1. The Kraken 62 is a great choice if its all about LEDs but if cooling is the priority, it does no better really than air coolers costing half as much and is much louder.
As we can see here @ 23:00:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKdKVxbnp8&t=1383s
The Kraken edges the Noctua NH-D15 by 1C but to accomplish that it has to be 5 times as loud. Meanwhile the far better and less expensive Swiftech H240 crushes the Kraken by 5C while being half as loud.
The Kraken's deficiencies include:
-thermally inefficient aluminum radiator
-Mixed metals which promote galvanic corrosion
-Inability to augment corrosion inhibitors which have a useful life of 18-24 months
-Inadequate 0.11 gpm pump
-inability to expand system
The Swiftech has none of those deficiencies, outperforms the Kraken by 5C, is half as loud, is $32 cheaper and it is expandable so you can water ool other components in the system
http://www.swiftech.com/h240x2.aspx
For less money you could even get a larger one 3 x 120mm ... you could fit two 360mm rads in that case.
http://www.swiftech.com/h320x2.aspx
2. You are buying enough thermal paste for about 30-60 builds. Save $30 and get the you need for this build and of better quality
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/mDPfrH/masscool-thermal-paste-g751
3. Again, if its all about the LEDs, the Formula is a decent choice. Not that it isn't a decent board, it is simply grossly overpriced. Boards I'd look at with significantly lower cost that Id consider a significant step up include
MSI Xpower Titanium (79% of board owners gave it highest 5 egg rating)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130968
Gigabyte Aurorus SOC
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128995
Gigabyte gaming 7
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128963
4. I would use 2 x 16GB rather than 4 x 8GB for ... driving 2 instead of 4 modules allows better chances of getting higher OC. The extra 16GB won't help you in gaming and id stick with that inless you are going to get heavy into the editing and streaming.
5. Unless you are going to spring for 1 TB SSDs, Id grab an SSHD for 2 TB additional storage
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/NpBrxr/seagate-firecuda-2tb-35-7200rpm-hybrid-internal-hard-drive-st2000dx002
Testing has shown that if you take out an SSD and replace it unknowingly in a users PC with an SSD, they don't notice a difference. Think of that when deciding whether one SSD with super benchmarks makes a difference to the user versus another. There's no payback on the desktop other than knowing you have the SSD with the best benchies.
6. You speak of getting another 1080 Ti but have a 1080 (not a Ti in the build). Even tho the initial deficiencies of the EVGA 1060, 1070, 1080 cards have been corrected, it still reminds us that the EVGA SC series is simply a reference card with a nice cooler and none of the extra component improvements offered by competitor cards.
If you are going to go with the liquid cooling, the question has to be asked.... why not liquid cool the GFX card(s) also ? Your case allows room for two 360mm radiators in which case you could opt for the Swiftech H320 V2 and a water cooled GFX card to start and then add a 2nd radiator when and if you get that 2nd 1080 / 1080 Ti ? These have an EK full cover water block pre-installed leaving you to simply add (2) G-1/4 fittings and a tube to have the Swiftech cool your GFX card. MSI having trouble making them fast enough to keep in stock anywhere.
MSI 1080 Seahawk EX
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127952
MSI 1080 Ti Seahwak EK X
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137144
7. 1200 watts is abit oversized for your build (even w/ twin 1080 Tis) and given the white case, Id go with the Seasonic Snow Silent 1060
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/xdCrxr/seasonic-power-supply-snowsilent1050
8. Case is primarily an aesthetic choice so I won't comment much here other than to say, Id look at some of the Phanteks offerings, especially the Tempered Glasss models before making a final decision
9. Cooling wise you'll need one 120mm fan for each 50-75 watts / 75 - 100 w/ 140mm
The 1080 Tis can consume 300 watts each and aferburner allows ya to stretch that by 17% ... so call it 350...
CPU adds 130 watts OC'd
RAM 10 watts is more than generous.
35 watts foir MoBo
40 watts for anything else ya might stuff in
That's 915 watts for SLI and 565 for ... or about (12) 120s for SLI and (7) for the single card.
With the Swiftech H320 v2, you get (3) on the radiator for 225 watts ... the case comes with (3) 140s so that adds 300 watts, totaling 525 which is close enough to 565.
10. HWiNFO is by far the most useful monitoring tool available providing not only COU temps but GPU, VRMs, storage devices as well as voltages, power and other data.
For testing, there are many options many of which provide no useful data. p95 for example is a popular tool but its most often used with an older version which does not endanger the CPU. But all this proves is that your CPU is stable only when modern instruction sets are not present ... so you have no idea whether the system is stable when modern apps with those instruction sets are present.
Application based stress tests can provide loading as well in excess of anything your CPU will see ever again in its period of use. RoG Real Bench does an excellent job here. You can be p95 stable at 85C and then fail under RoG Real Bench with temps in the 70s where it trips up the stability with multi tasking loads or modern instruction sets with AVX for example.
Furmark is good for testing max GPU temps... expect to see high 70s when air cooled at max OC and low 40s if you go with the Seahawk. As for stability, ultimately you can pass any benchmark and fail in certain games. I find if I'm Furmark stable, I'm stable at 90+% of games, so save that as a profile in Afterburner. Games like Metro will give isolated problems at certain points in the game so a 2nd profile for games like those is useful...... finally I always have a final profile for all things with the word Battlefield in the title which seems to crash a settings that no other games do.
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