Build-a-PC advice for a total newb?

Alex Wukoson wrote:

. . .

I'm a long-time Mac user, but I'm interested in building my own PC. I'm have a very limited budget, but I'm okay with saving up and buying a piece at a time if need be.

You could always go for a Hackintosh. Basically a home built machine with all part Mac OS compatible, then load the Mac OS instead of Win or Linux.

I want to use my PC mainly for photo-editing. Factors like accurate color

For accurate color you need to hardware calibrate your monitor using a colorimeter and calibration software. Something like X-rite i1Display Pro, ColorMunki Display, or one of the ones that come with NEC or Eizo monitors.

and a quick response time with multiple applications open are important to me. I know that I want a SSD boot drive, a large secondary HDD, and lots of RAM. but I'm pretty lost on motherboards, CPUs, graphics cards, case . .

Editing motion pictures or 3D gaming are different, but for editing stills, you really don't need a super computer. Almost any current Intel quad core i5 or i7 would do fine. You also don't need a separate graphics card, the one included on the mother board should do fine. 16 GB is fine, unless you work with lots of layers and composite images. 32 GB is obviously better.

Just this morning I was looking at displays, and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) an IPS LCD is the best choice for my needs. I like what I see with the Dell U2414H display, but maybe someone who reads this can tell me if that's a good one.

The best monitors are NEC and Eizo. I use two 22" NEC monitors instead of one larger one. Either will rotate 90° for editing in portrait orientation. You can buy NECs with a colorimeter and dedicated NEC SpectraView software for calibration and also for swapping from one profile to another if ambient lighting conditions change.

Whatever you go for, wide gamut beats higher resolution, if you have to compromise. You want something that comes close to AdobeRGB.

Brian A