Planning on building my first gaming ITX rig

[XBlackChaosX]

Hey peeps, i'm planning on building my first pc ever, and having a huge dell desktop for 6 years i wanna go for an itx gaming machine. now i am not planning on buying everything all at once, i plan on buying 1 part here 2 parts there etc etc. My budget is $1,000 and no more (video card is seperate however) , i plan on getting the video card later down the road but for now this is what i'm planning on buying, i would very much love to read your opinions on it and tips on potential cooling problems etc etc :

Case : SilverStone SST-SG08B

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163187

Motherboard : ASUS P8Z77-I DELUXE/WD LGA 1155 Intel Z77

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131932

CPU : Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

Ram : CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233143


Grand Total: $894.76

The video card i plan on getting down the road is :

EVGA 02G-P4-2670-KR GeForce GTX 670 2GB 256-bit GDDR5

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130782

 

[DarkSable]

That's a bloody expensive case.

May I suggest a Bitfenix Prodigy? Best case I've ever worked with.

Also, don't buy 16GB of RAM - it's more than you possibly need. Go with 8.

 

[manofchalk]

I advise buying all the parts at once (except maybe the GPU), otherwise all they will do is take up room as their retail price decreases and warranty periods expire.

I also suggest having a look at the Prodigy, its a great little case and you can do a lot with it.

 

[XBlackChaosX]

Love the prodigy, looks awesome so i'm going with that one, thanks for that DarkSable also took your advice on the ram so i switched to 8gb (4x4GB) corsair vengence.

Also forgot too mention the SSD i plan on getting :

Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239045


I plan on using the SSD for OS, and perhaps a few games while using my 1tb HDD for main storage.


Grand total $724.27


Makes sense to buy everything at once now that you put it that way manofchalk. Would have to save up for atleast 4 months (5 tops) to save up for the $724 by then Haswell chips will be out so would definitely get me a haswell cpu.


any other tips?

 

[manofchalk]

Size is a factor in a case like this, and that Vengeance memory has some fairly large hair combs glued to it. I advise going for a something a bit more low profile.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233186

Have you thought about how your going to cool your (probably overclocked) CPU? Inside ITX cases is one of the few occasions where I say its worth getting a CLC water-cooler, but an air cooler like the 212 EVO will still do fine.

PSU? 550-650W would seem right for this rig.

Make sure to get the black version of the Prodigy, it has a mesh front panel, not solid like the other colours. The front fan is effectively choked without that mesh.

 

[XBlackChaosX]

Hmm agree on the ram advice just saw a review of the high profile vengeance and my goodness those sticks are huge so switched to the ones you recommended, thanks manofchalk.

I do plan on overclocking hence the type of cpu i choose but i must admit i've never overclocked anything before (cpu, gpu, or ram) so i was planning on learning how to after a had bought everything.

As for cooling i would love to water cool since it's much more effective than air cooling (or at least i think it is) but like overclocking i don't know much about it or how to go about doing it. Based on the review i saw of the prodigy case if i wanna install a clc water cooler i would have to remove the ODD bay in order to fit the radiator (didn't know clc water cooling required a radiator) and i'm one of the few that is yet not ready to leave ODD's behind.

As for the PSU i nearly forgot about that since the last case i was gonna buy included it, so thank you manofchalk. I would go for a 650w psu but i wouldn't know which to get as i don't know much about psu's especially one that would fit an itx case.

 

[manofchalk]

Two kinds of water-cooling, Closed Loop Coolers (CLC) like a H100 and custom water-cooling. CLC cooling I would say is at most on par with air cooling for dissipating heat, coolers like the Noctua NH-D14 perform about the same as a H100i for much less.
However the room for large heatsinks is limited in the case, so this where I say its worth getting one, if only to clear space around the motherboard.

You could get an external USB powered optical drive.

A unit from the usual PSU manufacturers such as XFX, Corsair or Seasonic would be fine. Try to get a modular unit (means you can remove the cables from the PSU) which will help with cable management in that small case.
Size wise, it can fit standard ATX PSU's, though if you get a long one then you have to use some kind of bracket. Will want to look that up.