How much future-proof/feature-rich we(you) can make?

[vemalas]

I'm just a pain in the ass (even for myself). I'ts very hard for me to make decisions regarding choosing techology (gadgets). I just do research too long, eventually am happy with the choice, but waste a lot of precious time. It took me 6 months to choose the best HDTV for me (Sony w905), same time for a smartphone (LG G2), laptop (it was for my brother; went custom-built), ereader (Kindle ppw2) etc, etc.

Now i need a new PC. I could take half a year of doing research (i'm an artist, not tech-savvy at all, but somehow technology just excites me) until i understand the basic principles of how every part works in correlation to one another and how to make it very balanced and efficient. But i could try askng for help yet again. So here it goes.

__________________________________
I need a pc to last me good two-three years. I dont want to upgrade, swap parts or nothing like that. I want to build it and forget about that (unless upgrading something in a few years could give me additional few years for the system). Budget is 1000-1500£, could go more, but i'm always interested in best value, than bleeding edge. Will use it for:
1. Adobe suite (Illustrator, photoshop, after effects)
2. Gaming (i play just 1-3 games a year, but always expect 60fps, ultra settings, 1080p (game i will 100% play is Witcher 3)). Also, this eliminates the possibility of choosing something like FirePro.

Questions related (i just like to understand why i'm buying what i'm buying; some questions can be answered without relation to my budget):
1. NVIDIA or AMD for Adobe suite? I've read that AMD is better somehow (because of OpenGL (or OpenCL was it?)?
2. Now, i am thinking about adding a second monitor to ease my workflow, and a possibility of 2k/4k explodng in the next year or so. How should i be ready for this? Will adding the second monitor cripple my performance by a lot?
3. Should i buy now or wait for Broadwell/Haswel-E/PirateIsland/Maxwell/R300? Which combination is best, which will come faster, and is feasible to wait for?
4. When is DDR4 coming? Is it possible to build a system in near future with it? How would it help me? How much RAM do i need? (i have 8GB in my laptop). Why?
5. GDDR5 in videocards, how much do i need it, why it is needed, what is it responsible for?
6. I want a "balanced" system. Nothing "starves", nothing is "idle" or "underused", everything compliments each other. How can we achieve it, and if not, is my reasoning for wishing it is fundamentally incorrect?

Oh dear god no one will talk to me.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I guess that attention to detail and not leaving any aspect wrong that you have is often a good thing, but you have quite some information overload here .

I will answer some questions succintly enough.

2. Get a graphics card with at least one Displayport connector (most midrange and high end ones)
Adding displays doesn't make your system slower at all, even on old and low end hardware.

4. DDR4 is useful for building servers with 256GB, 512GB and more, but is not very critical and will replace DDR3 gradually. Having 16GB ddr3 that you can extend to 32GB is decent enough. It's huge already! More will be useful esp. if you do a ton of 2D animation work.

You can get a system with LGA 2011 socket motherboard if you want to be able to get up to 64GB ddr3 ; else LGA 2011-3 will replace it with ddr4 but that requires waiting one year.

3. CPUs only make modest progress these days. A general consensus is that i5 Haswell is good enough and future-proof enough for most things, having more is a bonus.

6. Disk I/O is often the most severe bottleneck you can have, thanksfully SSD storage has become big and cheap (240GB for about 100 €/£). Else the important thing is to have enough RAM.
Have a 7200 rpm HDD on the side, maybe two of them in RAID 1 (or just two separate HDDs). Have a good backup strategy! (such as a big HDD external or in NAS on-site, and another off-site). If you have backups, then you know that hardware failures and such won't make your hard work disappear.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I__________________________________
I need a pc to last me good two-three years. I dont want to upgrade, swap parts or nothing like that. I want to build it and forget about that (unless upgrading something in a few years could give me additional few years for the system).

It can be an option, e.g. you put together an LGA 1150 system today, but a few years down the road you can change motherboard + CPU + memory if you really have a need to. (8-core "Sky Lake" Intel, or crazy big memory, or both). Your case, PSU, HDD, SSD and even graphics card won't become bad overnight and they will even stay compatible.

But you don't need to worry about it much today and even without upgrades the PC would stay useful for many years.
Don't be afraid of adding RAM or disk drives, it's easy and doesn't mess with your operating system, hardware or software.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

After reading the first paragraph, I have to start with this:
Procrastination will be the worst enemy in trying to buy a cost-effective solution in PC components.
Like Yoda said, "Do, or do not. There is no try".
You either decide to buy the components during this week or the next, or you shouldn't even bother yourself looking for something that you won't purchase for 6 months because most probably everything will change in the meantime.

I've had to deal a lot with people who asked me for advice and then kept procrastinating and I have to say it's a terrible situation. I try to be as nice as I can, but I've been forced into some nasty arguments because of that.

For 1500£ and your requirements right now, you ought to be best served with:


- LGA2011 system, X79 motherboard

- Ivybridge-based LGA2011 CPU (4xxx series), like the i7 4820K. Older LGA2011 CPUs won't give you PCI-Express 3.0 which could be a problem.

- Crossfired R9 290 or SLI'd GTX780. The R9 290 set has more memory, is cheaper and could become more future-proof but the GTX 780 does PhysX, which the Witcher 3 will be using.

- 4*4GB for 16GB of RAM. Probably 1600MHz CL9 is more than enough for any task since the X79 uses quad-channel memory.

- ~1000W PSU of a good brand, like corsair or seasonic.

- Use SSDs. Preferably, one SSD for OS alone and another one where you keep the files to work with. A large HDD can be there but just to store the stuff that has already been compiled.


As for your questions,

1 - AFAIK both brands will support hardware acceleration, and I think you're likely to be bottlenecked by storage speed when dealing with GPUs of this class.

2 - 2nd monitor won't slow your system. Neither will a 3rd, 4th or 5th. Three 24" monitors can come rather cheap and give you a whole new universe of productivity and ease of use.

3 - Buy now. CPUs haven't progressed much (in performance) and aren't likely to progress much more in the next 3 years. Future CPUs are more likely to decrease power consumption but not increase absolute performance. Even less if you're dealing with a 4-core, 8-thread Core i7 CPU at 3.8GHz.

4 - Don't worry with DDR4 for now. The first iterations will bring little to no advantage compared to DDR3. Even less if you chose a LGA2011 system with quad-channel memory.
DDR4 will probably make a difference for APUs that rely a lot on system bandwidth, but not with systems using discrete graphics cards.

5 - GDDR5 or its clock speed isn't really a stamp that determines memory performance. You should worry about that if you're buying a low-end graphics card (like some cards still using DDR3 in a 64bit bus), but the high-end cards of today are pretty balanced in the memory bandwidth department.
Bare minimum nowadays should be 3GB, but with the new consoles having 8GB it might be best to assume a "more is better" approach. You could always buy a Titan with 6GB but the price is ridiculous and you'd have to cut back on everything else.



Here's a suggestion, but I won't be making any more until you decide exacly when you want to make the jump

 

[vemalas]

Thank you. So, to summarise:

• I need Displayport for VGA (i've just read about it, didn't quite get it, is it faster than HDMI? Longer cable? wil there be any real benefit on screen?), and VRAM doesn't really matter as long as it is 1-2gb.
• I don't need DDR4. Go 32 or 64GB DDR3 (How much Mhz? Does it matter?).
• LGA 2011 socket for motherboard.
• Go i5. Might as well wait for Haswell-E i guess?
• Get 1TB SSD, no partitions. (I don't really get the raid. Is it somekind of connection between SSD and HDD?)

..motherboard + CPU + memory if you really have a need to. (8-core "Sky Lake" Intel, or crazy big memory, or both).

Is CPU very reliable on memory? I mean, if i have 8 core CPU, i need more memory, than when i have a 4 core CPU?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Thank you. So, to summarise:

• I need Displayport for VGA (i've just read about it, didn't quite get it, is it faster than HDMI? Longer cable? wil there be any real benefit on screen?), and VRAM doesn't really matter as long as it is 1-2gb.
• I don't need DDR4. Go 32 or 64GB DDR3 (How much Mhz? Does it matter?).
• LGA 2011 socket for motherboard.
• Go i5. Might as well wait for Haswell-E i guess?
• Get 1TB SSD, no partitions. (I don't really get the raid. Is it somekind of connection between SSD and HDD?)

Is CPU very reliable on memory? I mean, if i have 8 core CPU, i need more memory, than when i have a 4 core CPU?

Oh gawd I feel like I've been trolled.

 

[vemalas]

Oh gawd I feel like I've been trolled.

Hahah. Wrote a response to Blazkowicz and went away without even refreshing the page. Thanks for your reply, it was really helpful. I agree that procrastination is a big problem, and that's exactly why i thought of just asking people that deal with this every day, and listen to their advice. Still, i always need to understand why i'm doing something when i'm doing (it's just my thing). Mind if i ask you a few questions?

1. Why do i need to go sli/crossfire? (i always thought it was a waste because you dont get 2x GPU performance? Why not go with a stronger GPU instead?)
2. How many monitors i can connect to one GPU? (btw, i'm shocked that there is no performance loss with more monitors. Absolutely didn't know that)
3. Does 8 thread CPU means (the one you chose) i only get the benefit from 16GB ram?
4. You chose 2 x 240GB SSD. Should i buy an HDD then for storage? Will i need raid for SSD to HDD or something? (sorry i don't get RAID at all).
5. I've read that Haswell-E will be a big jump. Apparently not so much? Just get the benefit of older models selling cheaper?

Basically i just want to understand why exactly you chose what you did. Not because i doubt you, but because i need this. (i lurk these forums quite often, even if i don't understand 90% of the things you talk about lol!)

 

[Wynix]

If you don't want to waste time researching and just want something that will give you what you need you might want to look at pre-built and build to order PC's.
Overclockers.co.uk seems pretty solid, they also have a very active forum.

Personally i suggest you wait for Haswell-E and 20nm GPU's, if you can wait 4-6 months that is.

 

[vemalas]

If you don't want to waste time researching and just want something that will give you what you need you might want to look at pre-built and build to order PC's.
Overclockers.co.uk seems pretty solid, they also have a very active forum.

Personally i suggest you wait for Haswell-E and 20nm GPU's, if you can wait 4-6 months that is.

Haswell-E is rumoured to come around summer isn't it? I COULD wait for them. But what about GPU's? Fall? This would be too long.

I went looking in adobe forums, found a link which pointed to pc builds for video-editing. The link is here, you'll find table with PC builds if you scroll down a bit. Does he know what he's talking about? (quick proof-read if he's legit?)

Thanks, i'll take a look at overclockers.co.uk.

Also ToTTenTranz i'm very excited waiting for your reply!

 

[UniversalTruth]

Forget about DDR4, even if it comes at some point, it is very unlikely it would give you any significant performance increases.
Also, about RAID you can read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
I also don't know why you would need CF of 290s, most probably not.

If anything more, try to ask also google, it knows a lot!

 

[homerdog]

This totals $1,314.91. Prices will vary since you're not in the US, but it's something to go by.

You could save money with a lesser motherboard; I selected that one because it supports DTS connect for 5.1 surround from the toslink output, but you may not care about that.

16GB RAM in 2 slots so you can upgrade to 32GB later if you want.

If you game so infrequently I can't justify spending more on the GPU. the GTX770 is fast and I selected one with 4GB GDDR5. Wouldn't buy a GPU with >3GB today honestly; you'll see VRAM requirements go up and up in the coming years.

Oh and I threw in a Blu-ray burner for kicks

 

[vemalas]

Forget about DDR4, even if it comes at some point, it is very unlikely it would give you any significant performance increases.
Also, about RAID you can read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
I also don't know why you would need CF of 290s, most probably not.

If anything more, try to ask also google, it knows a lot!

I've read about it, sort of understand now~
Basically if i have 250GB SSD, i need to buy another one just like that, stripe them in BIOS as RAID0, and get nearly double the read / write speed. Better not to go more than 2 because it decreases reliability, and gains (diminishing returns). Awesome! But how do i know if i need RAID0? I mean, how do i find out if my CPU can read at these speeds? Or, how do i know if RAID0 write speed will be enough to write data without CPU staying idle? Furthermore, RAM also has read/write speeds to it (as i understand RAM is like a.. temporal HDD?), wouldn't it be ideal if RAM and HDD had the same read/write speeds?

Lets say i need RAID0. As i understand the best way would be to have very 2 small SSD's with it, keep the OS in there (and programs?). Then 2 SSD's for source media in RAID0, and the last one HDD 7200rpm for output? But source media would need the biggest space, so i should get HDD there? I don't get which one of my hard drives would work when i'm working in AE, The one where AE is installed? Or the one which has the source files? Both?

Yeah i use google, but admit that some of my questions are so stupid that maybe no one ever asked them, thus search engine doesn't find anything lol.

homerdog thank you for the build! Will that Xenon run my games at all? What was your reasoning behind picking it instead of i5 or i7? I've read that FirePro and Quadro cards are basically waste of money (too overpriced for what it gives). I know Xenon is CPU, but isn't it also a "workstation" part, without too much benefit?

"16GB RAM in 2 slots so you can upgrade to 32GB later if you want." Why would i need to upgrade to 32GB, shouldn't 16GB be just enough for that CPU? And if not, i'm not really interested in upgrading later on that much, i want to get a system with it's maximum potential out of the gate. After, say, three years, i would just get a new PC.
Thanks!

 

[vemalas]

You could save money with a lesser motherboard; I selected that one because it supports DTS connect for 5.1 surround from the toslink output, but you may not care about that

Sorry for double posting! Couldn't find how to edit the post! Forgot to reply to this part, which i would actually love to have when i think about it. Is that like a dedicated sound card? With this i would get a clearer, better sound either with 5.1 system, or with headphones?

 

[homerdog]

First off, do not bother with RAID0. A single SSD connected to a 6Gbps SATA port is extremely fast and will not bottleneck your system. There is absolutely no need for RAID0 when using a modern SSD. Do not do it. If you want more SSD space, get a bigger SSD.

That Xeon is literally identical to the i7-4770. It is the same silicon. It operates at a slightly lower clockspeed but will give you essentially the same performance for less money.

The reason you've been told not to buy a Firepro/Quadro is because those cards use different drivers tailored for professional OpenGL applications rather than games. If you're interested in gaming, stick with the Radeon/GeForces.

There is no downside to utilizing two RAM slots vs filling up all four on the LGA1150 platform. That said, if you know you will never ever want to upgrade to 32GB RAM (which is reasonable, 16GB is plenty for years to come), you could get a motherboard with only 2 RAM slots and save some money.

Also be sure to stay away from SLI and Crossfire. It is far more trouble than it's worth for someone who doesn't game very often. Go with the fastest single GPU you can afford. The 4GB GTX770 is a good option for you IMHO. It is even faster than what I have, and I game all the time at maximum settings.

In regards to the 5.1 surround over toslink comment: most motherboards cannot output true surround sound in games over the optical or copper digital outputs. This is only relevant if you plan to connect your PC to a surround sound speaker system or receiver. If not, don't worry about it. If so it is very very nice.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Hahah. Wrote a response to Blazkowicz and went away without even refreshing the page. Thanks for your reply, it was really helpful. I agree that procrastination is a big problem, and that's exactly why i thought of just asking people that deal with this every day, and listen to their advice. Still, i always need to understand why i'm doing something when i'm doing (it's just my thing). Mind if i ask you a few questions?

1. Why do i need to go sli/crossfire? (i always thought it was a waste because you dont get 2x GPU performance? Why not go with a stronger GPU instead?)
2. How many monitors i can connect to one GPU? (btw, i'm shocked that there is no performance loss with more monitors. Absolutely didn't know that)
3. Does 8 thread CPU means (the one you chose) i only get the benefit from 16GB ram?
4. You chose 2 x 240GB SSD. Should i buy an HDD then for storage? Will i need raid for SSD to HDD or something? (sorry i don't get RAID at all).
5. I've read that Haswell-E will be a big jump. Apparently not so much? Just get the benefit of older models selling cheaper?

Basically i just want to understand why exactly you chose what you did. Not because i doubt you, but because i need this. (i lurk these forums quite often, even if i don't understand 90% of the things you talk about lol!)

1 - You don't need SLI or Crossfire. Similarly, you don't need to spend over 700£ on a PC that will be pretty decent to play games and work with Adobe Suite (which is the system that homerdog suggested).
The suggestion I made was purely based on what you wrote. The thread title is "How much future-proof you can make?" and your budget limit was set at 1500£. I just picked up the very best (most future-proof) you could build with that amount of money.

As weird as it may seem, SLI and Crossfire are the most cost-effective solutions after you pass a certain budget and performance threshold. The fastest single-gpu cards tend to reach crazy prices because they cater to a niche market where price isn't really a concern.
Two R9 290 cards in Crossfire (with aftermarket cooling, like the ones I suggested) go for 660£ and they will be a lot faster than a single Geforce Titan Black that costs 800£.
You won't get 2x single card performance, but nowadays you get a ~90% boost and as far as I can tell the issues with microstuttering are mostly solved with the latest drivers.
I've used Crossfire and SLI some times and I can say that nowadays it's really not complicated at all.
Worst case scenario is that you encounter a new game that is incompatible with Crossfire and you'll have to wait a bit (weeks?) for a new driver to come with the support. Until then, you can always use it in single-card mode and the R9 290 should be fast enough for any game anyways.


2 - Each R9 290 or GTX 780 supports up to 4 monitors at once. So two cards would give a total of 8 monitors.
You won't get a performance penalty if you keep the secondary monitors in desktop mode and only use one monitor for the game, since 2D comes practically for free for these cards.
If you get the same game to work across multiple monitors (eyefinity) then the cards will be rendering more pixels so there will be a performance drop.
Then again, rendering to three 1920*1080 monitors (total 5760*1080) will require the kind of performance that a pair of Crossfired R9 290s offer.



3 - No. You could have a 16-thread CPU working with 2GB RAM or a 4-thread CPU working with 32GB RAM. You'll benefit from having more RAM in some applications (for games, more than 8GB won't do any difference). Other applications could take advantage of a better CPU with lots of threads and higher clockspeed but they wouldn't use more than 1GB RAM.
There's no fixed CPU-to-RAM perfect ratio for all computing requirements.
This is a case-by-case approach and I'm afraid I can't help you with the Adobe Suite part. I do know that for games, nothing will require more than 8GB anytime soon, so with 16GB you should be pretty comfortable for many years to come.



4 - I actually chose two 120GB SSDs to keep things in budget. The idea would be to keep the SO and applications in one SSD and use the second SSD as a buffer for working on your Adobe content. You can also add a third drive (HDD) to keep your stuff.
I wouldn't suggest RAID on SSDs either.

5 - As big of a jump that Haswell-E could be, I'm 95% positive it won't make any substantial difference in games when compared to an Ivybridge-E Core i7 4820K.
But it won't be a big jump. Not if the Ivybridge-Haswell transition serves as an example, at least.

"16GB RAM in 2 slots so you can upgrade to 32GB later if you want." Why would i need to upgrade to 32GB, shouldn't 16GB be just enough for that CPU? And if not, i'm not really interested in upgrading later on that much, i want to get a system with it's maximum potential out of the gate. After, say, three years, i would just get a new PC.
Thanks!

If you go with a LGA2011 system, you'll want 4 modules of RAM because the board uses quad-channel. So you'll get 4 times the bandwidth of a single module.
LGA1150 is a dual-channel solution, so with 2 modules you'll get 2 times the bandwidth of a single module.

Sorry for double posting! Couldn't find how to edit the post! Forgot to reply to this part, which i would actually love to have when i think about it. Is that like a dedicated sound card? With this i would get a clearer, better sound either with 5.1 system, or with headphones?

Unless you have a set of computer speakers with a digital TOSLINK input, you shouldn't worry about this at all.

 

[UniversalTruth]

4 - I actually chose two 120GB SSDs to keep things in budget. The idea would be to keep the SO and applications in one SSD and use the second SSD as a buffer for working on your Adobe content. You can also add a third drive (HDD) to keep your stuff.
I wouldn't suggest RAID on SSDs either

But why two small SSDs?
I would take one small SSD and two normal 1 TB 7200 rpm HDDs in RAID1, for instance.
Don't you like it better?

 

[sebbbi]

My comments:

Processor choice:
I would pick a high clocked 4 core (8 thread) Haswell, such as 4770K. This gives you best possible single threaded performance. Good single threaded performance is very important for many productivity softwares and some games. Eight core Ivy Bridge (Xeon) is around 20% slower in software that doesn't use more than 4 cores (because eight core Ivy Bridge has both clock disadvantage and lower IPC compared to 4770K). And 3 GHz eight core Xeon costs also 1700$ (CPU alone). As an additional bonus (since Haswell has integrated GPU and VQE), it can transcode movies to different formats really quickly (faster than any GPGPU or CPU transcoder). Xeons without integrated GPUs cannot.

Multi GPU:
I wouldn't go there. Many games still have problems with SLI and almost no productivity software (including image/video manipulation software) that supports GPU compute supports SLI (only one GPU will be used). Instead of buying two cheaper GPUs, buy one faster one, and your software will support it better (and you don't have problems in games either). Before buying the GPU, check whether your image/video editing software has OpenCL (->AMD) or CUDA (->NVIDIA) compute support.

SSD:
I wouldn't buy a hard drive at all. Two 250 GB SSDs are more than enough for internal storage. I haven't had any internal hard drives on my computers (including work computer) for 4 years. If you need to load your applications / games / work files from HDD, no matter how powerful CPU or GPU you have, your computer feels sluggish and slow. Install all your software to SSD, and keep your work files there too. Buy external USB 3.0 hard drives (up to 3 TB models available) for your storage and backup needs. It's easy to buy more external drives once your storage runs out.

Memory:
Don't waste your money on really expensive overclocking memory kits. Performance impact will be negligible an it will be harder in the future to increase you memory amount, because it's harder to find compatible memory chips in the future. Stick with the highest officially supported memory speed, and things will be easier for you in the future... and with the same money you can buy double the memory now

 

[sebbbi]

GPU:
3+ GB models are the most future proof. Some next gen games might not run with maximum detail settings on 2 GB GPUs. If you can get Radeon 290X for the original 550$ launch price, it's a very good deal. Unfortunately this card is very good for crypto coin mining and tends to be out of stock. Geforce 780 (non-ti) is also a good choice. Don't buy 780 Ti, Titan or other super expensive NVIDIA cards unless you know your software benefits a lot from them (price increase isn't usually worth the extra performance). I would spend money instead for more SSD storage (512 GB+) or better a CPU (get at least 4770K before going SLI or Titan).

 

[Blazkowicz]

SSD:
I wouldn't buy a hard drive at all. Two 250 GB SSDs are more than enough for internal storage. I haven't had any internal hard drives on my computers (including work computer) for 4 years. If you need to load your applications / games / work files from HDD, no matter how powerful CPU or GPU you have, your computer feels sluggish and slow. Install all your software to SSD, and keep your work files there too. Buy external USB 3.0 hard drives (up to 3 TB models available) for your storage and backup needs. It's easy to buy more external drives once your storage runs out.

With high budget for a workstation I would put four hard drives in the box, RAID 10. Gives you 6TB storage at over 200MB/s, with 3TB drives. Fifth drive as a spare ; buy drives from two different stores to hope to have different fabrication batches. And then two 4TB external drives for backup.

 

[vemalas]

First off, do not bother with RAID0. A single SSD connected to a 6Gbps SATA port is extremely fast and will not bottleneck your system. There is absolutely no need for RAID0 when using a modern SSD. Do not do it. If you want more SSD space, get a bigger SSD.

So, a SSD connected to 6Gbps SATA port (is this a mobo connection?) should give me 500mb+ read/write speeds? If so, there is really no need to double it to 900mb/s+, because i'll just waste whatever advantage i get? Also, i've read that bigger SSD's usually are faster, why is that? So if i'd, let's say, had 120GB SSD for OS, and 500GB SSD for media files, the latter would work faster? Quite funny, because then it seems you would need a bigger drive for OS, but use just like 10% of it's space. And vice versa for other drive. Just a thought.

What about "performance degradation"? If i use a lot of files at once, make lot's of layers etc. in AE, does SSD performance get's down?

But with RAID0, it would be stable? Because i don't want my drive to work slower if it gets to do quite a few things at the time.

Source By the way, this graphs shows a speed north of 800, and it is constant. Why would you want SSD to work at this speed if there is only 6Gbps (600mb?) SATA connection, as you mentioned earlier?

(Everyone should know by now that i'm not so bright with these things. Sorry!)

That Xeon is literally identical to the i7-4770. It is the same silicon. It operates at a slightly lower clockspeed but will give you essentially the same performance for less money.

Yeah seems like, just went ahead and read it up. It's 200Mhz lower and doesn't have iGPU. Is there any potential other benefits using Xeon for video editing / photo manipulation? The price difference is not that big to be honest, about 50£, so might as well get that extra 200MHZ. Then i compared 4770k and 4820k, and the price for them is exactly the same. This article suggests 4770k instead of 4820k, mainly because of TDP, because performance is the same.
Now, as i understand, Intel CPU's with a 'k' on their names are overclockable. That means there is no point on getting a CPU with a 'k' if i'm not going to overclock, right? (it comes with a premium?) And vice versa. Going by that logic, is that Xeon E3 the best choice if i don't want to overclock? And if i want to - would it be better to get 4770k or 4820k? Knowing 4770k has lower TDP, then it should overclock more, or would it just stay cooler at the same clocks as 4820k? Or neither?

1 - You don't need SLI or Crossfire. Similarly, you don't need to spend over 700£ on a PC..

I've read about SLI/Crossfire, and came to the conclusion that they help in games and quite a lot in certain programs, such as Davinci (colour grading), but i won't get too much of an improvement myself, and probably would better spend that money for better CPU/Mobo/Disk I/O. And other posters seem to suggest that too. I'm all up for consensus!

2 - You won't get a performance penalty if you keep the secondary monitors in desktop mode and only use one monitor for the game, since 2D comes practically for free for these cards.

Okay, that was a very good information bit for me, i think i know more by the hours. I don't plan on playing on all monitors, so there will be no problem for me. I'm just trying to improve my workflow, to make it all faster. If 2d performance comes at no cost i'm all up for, at least, a second monitor. Decided. Thanks!

If you go with a LGA2011 system, you'll want 4 modules of RAM because the board uses quad-channel. So you'll get 4 times the bandwidth of a single module.
LGA1150 is a dual-channel solution, so with 2 modules you'll get 2 times the bandwidth of a single module.

Now please can anyone shed some light about single, dual or quad channel memories? I sort of get it, but sort of don't.
Let's say i have a quad channel CPU. And i have 16GB(8x2) of RAM. I *can* place them in dual-channel way, but cannot place them in quad channel way, because i have only 2 RAM bars(?). But if i had 16GB(4x4), then i could make a quad channel memory out of these 4 bars, retaining the same amount of memory, right? Now, in the second instance (4x4), will my ram really work faster?(youtube) By how much? Everywhere, or just in some applications? Why? What does it mean for real world performance?

Unless you have a set of computer speakers with a digital TOSLINK input, you shouldn't worry about this at all.

Okay. But i would still like a soundcard because everyone is telling me to get one as it makes everything sound so much better. Any suggestions at what should i look at?

My comments:
Processor choice:
I would pick a high clocked 4 core (8 thread) Haswell, such as 4770K. This gives you best possible single threaded performance. Good single threaded performance is very important for many productivity softwares and some games. Eight core Ivy Bridge (Xeon) is around 20% slower in software that doesn't use more than 4 cores (because eight core Ivy Bridge has both clock disadvantage and lower IPC compared to 4770K). And 3 GHz eight core Xeon costs also 1700$ (CPU alone). As an additional bonus (since Haswell has integrated GPU and VQE), it can transcode movies to different formats really quickly (faster than any GPGPU or CPU transcoder). Xeons without integrated GPUs cannot.

I'm a bit lost. No one here talked about it. So it means that Haswell has some kind of updated video engine to help with encoding? And only the ones with iGPU? So that makes 4820k obsolete for me? (because the price is the same~ for this ivy bridge). Could you expand on that? And what do you think about Haswell-E, will it bring some new features as this?

SSD:
I wouldn't buy a hard drive at all.

I like your thoughts. Sad that SSD prices are still so high. But i probably should be okay for 120GB on OS and 500GB~ for storage. Aren't the external drives even slower than internal ones? (7200rpm HDDs)

Memory:
Don't waste your money..

And what would that be? 1333Mhz or 1600Mhz? (don't say either!) And by witch manufacturers? (there should be some kind of reliability king?)

GPU:
3+ GB models are the most future proof. Some next gen games might not run with maximum detail settings on 2 GB GPUs. If you can get Radeon 290X for the original 550$ launch price, it's a very good deal. Unfortunately this card is very good for crypto coin mining and tends to be out of stock. Geforce 780 (non-ti) is also a good choice. Don't buy 780 Ti, Titan or other super expensive NVIDIA cards unless you know your software benefits a lot from them (price increase isn't usually worth the extra performance). I would spend money instead for more SSD storage (512 GB+) or better a CPU (get at least 4770K before going SLI or Titan).

I would like to get 4GB one, probably. And NVIDIA one, because CUDA is more widely used than OPENCL in Adobe suite if i understood correctly (at least in Windows, OSX is other way around). I've also read that in video editing videocard bandwidth (memory?) is probably the most important thing. Is Nvidia 780 the best choice in price-to-bandwidth ratio?

Thank you for your reply, everyone! It really helps me form my own opinion and perception of all this. (and it keeps me reading and studying about these things).