i made a post over in general hardware somewhere around a month ago after i ordered the parts for my new build as i was coming back to the pc world, and i've been enjoying the build since then. just yesterday i finally got some new fans in and decided to clean up my wiring, so now the build is reasonably presentable.
for some backstory: i originally began picking out hardware to go with an EVGA Hadron Air, because i wanted something quiet, small and classy, yet still able to pack a decent punch with performance. however, there are numerous complaints about the power supply noises, and things like the whole case not being painted didn't really sit well with me. my search for another mini ITX case continued and i stumbled upon the Corsair 250D - a wonderful, classy cube-style case with a good price. and, best of all, it allowed a full-size ATX power supply so there would be no issues, yay! the motherboard search also changed many times in the few days that it took me to decide on a setup - i wanted to go AMD to save some money but the mini ITX boards available didn't offer what i wanted and needed, so i switched to Intel. the stinger was considered, but it's fairly comparable in price with the ASUS Maximus VI Impact but lacks on various features compared to the ASUS, most important of those to me being the wifi. i'm also not entirely thrilled about how my old EVGA 750i FTW performed and had various issues, etc, so i picked the ASUS. everything else was just picked for being within my price range and providing acceptable performance to meet my goals.
with that, i present to you the funbox (with some crappy iPhone pictures)! :)
the specs:
Corsair 250D
ASUS Maximus VI Impact
Intel Core i5 4670k @ 4.4 GHz
G. Skill Sniper 1866 MHz
EVGA GTX 760 SC w/ ACX cooler
2x 120 GB Samsung 840 EVO's in RAID0, boot + game storage
1 TB Seagate Barracuda
Corsair AX760
Corsair H100i w/ 2x Corsair SP120 high performance PWM fans
accessories that can be (at least partially) seen in pictures:
Rosewill Helios mechanical keyboard w/ Cherry MX Red switches
Steelseries Rival mouse
Razer Goliath Extended mouse pad
ASUS MX239H monitor
Sennheiser G4ME One headset
i'd like to get some more, better pictures soon, but i'm going to wait until my girlfriend and i pick up a real camera in the coming weeks.
in the end, the build turned out quite well. i'm planning to make custom sleeved PSU cables so that the bottom of the case isn't so cluttered, since these are full length cables and i only really need about five inches of cable for the 24 pin and 8 pin cpu connectors, lol. yesterday i swapped the stock H100i fans for the SP120 high performance PWM fans, and they're now being controlled by the motherboard w/ Fan Expert 2 instead of the absolutely atrocious and finnicky Corsair Link software. i also swapped the front case fan for an AF120 quiet edition, but i plan to hopefully switch it for a BitFenix Spectre Pro 200mm fan if it'll fit with the H100i, i have to do some measurements. if not that, then i'll swap back to a 140mm fan of some sort with a bit better airflow but still maintain my silence.
the build is dang near dead silent at idle, and more than reasonable during gaming while providing excellent temperatures across the board. i originally thought the case was going to be a bit bigger than it is when i saw the pictures, but it's really pretty small (as you can see when put next to my monitor), yet still has a lot of functional space. the only thing i dislike so far is the coil whine on the GTX 760 (confirmed to NOT be my PSU as i switched a couple of days after i built the system) but it isn't the worst i've ever heard.
things to come in the future: some mild lighting (probably white), maybe a GPU upgrade, larger overclock.
anyway, just wanted to share my new system - hope you guys enjoy the pictures! :)