HELP! Vidya Makin' / HTPC / Phone?

ImRud · June 30, 2015

THE BUILD > http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PjG3GX

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TL;DR: Video editing PC + Home theater PC + Phone (phablet? Tablet?) with a pen(?) = $1200... apparently. Mac vs PC? HELP PLEASE.

My budget is an absolute maximum of $1450, however $1100 is what I would consider my "sweet spot" between my computing needs and my financial situation (an issue of liquidity-- gotta sell all of my electronics in order to pay for all of my new ones-- I'm evolving!)

Everything marked as purchased is either purchased or to be bought used, open box, discounted, refurb'd, etc.

I want to buy that Asus Windows tablet with the Wacom Pen (feel the need to have a pen on a screen and Wacom is the best) or maybe get a phone with a pen--maybe even just use pen and paper in class for a few months and save some dough(U$D). I can get one for ~$200.

My ultimate goal is not only near-silence during idle and during lightweight computing, but also possessing enough juice to power through some light video editing... without making my room a sauna. I'll break down my decisions for each component. Should I do THIS (the build) or get the Mac Mini with the Iris Pro graphics (aka no GPU and save up to $350 U$D) and also buy an iPhone for the sake of unity, harmony, synchronization... continuity... basically I miss using a full keyboard to type out texts and other "phone stuff," but miss out on the pen-to-a-screen experience which I love.

Phone-wise, I'm torn between keeping my Lumia 635 (non-optimal because, well, it's cheap as heck and a bit crummy), installing Windows 10 on it, and using it as my primary machine...

option 2: buying a refurb'd Note 4 for ~$450 and a PC for ~$700 (Mac Mini? Build my PC and don't buy the LG 21:9 monitor... help?)…

option 3: the (next) iPhone / Mac combo with Iris as mentioned-- just no tablet and no pen-to-a-screein'ing...

option 4: Buy a refurb'd Lumia 830 for it's form-factor and camera (and because I <3 Windows on phones) for ~$200, the aforementioned tablet in the build link by Asus tablet with Wacom (again, I feel the need to have a pen on a screen and Wacom is the best) also for ~$200, and ..... again ..... and spend ~$700 on a PC or Mac.

Or... something else?

Ok now back to the build.

For the case, I went fairly high-end choosing the Fractal Design Define S for its wide-openness and thus hitting that silence / not-a-heat-sink requirement. It seemed to perform fantastically for Linus in his video(s) on it, and the black matches my desk (sorry I care about looks, yo). It's also large enough to where I don't envision having issues with cooling (I think).

For the CPU, I opted for the LGA-1150 platform and four cores. It's the most best value for my needs IMHO which I could find, and it's paired MoBo has four ram slots for rigged-ish "quad-channel array," which I think is important for vidya-makin'. If I'm wrong, then dual channel would be good enough, and I would not really save much cash by going with a different MoBo / RAM / CPU combo(I'd love to get on the 2011-v3 platform eventually-- just too darn pricey right now. 6-core i7 with hyper threading woo).

To keep it cool, I'm banking on the stock cooler and all of the included fans as well as the sheer size of the case-- though I could go with the the Noctua NH-U14S or something. Linus seems to swear by this brand, and the Amazon reviews say that it's darn quiet. My concern is if it'll block memory channels necessary for the quad channel config and sheer dollar amount...

...on this motherboard, the I just lucked out and found a good deal on an ASUS. The cheapest, reliable LGA 1150 board I could find. It's ASUS, so I'm not concerned about the reliability even though it's "cheap." If I'm wrong, then let me know.

For the RAM I went with I cheaped out. Please rid me of my ignorance if I need another stick.

For the GPU, I'm buying a used GTX 970 for ~$240. Good? Quiet? Cool-ish? How much better is a 970 on Windows vs Iris Pro on a Mac for video editing. Maybe some light gaming. This is a HTPC / video editing rig--remember that, please.

For the PSU, I chose the the best price:performance ratio I could find. Fully modular is nice, semi at the least is preferred for space's sake. Does the particular one which I've picked have fans which do not kick on until it breaks (X) degrees in temp? If so, then yay even more silence, but if not then I am not willing to sacrifice high-end performance for (X) degrees of coolness or (Y) amount of silence. If I need more juice, again, let me know. Help!

For storage, I'm using the best deal on a ~240gb SSD as working drive and then sourcing free (X) TB HHD(s). Good?

Where can I cut cost? Is cheaping out where I did a lost cause? Will this be as quiet as I want it to be (which is really, really quiet) and also not too hot? I'm pretty sure this will blaze through Premiere and After Effects, but am I just an idiot blowing money, or overestimating performance? Is iMovie any good?

Help. Plz.

Total cost: ~$1200 USD