Red/Black SFF

[9guns]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

-gaming​

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

-i'd like to keep it under $2,000​

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

-i'm from wayne, nj (a microcenter is in the next town over )​

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

mobo: asus maximus iv gene-z
CPU: i7-2600k
GPU: evga 015-p3-1580-ar gtx580
RAM: corsair dominator gt (2 x 4gb)
PSU: corsair ax650
heatsink: noctua nh-c14
case: fractal design core 1000
HDD: wd scorpio black 250gb​

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

-N/A​

6) Will you be overclocking?

-hell yes ​

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

yea i still haven't chosen one yet but i feel like a 24" samsung would do it​

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

it'll be my 2nd build in 3 years and i plan on picking up all the [H]ardware this month​

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.

great stability for O/Cing my CPU, GPU, and RAM​

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

i'm going w/ windows 7 home 64bit OEM​

this will be my 1st mATX build and i'm totally excited to join the SFF club. i wanted to focus a bit more on the aesthetics and have a matching color palette too...

 

[herfalerf]

if you want to game the i7 2600k is overkill. the 2500k performs just as fast in most games and is considerably cheaper. if you live near a microcenter they may still be running the deal for 2500ks at 179.99 + mobo price - $60 on select mobos. i was able to get my 2500k, asus p8z68 m-pro and 8gb kingston hyperx out the door for $280. also i dont really understand your choice of case. you have essentially a pretty high end build selected and i feel like the case is the odd man out. check out the fractal define mini and arc mini. both are mATX form factor cases and will have a lot more in the way of features than the core 1000. both can be had on newegg for $100 + shipping.

also i know HDD prices are through the roof right now, but i feel like you will regret buying such a small storage drive. you should be able to include an SSD in your build and still come in under your $2000 budget.

that noctua cooler is pretty good from what i have read, but $85 for an air cooler seems steep to me. check out the thermalright true spirit 120 and 140. both recently received an editors choice gold award from HardOCP. the 140 very nearly matches the perfomance of the corsair h80 with fans on high and it beats or matches every air cooler they tested. i think the 29.99 price point for the 120 (which is the best price/performance of pretty much any cooler out there) or the 39.99 for the 140 are pretty damn hard to beat.

you may also want to think carefully about the choice to buy an oem os. you may have difficulty should you need reinstall windows and i know folks have even had issues when simply changing out hardware. i know its a lot cheaper, but you have to remember that you cant reuse it and the retail copies can be reused 5 or 6 times i think.

you may want to check this link for memory. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 most people will tell you that you dont need anything higher than 1333 memory for a sandy bridge build as you really wont see much of a performance increase. the g skill is red so it fits with your color scheme too. thats a pretty ridiculous deal on 8gb of memory there.

 

[Dangman]

Don't bother with that 250GB drive as it's rather slow. There's actually a massive performance difference between older smaller drives and larger newer drives. I recommend this drive instead:
$156 - Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive

As herfalerf noted, for gaming, there's really no difference between the 2600K and 2500K. You're better off spending that extra cash for a SSD for your OS and small number of games like the Crucial m4 64GB or 128GB SSDs.

I concur with herfalerf about the RAM: Dominator RAM is more or less an e-peen status symbol these days and offers little to no tangible benefits to using.

As for the PSU, that AX650 isn't too good of a buy considering that the equally high quality and larger Seasonic X-750 costs only $5 more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&Tpk=Seasonic X750

 

[craigbru]

I'm anxious to see you start this. I'm always a sucker for a nice SFF rig.

 

[Tsuyoi]

That's a log of high end hardware to stuff into a SFF rig. Hope everything goes well for you, let us know how it goes and how high you manage to OC!