looking to build or buy a new computer?

now you didnt mention more detailed information like how much storage space you want, how quiet you want the pc to be, how strong of a video card you want / cpu / amount of ram, and most importantly, how long you want to keep it but im just gonna go ahead and give you a build under 1500 US dollars. if you like it, then great, if not, then maybe you can ask the question again and i can recommend a different build. ok, here is the parts i would get - dvd burner, a basic mid tower case, 1 fan is good enough in the bottom front portion to passively cool the solid state drive which im also recommending for you to get, windows 7 64 bit home premium, usb keyboard and mouse, 23 - 24 inch LED monitor with dvi connection is good, basic but reliable lga 1155 - 1150 motherboard with at least one sata 6 GB/S port is good, a cheap low power i5 processor and always have it in power savings mode, it will use less power, run a little cooler and still be fast and for better benefit, i would also disable turbo mode, for graphics card, you probably dont need an insane video card if your just using one monitor and for the things your doing so i would just use integrated graphics for now, if its not good enough, you can always buy a dedicated gpu, for ram, 8GB is perfect, for cpu cooler, zalman cnps9900 max is good, you can just sell the stock cooler or use it as backup to another system, depending on how quiet of a system you want, anything lower than 2000 rpm for the fan is tolerable, anything around 1500 rpm is quiet, anything around 1000 rpm is about silent. i would start out with the lowest or lower fan speeds because then you will know if your system really needs the extra fan power and noise, so starting at around 1000 rpm would be good, remember, the cooler the cpu temps, the better, that being said, if there is a big difference in temperature from 1000 - 1500 rpm of the fan and at 1500 rpm, the cpu runs a few degrees cooler in all ranges, i would keep it that range for the least, but personally, i would try to put the fan speed as high as possible without it being annoying for you, its worth it because half the time you will either have speakers on or background noise, but even that, it shouldnt be that annoying if your fan is running at 2000 rpm the whole time, for power supply, i would go with the best, 80 plus platinum and fluid dynamic bearings is a good choice, wifi card with pci express interface is good, back to the solid state drive, i would definitely get an ssd, 512GB is a good choice, plenty of space, just be sure that ahci is enabled for the ssd before installing the operating system by entering the bios, if not, then change it to ahci from ide, for thermal paste, the zalman cpu cooler comes with one already, i would also disable hibernation file and page file, disabling hibernation file will free a little space and when selecting no page file, the system will run smoother if there is sufficient ram already and your ssd will last a little bit longer, you can disable or delete system restore files to free up some space too, i would only do this if you dont want to back up your files. i would get malwarebytes pro lifetime anti virus 2013 for anti malware software and on the side, install microsoft security essentials through windows update ONLY. dont manually install it from going to their site, you can, but it would be safer and better if you let microsoft give you the update to install it from there.

here are links to parts for a complete desktop build below, total price should be under $1300 -

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Plextor-512GB-SATA-III...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Malwarebytes-Pro-Anti-Malw...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i5-4440S-Haswel...

http://www.outletpc.com/qv5286-aurum-92-650w-power...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

Here we go all over the place xD

1) Since you said you're open to a build, here's a combo from Newegg (first link.) Me likey. You will however want to buy a Blu-Ray drive. Newegg usually doesn't put B-R drives in their combos. Just keep the DVD drive in the 2nd media bay. LG B-R drives can be had for a song on this site. Note the 2 GB graphics card. If you're watching Blu-Rays you will want a graphics card that has an HDMI port and says it supports HDCP (which this does.) You are still ahead of the curve with this card, and in a year or three, if you feel you are falling behind, you can upgrade. Don't be afraid of the Rosewill case, I like them. Comes with 5 fans! This should keep your OC graphics card cool. You may be interested in a fan controller for all these fans. Also, with whatever money you have left over, you can get an SSD boot drive. Kingston SSDs are on sale all over the place, a 128 GB boot drive should do you fine and have your computer flying around with you chasing it. Finally, Newegg has been running a lot of promos lately, like 10% off orders over $250, so you may want to wait for a week or so and see if they run another one, but at the end of the week, I would pull the trigger. You can overclock this chipset, but I usually take it to a professional shop for that. I have had bad luck with that myself, lol. Feel free to write if you need help with the build otherwise. Oh yes you can produce HD video with this setup, and soon NVidia will roll out a driver that will allow you to stream your screen directly to the web / youtube / etc

2) You may be interested in a boutique maker if you don't want to build. I suggest Origin PC. Try to pick a base configuration that's closest to what you want, and don't customize too much. Keep the specs I mentioned above in mind when ordering.

3) You could get an Alienware, or something, I am scared of Dell (who now owns Alienware), I find they fill these things with crap and they're not very upgradable.

4) Last but not least, there are plenty of consumer models from any manufacturer that would probably meet your needs. Again, filled with poop, but most of the time you should get your money's worth out of it, lol.