Water-ITX Engineering Build

[Din65]

Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: this month, the sooner the better

Budget Range: 1000-1400 Before Rebates; After Shipping, I can't spend a penny over 1400, would really like to keep it under 1200 with 3-5 years without needing more upgrades.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Number Crunching (Matlab), CAD (pro-E), Gaming (FPS, RTS, RPG, MMO)

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: Scratch Build

Do you need to buy OS: No (Will multiboot Windows and Linux)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Best - Newegg; Alternates - Tigerdirect, PCDirect, Fry's

Location: City, State/Region, Country - South Bend, Indiana, USA

Parts Preferences: ASUS, Nvidia

Overclocking: Maybe - not going to push it

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I would like quite and easily portable, willing to spend more for reliability

Why Are You Upgrading: My laptop is feeble and almost dead. I have an HTC Jetstream for mobility.

Parts Selected (not firmly):
Intel Core i5-3570K - $230 @ newegg - could be convinced to bump to i7-3770k maybe
ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe - $200 @ newegg - portability is nice, as is built in wifi and bluetooth
PNY XLR8 VCGGTX580XPB-LC-CPU - $430 @ local shop - hybrid cooling plus cpu cooler
no optical
SSD only
The case is going to be pricey and hard to find, but I only want 1-3 SSDs, no need for 5.5" bays or 3.5" drives.

 

[FinneousPJ]

I'm sorry what do you mean by water-ITX?

 

[Din65]

I'm sorry what do you mean by water-ITX?

The 580 listed has a water loop that includes the CPU cooler. I specified because I am worried the space of the radiator would have problems in small cases. It might be a non-issue though.

 

[Din65]

Hey, I think I have the whole build ready. How does this look?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/i4W9

 

[FinneousPJ]

I'm not a fan of closed loop liquid coolers bit other than that I wonder why the Xeon and do you really need such an expensive mobo.

 

[Din65]

I'm not a fan of closed loop liquid coolers bit other than that I wonder why the Xeon and do you really need such an expensive mobo.

The Xeon gives me i7 performance for number crunching. The asus motherboard has a ton of features I want, and the only extraneous point is the Z over Q or H 77 series. The gpu is fermi and expensive, but I look at it as a deal on a very powerful card combined with a full (admittedly self contained) water loop. WiFi Go actually would be a killer app for me; while I could remote terminal in using other software from my tablet, this makes it hassle free (if it works, which is apparently hit or miss). If I could get a cheaper kepler card with the same gpu+cpu water loop at the same price, I would take the hit in gpu power for the better thermals and power efficiency.

So what I'm looking for advice on is mainly:

*the CPU, will I actually be able to use that much power? I typically run lots of nonlinear solvers and stepping into CFD software.
*the GPU, can I get a more power efficient architecture and still get the full water loop (for easier thermal management and noise reduction) without blowing the bank or losing High to Max settings at 1080P?