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[maddogchen]

The Corsair Carbide is not what I would consider small... Have you seen it in person?

 

[mfenn]

The Corsair Carbide is not what I would consider small... Have you seen it in person?

Yeah, at 12"x10"x15", it's smaller than a mid-tower but certainly not mini-ITX shoebox sized.

Regarding the parts:
- NIC: $80 is steep for a WiFi card. I would recommend a motherboard with 802.11ac onboard
- PSU: 850W is overkill for a single-GPU machine, and $140 is also quite steep for that sort of unit. I would check out the XFX TS 650W for $80.
- RAM: Good
- CPU: If you're not going to OC, I would consider a Xeon E3-1231 V3 for $257
- SSD : Good
- GPU: The R9 390X Tri-X is indeed too long at 304mm to fit in the Air 240. A GTX 980 makes more sense for a space-constrained machine if you want to spend ~$450 on a GPU. However, the GTX 970 is really very close and costs $140 less.
- Case: Good
- Motherboard: Check out the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac for $120 AR. It's reasonably-priced even with 802.11ac built-in.

 

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[maddogchen]

if you don't overclock and you are spending $1632, why get a watercooler? Thats a lot of money down the drain if that watercooler leaks.

Just get something like a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for $35.

 

[lehtv]

Looks pretty good, but there are many parts where you could save a some cash.

Water cooling is completely unnecessary, and not an optimal solution for stock clocked CPU anyway because there are quieter and cheaper air coolers.

hand my 2 year old PC down to her (She only uses it to do the bills and some very light gaming).

Would it not make more sense to keep your current 512GB SSD for yourself and buy a 250GB drive for your wife? It doesn't sound like she needs a 500GB SSD for light gaming. If she needs more than 250GB of storage, 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD should be more than enough.

Then if you need more storage in your new PC, buy a storage hard disk or another 500GB SSD.

I've decided against going mini-ITX and I'm just going to go with a mid-tower again.

Why not microATX? MicroATX is a good balance between small footprint with good connectivity/expandability. You can easily put a graphics card, a sound card and a WLAN card on a microATX board. ATX would make sense if you wanted SLI or if you couldn't find a suitable looking case in microATX form factor.

Here's what I'd recommend:

i7-4790K $340 - Xeon is fine too if you want to save money, but 4790K with its 600MHz higher clock speed ensures better performance with future GPUs. The integrated GPU is also nice to have, you can use it for the secondary monitor or as a backup.
Be Quiet! Pure Rock $35 - keeps temperatures in check quietly (and yes, it's better than 212 EVO)
Asus H97M-E/CSM $89 - optimal slot layout for dual slot GPU + 1-2 single slot add-on cards
2x PNY Anarchy 2x8GB DDR3-1600 $153
Gigabyte GTX 970 4GB WF3 OC $300 AR - only trails 5-10% behind 390X but costs a lot less, consumes almost 200 watts less at gaming load, stays quieter, and has enough VRAM for 1920x1200. The sick power requirements of 390X could easily mean $20-30 extra electricity costs per year.
TP-Link T8E $69
Crucial BX100 500GB $180 OR WD10EZEX $55
EVGA 650GS $70 AR
Fractal Design Define Mini $70 (great savings) + Silent R2 120mm $11 (for total of three, the maximum number supported by the included fan controller)

= $1317 AR with the SSD, or $300 less than what you specced, even though I upgraded the CPU to 4790K. This is missing the new SSD for the old PC though.

 

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[mfenn]

Thanks again for the suggestions. I'm still trying to decide what I want to do. I don't really want to cannibalize from my wife's future desktop, but I could probably get by with just a 512GB ssd. I hate having multiple disks (unless it's raid or LVM). I'm going to think on it for a few days before I make a decision.

Windows supports mounting drives at folder junction points now (i.e. the way UNIX has worked forever), so you can transparently use multiple drives within a single filesystem hierarchy if that's more comfortable for you.

 

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[frozentundra123456]

Thanks for all the input. I've decided against going mini-ITX and I'm just going to go with a mid-tower again. Mostly because I'm not finding a good mini-atx/mini-itx board that has great reviews and can fit both the graphics card and a pci-e 1x wireless card. I don't want to go with built-in wireless simply because I can't find any reviews on the quality of those cards. My house is wired with 3 Ubiquiti wireless AC access points and everything is wireless so it's very important to get the best wireless experience.

All of that said, I did take a lot of your advice.

Here's the current build.


TP-Link PCI-E AC1900 Dual band - $78.99

EVGA SuperNOVA GS 220-GS-0650 80 Plus Gold 650 W Modular power supply - $94.99
I want a full modular power supply. I hate excess cables.

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) - $179.99
I have 16GB now and would probably be fine with 16 GB, so I might cut some cost here. Still thinking about it.

Intel Xeon E3-1231V3 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 80W BX80646E31231V3 Server Processor - $256
This was a great suggestion.

Sansung 850 EVO 1TB - $379.99
I am a single drive kind of guy, so 1TB is a must, my 512GB 840 is almost full.

SAPPHIRE 100381OCL Radeon R9 390X 8GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 2.2 Slot, ATX Tri-X OC Version (UEFI) Video Card - $429.99

Corsair Carbide Series 330R - $99
Looks pretty and should work just fine. I also like the 450D and 200R

ASRock Z97 Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
My current PC has the Z77 version of this board and it was great.

I'd still like to try a water cooler for the cpu, but I'm really not sure where to start. These changes get the price down to about $1632 which isn't bad at all.

I dont know what the chip is, but I have a Dell XPS with built in motherboard WiFi and I think it is very, very good. Much faster and picks up the signal better than any of the USB adapters I have.

 

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[z1ggy]

Do you really need an 850W PSU for this build? I plan on a similar build, but with a 970 GPU and I'm probably going to end up reusing my older 550W. I assume the liquid CPU cooler pulls more power than a standard HSF, but surely not enough to need 850.

 

[lehtv]

CPU, Mobo and RAM - with such a budget, definitely 6700K. E.g. this combo: 6700K + Asus Z170 VIII Ranger + 2x8GB DDR4-3000 $700.
Cooler - Seems a little overkill for "dabbling in some overclocking", but... can't complain.
Storage - Silly. Crucial BX100 500GB $150 + WD Blue 1TB $53 -> Save $200
GPU - Good!
Case - A little shoddy build quality. Window scratches super easily. I'd get Enthoo Pro $100
PSU - Handles 980 Ti SLI, just about. Great quality, OK price, excellent warranty.
Wireless - Intel makes one too for $49

 

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[vailr]

I'd highly recommend watching this video of an Asus Z170 mATX build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBzND3Hyk7I
The specific component selection is very well thought out, and should provide a good basis for further research.
However, I probably wouldn't go with the cube shaped case used in the video.
The i7-6700K CPU can be pre-ordered from BHPhotoVideo.com, but won't be shipped for another week or so: "Expected availability: September 11 2015".
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/98QpsY