Obsidian 650D Airflow - One Intake?

I am pretty sure the bottom of the case below the PSU is perforated and the PSU will have its own dedicated intake from below the case because of that.

That frees up the front intake to supply the video card and processor with enough intake air.

I don't suggest having top or rear fans as intake fans.

The Hyper 212 will probably do just as good as the Corsair Hydro H100 you chose for like 70% less $.

Windows Ultimate probably won't give you any more value than Professional would unless you really want Bitlocker encryption (which will slow down the PC).

I highly recommend you re-think your RAM. 8 GBs is enough for 90% of people and 16GBis is enough for 90% of what is left. Only servers really want 64 GBs.

Each copy of an application can only use 2GBs or, with special programming, 3GBs. Assuming you want to play games on this thing you would be looking at having to run 30 games at the same time to burn through that much RAM and that is without even considering the page file. Your processor would be crushed far before your RAM ever was.

Assuming you want to run just 1 game at a time, you only ever need 8 GBs. High end picture, video, and audio editing environments can eat up 16GBs, but that is pretty much all that can do it outside of the server space.

Having that much RAM has serious downsides too. Especially if you have to use 8GB sticks to get there. Too much RAM gives you a performance hit (think of a needle in an 8GB vs a 64GB haystack) and 8GB sticks in general just give a lot of systems fits by themselves.

CT2KIT51264BA1339 for 8 GBs or x2 of that for 16 GBs is what I suggest to people who want to use the editing environments I mentioned, because it is maximally likely to lead to a good user experience.

PSU - Overkill. I would go with an XFX 850w instead. Even a GTX 680 with maximum OCing on both the processor and the video card can't even begin to touch 850w. Your system will likely be a lot closer to 400 watts of usage than 1200 watts of usage.

2x 680s at the same time has been tested to barely touch 500w.

SSD - If you are scaling back elsewhere, you might want to scale up here. The Crucial M4 256 GBs is really really nice. So is the 512 GB if you have so much money you don't know what to do with it all.

Case - The HAF 932 would give you a lot better cooling than that for less money, I would say.

Side note: since you want a large SSD for boot/OS, then reduce the cache drive form 128GB to 64GB.

The cache drive chipset/software will only use 64GB max for a cache drive, so anymore would a waste (of money).

I assume you will cache the HDD, which is a data/storage drive. This MIGHT be a waste, but I have the same set-up. iTunes does launch it's library much faster, as it's on my data/storage drive. I do notice enough of an improvement to warrant the cache. In fact, I have a thread in here asking just than question, here. I didn't get an answer.

Cheers.

Don't count on the PSU fan doing any real cooling, execpt for itself. Yes, it moves air out, but not as mush as just a fan.

Reduce the CPU Cooler to a Corsair H70 or H80 (single or dual fan design), and mount it to the rear case fan "holes." This should be enough, and it's also really not an exhaust, just like the PSU. And you won't have to modify the case.

Don't count on the GPU cooler doing any real air movement either. All these things do move air, but usually just enough to cool themselves, not the whole case.

So then you are left with the one (huge) intake, and the top fan exhaust(s). Check, and check.

You are looking at such high-end stuff, look into the Cooler Master Cosmos II case. It's a monster! Or the Corsair 800D.

Thanks guys; I feel better about the one large front intake.

Sorry for not specifying earlier, but this will be used primarily for Adobe Creative Suite 6 (mainly Photoshop) and Lightroom 4. I'll be moving and processing ~50MB files around, and Photoshop likes to use RAM. Plus, I've already purchased most of this list. The GPU is main thing on which I still haven't decided.

Also, I was going to get the 800D until I took a closer look at the features. It's bigger than the 650D, yes, but I decided the 650D had more to offer.

Thanks again

Thanks guys; I feel better about the one large front intake.

Sorry for not specifying earlier, but this will be used primarily for Adobe Creative Suite 6 (mainly Photoshop) and Lightroom 4. I'll be moving and processing ~50MB files around, and Photoshop likes to use RAM. Plus, I've already purchased most of this list. The GPU is main thing on which I still haven't decided.

Also, I was going to get the 800D until I took a closer look at the features. It's bigger than the 650D, yes, but I decided the 650D had more to offer.

Thanks again

There are 2 threads going for this same quetion, the other is here.