First Gaming pc Build, Opinions?

1. Lose the AS5

http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.
(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

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Due to the unique shape and sizes of the particles in Arctic Silver 5's conductive matrix, it will take a up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink or with a low speed fan on the heatsink.) On systems measuring actual internal core temperatures via the CPU's internal diode, the measured temperature will often drop 2C to 5C over this "break-in" period. This break-in will occur during the normal use of the computer as long as the computer is turned off from time to time and the interface is allowed to cool to room temperature. Once the break-in is complete, the computer can be left on if desired.

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Shin Etsu matched AS5s thermal capabilities, has none of the above issues and is usually half the price.
http://pcpartpicker.com/product/mDPfrH/masscool-thermal-paste-g751

2. Drop the 2nd set of RAM unless this is a workstation or used for video editing, hi end photo work, CAD rendering etc. besides, never by RAM in 2 separate packages... if ya need 32 GB, buy a 4 x 8GB set.

3. SSDs are great ... for hat fits on them. But anything that doesn't fit on them is still limited to HD speeds. Also, HD sizes > 2 TB have about 2 - 4 times the failure rate of 2 TB models.

If you are going to be installing games on that HD, you will want something that can load them quickly.

A situation like this [SSD + HD] left most power users using an SSD for their operating system, while still running a secondary mechanical drive for storage and games. A typical setup such as this would allow the OS to load very quickly, while leaving you stunned at how long it took to load a game. With the introduction of the Desktop SSHD, Seagate has again switched up the game, offering a substantial performance boost to those of you in this situation.

Now, if you are one that chooses to use a single drive for your operating system, and have held onto your standard desktop HDD for the benefit of capacity, the Desktop SSHD is calling your name. The 8GB of NAND cache in conjunction with Seagate's application optimized algorithms should offer a tremendous performance boost, and again the more you use, it the faster the drive will get, as it learns how you use your system. In every case seen here today, the Seagate Desktop SSHD excels, whether it be a synthetic point and click benchmark like HD Tune or ATTO, or even application traces via PCMark 8, the drive just performs.

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4. The Enthoo Luxe would be a substantial improvement over the 750D ....it already comes with of those great fans you have chosen, as well as a fane controller for up to 11 fans, LED system and LED control system. Yesterday it was $119 on newegg in white.

Luxe Scores 100-99-100-98-100
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6574/phanteks-enthoo-luxe-full-tower-chassis-review/index8.html

750D scores just 89-87-98-80-92 with the major weaknesses being performance and build quality
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5774/corsair-obsidian-750d-full-tower-chassis-review/index8.html

With the Luxe, you could drop the extra fans....figure 180 watts for the GPY, 130 for the CPU OC'd and 80 watts for everything else, say 390 watts. At 100 watts per 140mm fan, 4 would be enough and you have two 140s and a 200 w/ the Luxe.

5. I imagine budget considerations rule here, but that is a whole lotta GPU horsepower ... matched with a rather low end monitor. Nice to use as a 2nd monitor but you really won't be able to enjoy the full capabilities if that card w/o a 165 Hz IPS, low lag (3ms) monitor.






Been building CAD workstations and hi end gaming boxes for 30 years and have yet to encounter this outside of the stock cooler and CLCs (neither of which are recommended). Most coolers come with a tube of paste not anything pre-applied.