Suggestions for my X-Mas present build

[laststop311]

Basically I told everyone I know to get me new egg gift cards in whatever amount you want instead of giving me a gift. I know my mom is giving me 500 gift card and each set of grand parents giving 250 each so I know I have 1000 but it will obviously be more than that. I am estimating between 1500-1700 total I will have to spend at new egg for ordering parts. This is what I got so far.

Case: Black Bitfenix Prodigy Mini-ITX..................$85.00
MoBo: ASUS P8Z77-I DELUXE/WD....................$200.00
PSU: SILVERSTONE ST65F-G 650W.................$140.00
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge...............$210.00
Heatsink: Swiftech H2O-X20 Edge HD..............$220.00
RAM: G.SKILL Trident X (2x4GB) ddr3 2400Mhz..$70.00
SSD: SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 256GB 7mm.....$270.00
HDD: Western Digital Red 3TB 64MB Cache.....$170.00
GPU: GIGABYTE 7970 GHz Edition 3GB RAM.....$450.00
FANS: 230mm Bitfenix Spectre Pro Case fan.......$24.00
Controller: BitFenix Recon Fan Controller............$40.00

This pretty much maxes me out at 1880 but I do have some of my own money as well. Would probably add an external blu ray writer for 100 taking my total to 1980. the PSU is non negotiable as there are no other fully modular 140mm depth PSU's in the 600 power range. The Swiftech H2O-X20 Edge HD will take up the 5.25" drive space which is why i would get the external. I'm going with the radeon GPU because I also like to casually mine for bitcoins and the radeon gpu's have superior gpu compute abilities and the 7970 will easily max every game at 1080 settings and with its 3GB and crazy high memory bandwidth it should handle 2560x1440 nicely too. I think I have optimized this perfectly but am open to suggestions. I'll also be using the WiDi abilities to play movies and such on my panasonic plasma without having to switch cables around.

Edit: Also there is the option of waiting for Haswell. Haswell is like what half a year away. I'm currently on an phenom II 1100t hex core Oc'd to 4Ghz and a Radeon 5850 GPU, it was the 1 step down from the flagship 5870 radeon. My current PC isn't complete crap so I could possibly hold out till haswell. Haswell is the tock so it should be a decent jump in performance. I know I could sell this PC and spend even more on the new PC but I am going to keep this one as my torrent box that stays on 24/7 so I don't have to wear out my new one seeding torrents 24/7 (legal ones only of course

 

[memadmax]

Merry Xmas lucky dog...

 

[laststop311]

ok, so my uncle wants to build a new htpc that's more high end than the crappy pre built atom one he has. So we made a deal since im paying 410 for the mobo and cpu, when haswell comes out he will buy the mobo and cpu off me for 275 so 135 discount as long as I set up the mobo, cpu and heatsink for him as well.

So I can go ahead with my IVB mini itx build then sell the cpu and mobo and just replace it with a haswell lga 1150 mobo and haswells i5-3570k equivalent and i'll already have 275 towards it. So I can enjoy ivb while i wait for haswell.

If anybody can find any really good deals or a better alternate piece of equipment let me know. I am slightly worried about this fan noise im hearing with the h100i. I know I can buy some quality noctua fans to replace them but that's a money waster.

Looks like I'm going to need 6 fans total. 1x 230mm front intake / 1x 140mm rear exhaust / 4x 120mm radiator fans in push/pull config. I'll probably use a regular noctua for the exhaust and 4 high static pressure 120mm noctuas for the radiator. I know noctua's cost a lot but it's the only fans I never ever have a problem with. I've never had to use a 230mm fan whats a good silent 230mm intake fan?

 

[lowcountrysmoke]

1700 for christmas. Do you live in orange county?

 

[laststop311]

Yea all my friends and family combined and all i am getting is newegg gift cards. But lets stay on topic.

Actually I live in Cleveland, Ohio

 

[laststop311]

So for 230mm it looks like i can choose between bitfenix spectre and bitfenix spectre pro 230x30mm fans.

PRO stats:
Type: Case Fan
Bearing Type: Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB)
RPM: 900 RPM +/-10%
Air Flow: 156.27 CFM +/-10%

Standard stats:
ype: Case Fan
Bearing Type: Fluid Dynamic
RPM: 900+/-10%
Air Flow: 97.8+/-10%

So they both spin at 900 RPM but the pro version adds 60 cfm which is a major boost. How is the noise level beween to 230mm spectre and sprectre pro? Does that extra 60 cfm produce a noticeable increase in noise?

I'm assuming since the pro cost more and the rpm is the same you gain the extra airflow without much noise increase but does anyone have experience?

 

[laststop311]

For the 140mm fan I will pilfer the 140mm noctua on the side of my current computer. It's just an extra intake for the gpu and that computer will be fine without it as it's gonna be turned into a torrent seed box. I'm going to switch my 2 high static pressure 120mm noctua fans off my current heatsink and trade them with the corsair fans that make that slight noise. Computer will be in my basement so the noisy fans can go in this.

So I will only need to buy 2x 120mm high static pressure noctua fans and 1x 230mm spectre pro case fan.

Thats the great thing with noctua fans. They are built with such high quality you can just keep bringing them with you build to build, they never crap out. Well actually looks like I'll need to get 4x 120mm noctua fans mine arent the new SSO gen 2 bearing and I don't want to mix 2 different models in the push/pull. That's cool I'll just leave the 120mm noctuas where they are. Man that's gonna hurt 100 dollars for Noctua NF-F12 PWM x4.

It's worth it. I think fans are one of the most important parts of a system. Those 4 noctuas with SSO2-Bearing (second generation self-stabilising oil-pressure bearing) and the high static pressure will run totally silent and the 140mm exhaust noctua runs totally silent. Basically if I'm playing a game the only noise will be the gpu as everything else will be much quieter. If I'm not gaming the only noise will be maybe very slight hard drive noise and power supply fan noise and maybe slight noise from the pump in the corsair and noise from the 230mm fan as im not sure if they are dead silent like noctua fans. Noctua does not make a 230mm fan.

So the only question left is spectre or spectre pro for my 230mm intake

 

[laststop311]

Well my oh my, I stumbled upon the swiftech H2O-X20 Edge HD Series all in 1 water cooling set up. You do have to fill it yourself it doesn't come prefilled. And you have to connect the tubes yourself. That is super simple though. It has a much stronger pump and better radiator and better cpu block than the corsair. According to overclock3d and their review the swiftech H2O-X20 Edge HD Series lowers processor temp 10 more degrees Celsius than the corsair h100i. This is in every situation from stock clocks to overclocked to voltage cranked.

It does cost an extra 100 dollars but the swiftech H2O-X20 Edge HD Series watercooling setup gets the cpu temp only a few degrees warmer then an advanced water cooling setup.

I am so glad i stumbled on this. It offers some extreme cpu cooling with cooling almost equal to a water cooling set up with all separate parts and the ease of an all in 1 system like the corsair. This extra cooling capacity is gonna allow me to push my chip a couple steps farther.

And it's actually not more expensive. With the corsair and its loud crappy fans I was going to have to buy 4 noctua fans at 27 each + 3 shipping thats 111 dollars added to the corsair. With the swiftech h20 the 2 fans it comes with don't sound bad and even with only 2 fans it's performaance smoked the h100 with 4 fans even so I wont need to go push pull, maybe in the future but doubtful.

When you take the fact that I don't spend the extra 111 dollars on fans the swiftech h20 with stock fans cost the same as a corsair h100i with 4x noctua nf12 fans. The price may be the same in those situations but the swiftech blows the h100i away in performance by using a superior pump, superior radiator, and superior water block. So I get way better performance for the same price, no brainer there.

Also according to the reviews the spectre pro only adds a negligible amount of noise greater over the standard spectre like 20% more noise but 67% CFM increase 90 cfm vs 150 cfm. And the majority say since the fan is large and slow the noise is very low pitched and very non annoying.

With a 240mm top radiator you cannot fit a disc drive in the bay. A disc drive has a depth of 170mm into the case. A bitfenix recon controller only goes 67mm into the case and that's only very thinly along the sides. Does anyone know if a bitfenix fan controller will fit in the bay since the disc drive will not. Having a fan controller I can control with an app on my smartphone from anywhere, and monitor my system temp and fan speeds remotely would be awesome.

I'm basically just talking out my thought process and research as I go. Suggestions are welcomed.

 

[laststop311]

I just realized I dont really need a fan controller. Asus can control the fans in the bios right?