Need to build a computer but I don't know what questions to ask

Question

I've finished a couple semesters in school studying After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I'm about to start moving forward in producing some video content and forming a career around it. I purchased a copy of Adobe CS6 production premium and I need to build a computer to run it on. I'm willing to pay for quality but I don't want to overspend. I'm a geek but have been out of the "Performance PC Game" for so long now that I don't know where to begin. Most of my work will be in After Effects and Premier editing video (mostly that I will shoot myself on a quality undetermined model camera).
I want a computer that is powerful enough to keep up with me as my skills grow. I also want to build it from the ground up. Money isn't as much as an issue for me as long as I don't have to upgrade in a year from now. If you were going to build a new box and wanted to "spend smart" what would you build? I know the first thing you are going to ask me is my budget, but it varies. I'd like to spend under $2k (not including monitors) but if I need to go over that, so be it.

Answer 1

You need to thoroughly read Harm's Tweakers Page on out PPBM7 web site.
What media are you going to be editing?
If you want the latest and greatest (longest life cycle) there will be a new generation of high end CPU's and chipsets introduced by Intel, I have heard, this mid-September.  It is the Haswell-E CPU and the X99 chipset.
The CPU will be available in 6-cores and 8-core versions.  While tending towards expensive a low end version of this new generation would be a great long-term investment.  The low-end Hasewell-E CPU chip is the i7-5820K has a pre-order price of $426.
The DDR4 memory will (at least initially) will be more expensive but is much faster and again will be around for a long time whereas the current DDR3 will start becoming obsolete.  You can possibly start out with minimal memory (DDR4 is now available in 4, 8, and 16 GB modules) at least the 8 GB size so you have the option to easily add more memory as you get into more complex processing.
Get yourself a small (128 GB) good SSD for your OS/Applications and at least one other good SSD plus a large hard drive as a good starting point.  Good SSD's have great write rates like the Crucial M550 and the Samsung 840 Pro.
The new X99 chipset motherboards offer great expansion capabilities with many more PCIe lanes than the current quad core CPU motherboards so your options for future upgrades are wide open.  Many new X99 motherboards will have an M.2 connector on the motherboard and/or SATA Express connectors which are great advances in the new higher performance SSD's that remove the bandwidth limitations of SATA 6Gb/s.  In the not to distant future we are talking (very expensive) SSD's the will have up to 3000 MB/sec read speed!