

Budget:
Trying to keep it under $1500 for just the PC. Monitor, Keyboard, Speakers, etc i will buy separately with my 'other money'.

Expectations: I suppose my main hope is to preview my Premiere Pro and After Effects projects with relative ease so i don't have to render the footage or guess how it's going look when played back!

Usage:
Video Editing. Adobe CS5, Premiere Pro with After Effects. I create You Tube videos and often use chroma key, and a few layers of effects (lens flares, color correction, motion tracking, etc.) No 3D modeling at this point. Then of course rendering these videos, often. I do some gaming, but can't blow all my money on a killer GPU!

Special Needs:
Would like an Nvidia card to take advantage of Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine. Has to be CUDA enabled.

I also transfer footage with a SDHC card almost daily.

Wireless Internet.

Saved Ticket #: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=567338


Hello everyone! I'm new. I'm looking to buy a PC and the ones i'm looking at on the big company sites (HP, Dell) seem okay, but i don't really even know what mobo they're using. Very little customization. Doesn't seem like you're getting something great for the price.

So, after checking out various "boutique" sites... i've run across Digital Storm and fallen in love. I mean, even this forum kicks ass. I don't know what it is, but i kinda already trust Digital Storm and haven't even ordered a PC yet! Pretty much decided to order here now, and just need to figure out what to buy.

I have a few questions about the configuration i put together (linked above).

- Due to budget, i chose the i5 2500k processor. Is this better than trying for a i7 950 or something in that series for the price? I can't quite swing the price on i7 2600k.

- I figure i'll get the Pro motherboard just for future upgradability.

- I'm curious about a dual hard drive set up. Is it beneficial to put the OS on a separate drive? Is performance bettter with two hard drives?

- I transfer video footage daily with an SDHC card. I don't see any option to get that built in. Would an external card reader just be my best bet?

- I'll almost certainly use a wireless connection. Just want to make sure i wouldn't run in to trouble there.

- I chose to overclock the cpu, and upgraded in the "extreme cooling" category, but did not upgrade the chasis airflow. Is that alright?

Overall, is there anything messed up with this build. Any kind of bottleneck. Something i could do better at little or no extra cost?

Also... i was in love with the pre-built ODE, but it's got no wireless internet adapter. Is it possible to get one with it, or put one in myself? Because that might just be the way to go.

Okay, that was a huge post. Thanks for any feedback at all, guys!
Very excited to have found this site!

Edited by Kapoof - 13 Jun 2011 at 7:24am