CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Ive never used Windows 8 yet. I am still very happy with 7 PRO. Be aware that the home editions have a soft limit on RAM.

And yep, at that price, you most certainly should put in an SSD, maybe a 120gig PCI-E unit, and 2x 2TB Western Digital drives in RAID1 ( or RAID0 if you dont really care about losing the data in the unlikely event one may fail ) Around $300-$400 should see that done.

I would go 16 gigs of RAM, i dont think 8 is enough, but 12 will do. Ive got 32 gigs in my main rig. No idea on cost of that, it changes abit.

I would get the most powerful fanless nvidia card you can find. Id be suprised if it was much more than $100.

Get a good quality PSU, and buy a case that doesnt include one. Included PSUs are usually pretty ordinary.

A 2011 mobo with basic needs ( 4x RAM slots, less USBs and less SATA ports ) shouldnt be much at all, the CPU will probably be the dearest item in the whole machine, but ALL decent Intel CPUs are dear as hell.

$1,000-$1,200 isnt out of the question here.

Ive been incredibly busy here with work lately, but if i get abit of time later on ill post some links to some items i would recomend.