For some years I have had a CM Storm Trooper case collecting dust, and taking up space. I have decided it is time to either use it, or lose it. I envision a build using Win 7 on the internal 1TB HDD, and MX Linux on the 2.5” SSD hotswap X-dock. The PC will be mostly for surfing the net, using Photoshop or GIMP, and word processing (Word 2003). That said, I want to make sure it is able to do streaming from putlockers, 123movies, YouTube, etc., without freezing or buffering....and video editing/encoding/burning, in the unlikely event I find anything worth saving to DVD. For this reason I wanted to run the build by this forum.

Currently I'm focused on the i7-4790k CPU, as it has native support for Win 7, and so far as I can tell, looks powerful enough to do anything I would need doing. The latest & greatest CPUs & motherboards all require workarounds to get them to function with Win 7, which I'm not inclined to mess with. As for motherboards, I'm looking into:

MSI Z97 Gaming 5

MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming

MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming

MSI Z97 GuardPro

MSI Z87-G55

MSI Z97A Gaming 6

Asus Maximus VII Hero

Asus Z97-Pro

I chose them because each has minimum 16GB RAM capacity, the most expansion slots and SATA connectors I could find, VGA port, plus decent reviews. If anyone has a preference, or thinks I should look into another one, I welcome suggestions. I have not gotten to the graphics card yet, but I would require it to have Composite RCA connections, or at least component connections (I think composite and component are interchangeable). I already have a Asus Xonar D2/PM/A sound card I hope to use.