Newbie first build, buying and power tips?

[DJRmusic]

Hello all! I'm excited to start my first build, and after shedding much blood sweat and tears (due to all the landscaping) I've got the budget for the build I've wanted for a year or more.

As a musician, much of the best software is for Hackin -- er, Macintosh, so I've wanted a powerful machine to run DAWs, notation software, and potentially some video editing. God-willing some film scoring too.

Here's the plan, any tips are extremely appreciated.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97x UD7H TH (power, 5th gen compatibility, and the thunderbolt are all wanted)

Processor: two options, both Intel i7's, advice appreciated: 4770K 3.5 GHz or 4790 3.6 GHz. I'm not necessarily looking to overclock, though the capability in the future would be swell, I guess.

RAM: 16 GBs, right now I'm thinking Crucial Ballistix Sport 2x8GB. I may upgrade to full 32 GB in the future, but not yet.

3 Drives...
-1x250GB SSD, Samsung EVO 840, ($135 on Amazon right now; this is for boot, Logic Pro X, Finale, Sibelius, Ableton Live, etc.)
-2x1TB WD Black. (one would be for sound libraries, one for files)

Case: I'm looking at the Antec GX500... favorable reviews, good cooling and cable organization from what I can tell, and favorable for my budget. Definitely want to keep heat and if possible sound to a minimum.

Power: Nothing I'm looking at currently (sorry, oh so sorry ). Help would be appreciated.

Graphics: Something cheap, if anything. There won't be gaming or anything serious, and the i7's both have integrated graphics (HD 4000)

I'd like to add an optical and/or Blu-ray drive, as well as extra cooling.

Questions:
- Any compatibility issues?
- What should I do about power? Budget would be under $100 if at all possible, but I don't want power problems to mess with the rest of the components.
- Do I need a graphics card (yet)? There will be no gaming or movie watching.
- Any suggestions for cooling?
- Any known issues I should look out for? What do you wish you'd known when you started your first build?

Thanks!

 

[trs96]

For a PSU this is one of the better sub $100 models:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151138&cm_re=S12G-750-_-17-151-138-_-Product

Should be able to easily handle a high end graphics card when you eventually add one for
video editing. Just in case you don't know the Z97 boards are not fully supported by OS X yet but
we are expecting that to happen soon. The HD 4600 and audio needs some tweaking to get it
to work properly with 10.9.3. For a BluRay drive see the LG model in the Buyer's Guide.

If you need to have a semi-modular PSU this one is also a great choice and is fully future proof
for over clocking your cpu and using a power hungry graphics card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151107

 

[DJRmusic]

Thanks for the advice, and sorry for the late reply.

I went with the S12G-750, seemed better for my needs. I'm in the middle of installing Mavericks right now, and oh so excited to get this up and running.

I'll be looking into video cards in a month or so, when the budget can handle it.