I have not kept up on current technology for quite a while, but have recently (yesterday) gotten back into it, been reading quite a bit at Anandtech, and i’m looking at a core i5 4570 or 4670 (is it worth the extra money for the 4670?), but i don’t know what motherboard to go with or ram. Also an SSD could use some suggestions.
I would go for 4670k with ASRock Z87 Extreme4 and at least 8GB of RAM.
OCZ Vertex 4 or Samsung 840 PRO and some graphic card.
Mike
Samsung SSD.. Avoid OCZ Like the plague. I can assure you that I speak from experience. Performance = Good to Excellent. Reliability = Very Very Very Very Very Very Bad.
Not an intel fan so I cant say which is better, but samsung ssds are pretty good. Been with AMD since the /486 DX days, and never looked back. Personally I would use one of their new APU’s which have proven themselves to e real powerhouses, but to each their own 
For graphics I’d go with the amd/ati 7550 yes the 7850 is more powerful, but unless you need/want a 1000w+ psu, you’ll be better off with a 7550/7650. And go for the sapphire brand, they’re more reliable than powercolor, though you still gotta pull the hs/f, and apply AS ceramique in place of the stock goo they come with.
I’m not looking for a graphics card right now, all it will be doing this year is 1080p movies, but i am planning on 8GB ram, and tell me more about the poor ocz reliability
i have an AMD now, and the driver support has been terrible, and the nvidia graphics have been kind buggy
mind you its a compaq, so they bear some responsibility for the drivers, but youtube vids freeze for a fraction of a second every 30 secs or so, i have never found a solution, and not from a lack of looking
yeah compaq is your problem there I would say.
and since youre not going to be doing heavy gaming, the 7550 would be the perfect graphics card, though if you go with an APU you dont need a dedicated gpu as the chip already has a nice one built in
As for Intel/AMD - I was an AMD supporter for a long, long time.. K6 days, hell K5 even.. AMD Still has their place in the world, but Intel just beats the snot out of them for top-end performance. That i5 will just trounce all over even the speediest of AMD processors. AMD Makes great processors for great prices if you're looking for a mainstream browse the web, use Microsoft Office kind of machine - but if you're looking to lean on your processor a bit, Intel wins without even trying..
PPtk
just wow, why do you recommend samsung over kingston or adata or the others?
this is exactly what my last roommate used to say, and i agree, its not worth upgrading for performance if it won’t perform
for a budget build to watch 1080p movies I’d go with this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1336496
some photo editing and software such as catia or siemens nx is in its future, so more power would be needed
Experience. We bought about 30 of them, oh, perhaps a 14-16 months ago. Most of them are in CAD systems - they get beat on.. Failures? Zero.
Edit: Also, Adata is a 'garbage' brand. Avoid all of those like the plague as well. Brands I might trust.. Samsung, Intel, Corsair, and Mushkin...
corsair did score highly on the link you posted though
i know little about mushkin
how about motherboards, i don’t understand why there is so many different price points
Price points usually suggest component quality. More expensive boards use thicker copper on the PCB plane layers, better (solid polymer) capacitors instead of aluminum electrolytics, have better quality mosfets and diodes and better heat-sinking. If you're not pushing your system to the max, a middle of the road price point board is an excellent choice. I'm currently happy with MSI and ASUS. Gigabyte got on my shit list and I've never liked ECS, Biostar, Jetway, etc..
PPtk
i know i keep reasking, why not the brands you dislike?
i used to go with asus boards only, i’ve never owned anything but asus (even this compaq is an asus) since 1997
I use Mushkin or samsung, had a bad experience with corsair on a thuban x6, and havent messed with corsair since. it was a timing issue, so probably just one of those ’does not play well with AMD things, but still, no issues from samsung or mushkin whatsoever. I can even undervolt the mushkin ram slightly to make it run cooler, and maintain tight timings. Looking at a new build myself in the next couple of months, probably something along the lines of a FX-8350 Vishera and ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z AM3+ AMD 990FX mobo. not cheap, but it’ll run circles around my thuban x6, and then some. throw in 16gb of mushkin ddr3, and a 7850, and I’ll be good-up for the next 3-4 years I reckon. Not a gamer, aside from halo/halo2, so I dont have to upgrade as frequently as most, but even for a gamer, the rig I’m building would be a BEAST. to be reconed with for at least a year or so. I’ll be using it for Kubuntu, but I’ll no doubt dual boot win 7 starter for the few oddball things I need windoze for. (updating my E71, etc)
(and biostar made some decent am2+/am3 boards, but those are few and far between these days)
For non extreme editing or gaming, I personally don’t see a need to get the latest Haswell processors.
Even a third or a second gen “core i5/i7” processors would do you just as well.
The 2500K or 3570K ones would do you just well, and drop the K if you’re not going to overclock.
Let us know what you get!
why overclock when the chip has turbo capability?
Turbos have a frequency limit that it can max out at.
Overclocking allows users to push the CPU beyond that limit, around the range of 4.5-5.0 GHz.
You do need some serious cooling if you do want to raise the voltages though.
With SSDs a thing you really have to watch out for is what they call cell-layering.
More cell layers means higher density, means cheaper.
More it also means exponentially less write cycles.
These write cycles are still sufficient for an average user, but if you are a heavy user, you might want to invest in a more expensive SSD.
I have a Samsung 840 250GB SSD with MLC and it's served me well so far, but I'd have more ease of mind if I went intel.
i’m not looking to overclock at all, i just always wondered that
i assume the stock intel fan should be replaced even if i am not overclocking or am i incorrect?