My first build (Mini ITX Gaming); Where did I mess up?

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Microtiger

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Apr 10, 2014
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I'm a grad student. Need portable, high-powered, quiet PC, budget limited to ~$800 without storage. Here is what I came up with:

Link: PCPartPicker parts list

It will need to do internet and word processing/bioinformatics quietly by day, and gaming at night. Usually it'll be in my office, but I'll want to take it home sometimes, maybe the weekends.

The 1TB hard drive and mSATA SSD are both taken from my laptop. I'll be buying a 3.5 fan controller/SD card reader/heat monitor in the external slot, which is why I picked the CM elite 130 to begin with. Kind of a boring case, think I'll add some green paint to the exterior somewhere.

So - where did I go wrong? Surely I made some kind of stupid mistake with my parts. Is it bad that the RAM are over voltage? Do I really need a cooler, or more fans? What's missing? Thanks!
 
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Firstly nice build !
No you didnt make any mistake with parts selection.
Just that your CPU isnt overclockable , so why take a mobo of the Z87 chipset
Just take the H87 Chipset Mobo :
http://www.amazon.com/H87M-ITX--LGA1150-Chipset-Mini-ITX-Motherboard/dp/B00DPOHJQG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397113316&sr=8-1&keywords=Asrock+h87+ITX
Also this will save you some money
Also , that RAM is amazing , it is more than what you could need.
You would need a CPU Cooler only if you were planning to push your CPU much further by ovcerclocking , but the Stock cooler can handle a locked CPU pretty much well.
What money you just saved in Mobo and remainng 90$ , you better put that in a graphics card then , my choice would be ...
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Catalyzer

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Apr 7, 2014
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Firstly nice build !
No you didnt make any mistake with parts selection.
Just that your CPU isnt overclockable , so why take a mobo of the Z87 chipset
Just take the H87 Chipset Mobo :
http://www.amazon.com/H87M-ITX--LGA1150-Chipset-Mini-ITX-Motherboard/dp/B00DPOHJQG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397113316&sr=8-1&keywords=Asrock+h87+ITX
Also this will save you some money
Also , that RAM is amazing , it is more than what you could need.
You would need a CPU Cooler only if you were planning to push your CPU much further by ovcerclocking , but the Stock cooler can handle a locked CPU pretty much well.
What money you just saved in Mobo and remainng 90$ , you better put that in a graphics card then , my choice would be :
http://www.amazon.com/XFX-RADEON-1000MHz-Graphics-R9-280X-TDFD/dp/B00FSC5N66/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397113433&sr=8-1&keywords=r9+280x
Cheap (In Price), effective and pretty damn good.
And yes you could put a couple of Fans :
Corsair AF 120mm or Noctua will do
 
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Microtiger

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Apr 10, 2014
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Thanks for the reply! I picked the board I did because I wanted wifi and a built-in mSATA slot, and at the price required to get those two things, I might as well get a Z87 board for future-proofing. As for the graphics card...nice! Is that R9 280X better enough than the R9 270 to be worth another ~$100? I was thinking of waiting a few months on the graphics card anyway and putting my gaming off anyway, so maybe the prices will come down. Too bad that one doesn't have the sweet MSI dragon logo : P
 
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