Here I will provide a list of selected components I choose for the build, and also a brief explanation for my choice
So after a lot of reading in different forums and website reviews, I ended up with this list:
Chassi: Corsair 600T
I had my eyes on this case for quite some time. I was hoping they would come out with an updated version this year. Improved fan control and some more USB 3 ports would have been nice. Well, no update in sight while writing this. Still, the case does fulfill all my requirements. It's big, easy to work with, good airflow, and it looks good.
Power Unit: OCZ ZX Series 850W
I initially thought of getting a Corsair CMPSU-850AX 850W as I do have some good experience of PSUs from Corsair. I did see however, a lot of complains about colwine under heavy load, and that put me off. The OCZ ZX series have received a lot of good reviews so that is what I ended up with. It's rated as Gold. A Platina PSU would be nice, but they cost almost twice as much as a Gold unit.
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 Pro
Again, I started off by reading reviews and Asus almost always came out on top. As this will be based on LGA 2011, I needed a X79 version. My choices included Formula, Pro, and Deluxe. All three would fit my purpose, but I ended up with the Pro version due to the mix of features and price.
CPU: Core i7-3930K
Second to the best. The Core i7-3960X was just too expensive.
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Here I wanted something quiet with a small footprint. Big, heavy units like Noctua NH-D14 is for sure a good performer, but they often interfere with the MB layout, such as blocking RAM modules or PCIe slots. I do not plan to OC, so the 212 EVO will do fine.
Heatsink LGA 2011 Bracket: Cooler Master Hyper 212
Just a little mechanism to ensure the cooler can be assembled on a LGA 2011 board
GPU: Sapphire HD 7950 Overclock Edition
AMD is definitely ahead of nVidia at the moment. Best card at this writing moment is the HD7970. Almost as good is HD7950. I went for a Sapphire card with better cooling then the reference design, plus a slight OC.
Sound Card: on-board sound
Thought of this for quite a while. My speakers will be connected with a digital Toslink cable where a dedicated sound card wont add much value. I decided to save some money here and simply go for the on-board sound
Hard Disk 1: Intel 520 Series 2.5" SSD 240GB
I had the OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS in mind for a long time, but the reliability of the Sandforce controller made me hesitant. The new Intel 520 series seems like a more secure option. Interesting enough, it also uses Sandforce but a different version. Time will tell if it really is reliable of if that was only a marketing hoax. About the size, I need a big one. The 240 GB is expensive, but what the hell - let's go for it.
Hard Disk 2: Intel 520 Series 2.5" SSD 60GB
Why have only one if you can have two? This is where I will store all my private documents and photos. It's a bit overkill to use SSD for this, but the cost is more reasonable if I take a small size
Hard Disk 3: Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 64MB 2TB
Big heavy disk, for all my digital content, mainly video and music.
Hard Disk 4: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
This one is from my old system. I will just move it to the new one. Again, it’s for video and music.
RAM: Corsair XMS3 Vengeance PC12800/1600MHz CL9 4x4GB (CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B)
The board support Quad-Channel memory. This is something I'm unlikely to upgrade later so I might as well buy plenty of RAM from start. 16GB of fast RAM should do it for some time ahead.
Optical DVD: Lite-On iHAS124
Not much to say here. A DVD, is a DVD, and not much differ from one unit to the other.
Optical Blu-ray: not selected
Is this really needed? I gave it a lot of thoughts. I will have the PC connected to both a monitor and a TV set, so I could stream some movies if I want. But then again, I already have a Blu-ray player next to the TV so what’s the point? I decided to save some money here, and instead I go for two DVDs (Lite-On iHAS124).
TV Card: Hauppauge PCTV Nanostick T2 HD 290e
Even though I can record TV channels directly in my TV media system, the recorded material is then encrypted. To encrypt recorded media is a technical invention from hell (movie industry), and it prevents me to move the content to my laptop while I'm on the road. So, I wanted a separate card for my PC. Too my surprise, there were very little to choose from, especially cards which supports DVB-T2. The Nanostick is one of the few. It's actually a USB plug and not a card, but that could be nice if I want to move it to another unit later.
Operative System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
I'm not convinced of Windows 8 at all. Not for a desktop. Plus the fact that it's not available yet. A 64 bit OS is what I need, so Win7 was my choice
HD Cooler: Scythe Himuro (2 of them)
Those are not really needed. In fact, they don't cool the HD at all. They do however reduce noise, and I often find the HD noise more irritating then the fans. They don't cost much and thus, I added them to my shopping list
Cables: Not much to say about those. I just needed to complement what I have with some new ones such as HDMI-to-DVI, USB 3 (for my back up drive), and an SPDIF Toslink (for sound).
That's it! I will re-use some peripherals like monitor, mouse, keyboard, USB hub, router etc, and I will not write about those here.
The next step now was to bring up my browser, and start shopping.
