Whenever I've built a PC I have done my best to *future-proof* my purchase to the extent possible.
Find out what the fastest, best processor out there today is.
Next find the cheapest processor that uses the same socket.
scout reviews for motherboards that support that socket
You're looking for a board that supports the latest processor, the latest video card standard, latest hard drive technology etc. But you're not looking for the latest model of this board.
Buy two steps down fromt he top in terms of hard drive sizes
one or two steps down from the top in terms of Video card.
What you end up with is a very capable system that costs a lot less than today's state of the art, but that may have been state of the art a year or so ago.
for some applications (photoshop comes to mind) nothing improves performance like a killer fast Hard Drive. Except those are killer expensive. The on-the-cheap solution is to buy VERY FAST but cheap hard drives and set them up for RAID 0 (striping).
clipped from: lifehacker.com