Building a PC... LR4 questions...

So I am going to do a build, first time doing it from scratch. I am curious about this build and wanted some opinions:

CPU:i5 - 2400
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz 16GB
Case: Cooler Master Elite 430
Power: Cooler Master Extreme 500W
HDD: Seagate Blue 7200 320GB

I plan on using the onboard graphics till I see a good deal on a card. I don't plan on using it to game at all.

My question is, would this be decent or could i goto an i3 for use of Lightroom 4? I currently have an iMac C2D 2.4 and it just isn't keeping up even with LR3. I want to keep a OSX system around so my next Mac will be a Mac Mini for everything else but i want also have a Windows 7 PC available too that will be for Photo editing exclusively.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. thanks!

EDIT: I wanted to keep the build around $500 as this will be for learning purposes but i also dont want to throw away money for a cheap build. I figured that this would be good for my first build but am not sure how to match up parts to fit a specified need (Like LR4) so any input would be appreciated.

add a ssd and you are good to go

The i3 is a waste of money for anything but general computing like Facebook and online banking. I would suggest going with 8GB of Ram and getting a Samsung Spinpoint drive with the extra money. Seagate is just not what it used to be and i've had all but one die that i've bought over the past 8 years. I sent one in for replacement all the rest died just out of warranty so they were replaced with Spinpoints and i'm never looking back.

You should also consider a Corsair or PC Power and Cooling PSU because your power supply is the most vital component. Most computers die or have problems due to dirty power surges that cheap PSU's are unable to isolate properly. Either the unit itself dies or it fails to isolate the surge which causes it to fry your components. With a quality PSU you don't even need to worry about using surge protectors that often only trip with heavy surges such as lightning strikes.

I3 would be fine but a qud core or a hyperthreaded quad core would be better. i3 is 50-70% better then core 2 duo.

If you like OSX so much run it on your custom rig, I run Snow Leopard, Lion, Windows 7 and Windows 8 quad booting on my custom rig.

That looks good, but the single small hard drive will be the bottleneck. You really need at least two drives, preferably three, for really good performance.
C: OS and programs, 30-100GB. SSD is a bonus for quick boots and program starts but doesn't help photography productivity
D: Mass storage. Large and fast, spinning disk
E: Cache, swap, scratch. SSD a big advantage. 60GB min.

Don't forget an optical drive and potentially a case fan. Stock cooling will be fine.

Daship wrote in post #14136174
I3 would be fine but a qud core or a hyperthreaded quad core would be better. i3 is 50-70% better then core 2 duo.

No it's not and while it may be more efficient overall the i3 is not that much faster then the E8400. Not to mention the quality of the motherboard can be the tipping point which really sets them apart.

If you put the i3 in a really good board with fast ram it might surpass the lower end Core2 line but it wont hold a candle to the better chips. My mother has an i5 which for things like browsing and gaming my older machine is still much faster because most software is still not optimized for quad chips. What really makes any iCore better then a Duo or Quad is the newer Chipsets, Quickpath and SATA3.

http://www.anandtech.c​om/bench/Product/56?vs​=143
http://www.anandtech.c​om/bench/Product/50?vs​=143
http://helpdeskgeek.co​m …ntel-core-i7-vs-i5-vs-i3/