Look at the bottom of this page, you will see 8 or 9 other $1500 builds
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($248.98 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($189.78 @ DirectCanada)
Memory: Mushkin Redline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($119.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($138.98 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Seagate 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive ($109.98 @ Amazon Canada)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card ($407.95 @ Vuugo)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe ATX Full Tower Case ($169.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ NCIX)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.95 @ Vuugo)
Total: $1505.59
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-16 16:33 EDT-0400
Cooler Option 1 - Swiftech H240-X ($150) or H220-X ($140)
Cooler Option 2 - Cryorig R1 Ultimate or even Phanteks PH-TC14-PE (about 1.5C behind R1)
The why's
1. Proven gaming oriented Motherboard with identical feature set, equal or better components than the Asus Hero but $40 less
2. 2133 memory is sweet spot and Mushkin (Hynix Modules) has fastest timings on market
3. The SSD (15.5 secs) is only slightly faster booting windows than an SSHD (16.5 secs) But what games don't fit on the SSD will not gain any advantage,. the SSHD will automatically place frequently used games in the fas SSD portion of the drive. If ya need to drop costs to make budget, dropping the SSD is how I'd do it.
4. PSU will handle that 2nd GPU you gonna get next year :
5. Case has built in fan controller, built in color chane LED system and LEC controller plus pump and reservoir mounts if you want to water cool.
6. Avoid the EVGA model, its defective .... both the MSI and Gigabyte break 1500 Mhz
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/evga-geforce-gtx-970-a...
7. The H100i is a noise machine. If you don;t want to get the Swiftech which kick's it's tail, grab the Cryorig Air cooler which also kicks its tail ....
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/cooling/liquid/4087...
Tho this cooler looks very hawwwwt in the Luxe case
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/phanteks-cpu-cooler-pht...