I am tired of buying laptops think its time to build a desktop

I really don't know if planning for a CPU upgrade is worthwhile these days. Ivy Bridge is a small incremental upgrade, not a major one - Intel does tick/tock, a large release then an incremental release, then another large one. If the small incremental release changes the socket then the large one certianly will.

The only upgrade I can see for an Intel i7 920 is the 960, which would be a small upgrade at best.

MCAsan wrote in post #14516960
I would move take the next step from LGA 1155 processors to LGA 2011 processors and do a Sandy Bridge I7 3930K 6 core with quad memory channels and other new chipset features. When the Ivy Bridge 6 core processors are out in a year or two, you can swap to the Ivy Bridge if you want a lower power consuming CPU. I would put in an 128GB SSD for boot and a pair of 2TB drives configured as RAID 1. I would have it backed up to an external USB 3 3TB. For video I would stick with a top Radeon unit.

I don't disagree with the thought of moving to the 2011 chipset. The biggest reason I didn't suggest that is price. Going with the lowest CPU and comparable mobo and of course doubling the memory instantly adds $300. In addition I have no personal experience with the 2011 yet so I don't endorse things I personally haven't used. For me, every time I'm ready to do a CPU upgrade ( like a 2011 ivy in a couple years ) there will be some new fancy pants Chipset that I will want then and buy it along with the CPU so shelling out the money for X79 right now isn't appealing for me. I have a 120GB SSD listed so I 100% agree with using one for the boot drive, and I use a raid setup myself so I support that also.

x_tan wrote in post #14502640
In mid to low end market, the laptop is far cheaper than desktop this day. So you are getting far better deal with laptop.
If you want a KILLER computer, then build a expensive desktop for sure.

Huh? No way in hell is this true. The specs can be misleading on the laptops. The desktop components in the "mid to low range" (what's this $750ish?) are still much better than their laptop counterparts and you have much more flexibility with the system and room to grow.

I actually am constantly amazed at how some people I know will continue to get laptops for their photo needs and continue to complain about them. Even after spending a fortune their system isn't even as fast as a desktop for often half the price. They don't even need the portability so I don't see the point.

A lot of times it seems like the laptop specs are stated in a way to throw people off. Sometimes the chips might (like the i7-2620M) say 3.4GHz but that's the turbo speed for (probably only) one core up from a 2.7GHz standard speed. You can get a desktop for hundreds less than a laptop with that chip that runs at 3.4-3.5GHz on all four cores and over 4Ghz on a single core in turbo mode.

Stepping down to more budget oriented models you can get a solid desktop quad core (perhaps dumping the hyperthreading) that will still clock in the mid 3GHz range and build a system for around $750. I'd consider 750 fairly solidly midrange.

Considering you can build a pretty high end desktop at around $1000 if you're smart and prioritize the parts you need there's no competition. $1000 buys you a mid-range laptop IMO.

x_tan wrote in post #14502845
I usual go to local electronic shops to looking for i5 and i7 PC, and I notice most i5 and i7 laptops have more RAM and faster graphic card than the same price of desktop. Also desktop doesn't have monitor, which cost even more.

Just for the record, I only use desktop for all my main work; and all my expensive laptops are for my kids 'doing their homework'

I rather doubt that a lot of those have a faster graphics card, the numbers are rarely comparable. I'd have to see specific comparisons but the mobile CPUs don't even come close to matching their desktop counterparts so a gee-whiz sounding i7 in a notebook isn't going to best a mid-range i5 on a desktop. Mobile GPUs tend to be the same, there's a lot of marketing at play.

Considering how little RAM costs (and how easily it can be upgraded) I wouldn't be overly concerned about if one has 8GB and another has 12GB, etc.

It's all about priorities. Mobile versus desktop... obvious pros and cons galore for each. If you do more processing at home/office, building a PC would be my vote.

I agree with one of the other posts here that you can get sucked into computer building forums to keep up with the greatest and latest but on the other hand, there are good reasons for doing so.

I personally work on my images from home. There is no competition with the latest desktop components versus the latest laptops... period. Remember... priorities... not about a "I got a rig better than yours" kinda debate. For example, I used ProShow Producer 5 to make a 37 minute video slideshow for one of my wedding clients. My system is outfitted with an Intel i7 2600K overclocked to 4.74Ghz. That means I have 8 threads crunching that encoding at nearly 5Ghz. It took 1 hour 20 minutes to convert the project into HD 1080p format. I personally would hate to use a lesser rig to do the work.

If you are still looking into building a custom desktop rig that won't make ya have to sell your second born... send me a PM and I'll set you up.