Looking for Guidance on Long-Term Desktop (IBuyPower build)

[balys]

I am hoping to receive on sage advice on building a PC.

The desktop I am trying to build will hopefully serve as my main computer for the next 4-5 years. I will use it primarily for gaming (mostly steam games, at most games like Skyrim, Dragon Age, and Farcry on high quality) and possibly recording/streaming my games (thus, I think RAM and an I7 processor would be good to have lots of things running at once [I will use 2 monitors, 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 resolutions]), general use (internet surfing, Word, Excel, MatLab, Mathematica, etc), and watching (DVD or BlueRay) and streaming movies/anime (often hooked up to a projector). I also would like things to just run smoothly and quickly (computer/game/files startup/loading be quick, file transfers, etc) and relatively quitely. I do not plan on overclocking at all. I am also a sucker for aesthetics, so I plan on getting a custom image on the tower 😀.

Lastly, my budget is $1,000-$2,000. I was looking at the high end of the budget ($1,500+), but if someone can show me a sweet build that is cheaper and would serve my needs well, I'm all for it! Also, I am looking to buy this PC in the next couple of days so I can get it before winter vacation ends.

In about 10 min, I put this together on IBuyPower.com (IBP), but I think it's a bit overkill in terms of some capabilities/underscores in others. I am not super knowledgable on parts compatibility or which parts are vital and which are secondary. In particular, I feel like advice on motherboard, RAM, processor, power unit, graphics card, and primary/data hardrives are the most important. As an aside, in terms of cooling, IBP pretty much only offers liquid cooling so while I know this may be wasteful, it can't be helped.

Starting Model: Intel Z97 Core i5/i7
Case 1 x NZXT Phantom 240 Gaming Case - White
iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction 1 x Basic - iBUYPOWER Harmony SRS Sound Reduction System - Reduce System Noise
iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion 1 x [6-Port] NZXT Internal USB Expansion System
Processor 1 x Intel® Core™ i7-4790K Processor (4x 4.0GHz/8MB L3 Cache) - Intel® Core™ i7-4790K
Processor Cooling 1 x Asetek 510LC Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1150] - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)
Memory 1 x 16 GB [8 GB x2] DDR3-1866 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand
Video Card 1 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 - 4GB - FREE Upgrade to EVGA GTX 970 4GB Superclocked - Single Card
Motherboard 1 x ASRock Z97 Extreme 3 -- 3x PCIe x16, 4x USB 3.0, 2X USB 2.0
Intel Smart Response Technology 1 x SSD Cache - 64 GB ADATA SP900 SSD
Power Supply 1 x 750 Watt - Thermaltake SMART SP-750M - *Free Upgrade to 850W SMART SP-850M - 80 PLUS Bronze
Primary Hard Drive 1 x 128 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD -- Read: 530MB/s, Write: 390MB/s - Single Drive *Free Upgrade to 128GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD*
Data Hard Drive 1 x 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Singe Drive
Optical Drive 1 x ASUS 12x Blu-ray Reader, DVD±R/±RW Combo Drive - Black
Meter Display 1 x NZXT Sentry LX Fan Control, Clock, and Temperature Display
Sound Card 1 x 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card 1 x Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Operating System 1 x Windows 8.1 + Office 365 Trial [Free 30-Day !!!] 64-bit
Advanced Build Options 1 x Tuniq TX-2 High Performance Thermal Compound - The best interface between your CPU and the heatsinks
Advanced Build Options 1 x Professional wiring for all cables inside the system tower - Basic Pro Wiring
Case Engraving Service 1 x Your Custom Design - A customer support representative will contact you for further instructions
Warranty 1 x 3 Year Standard Warranty Service
Final Cost: $1,950


Please let me know/offer all your advice on any individual parts, entire builds, make recommendations on parts/entire builds, etc! I appreciate any and all input. Besides maybe people hating on IBP... Of particular interest to me are the advantages of I5 vs. I7, SSD/HDD hard drive stats, RAM types and what is best, Power Unit (Is it better to have more than you need?), and using 2 graphics cards vs. 1 graphics card.

P.S. No I do not want to buy the parts seperately, go to my local PC shops, tinker with the things, etc in the hopes my dumbass didn't screw something up in order to save $200-300... I just want to order it online and have it shipped to me! I work so that I can have occasionally treat myself to luxuries like these, no hassle (I would not find joy in doing something like building my own PC, though I do like tinkering with figurative parts online, like this!).

 

[vrumor]

Check your PMs.

 

[419Recon]

Alright, well I will give you a pc parts list, it'll be more powerful than your current desktop (cheaper as well but would need to be custom built.) At the very least, I'd advice going through NCIX I believe, you can select the parts, and pay just 50 dollars more and they'll assemble it for you and ship it to you. This way you save money, and don't have to put it together.
SSD/HDD:SSD's are far speedier, though they're relatively new, they're best to store programs that take time to open (photoshop, adobe, etc). Basically if you want a lot of storage (albeit slower) HDD's are great, you can get 2 terabytes of storage on an HDD for the same cost as a few hundred gigs on an SSD. HDD's are more reliable, but SSD's are quickly increasing in reliability. It's best to have a combo, SSD's make for snappy, quick performance, and boot time. While HDD's store movies, games, pictures, stuff that would quickly fill the SSD, and not take full advantage of the speed boost.
I5 vs I7: i5 is great for gaming, and probably all you would need (even if you stream while gaming). i7 is good for tasks that require multiple threads, such as video editing. They're almost identical performance (game wise), with the i7 occasionally gaining 1-5 frames better/worse.
Power units, it's best to get one more than you need (always get atleast a 80+ bronze, so you don't send more voltage than needed to components, frying them) because say in 3 years you decide to upgrade your video card to one that requires twice as much voltage, if you bought a psu that was more than you needed, chances are you won't have to buy a new psu and graphics card (future proofing, and money saving) or if you just want to be cautious and make sure not to undervolt your system. Now, I don't recommend buying a 1600W psu for a build that will only use maybe 600, it's a waste of money and won't be properly utilized.
Single card vs multi card. Well it's usually better to get a single powerful card (such as the gtx 980) and upgrade later, but in this case it's a little different. With the release of the 900 series, it's been found that the 970 is roughly 10% weaker than the 980, at a little over half the cost (for a little over the cost of a single 980, you can get two 970's that destroy every other SLI/crossfire in terms of price for the performance, achieving frames similar, or higher in 1080p/1440p, to those of the R9 295x2 for a bit cheaper). So usually it's best to get one powerful card, but in this case I highly recommend SLI 970's.
Hope that helped.
Here's that build I was talking about, as I said, I'd recommend using NCIX, and having them build it for you. Will save money.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CmJJRB
Total: $1797.87 (Add about 60.00 or so for them to put it together so about 1850) while it's only slightly cheaper than yours it's far more powerful, and a better deal.
You can change things around obviously, I didn't include a sound card as I don't see a point. You won't need any noise reducing material as the case already has it and is very silent. I chose the 4690, which is NOT overclockable as you said you hadn't planned to overclock, if you wish to (if you change your mind about overclocking) go for the 4690K which is the same price.
As for displays, not sure on what you want, I recommend a 1440p display but they are costlier than a 1080p. It's entirely up to you. So I didn't include those in the build.
EDIT: When you click the PC parts picker link it'll show different sellers (Amazon, NCIX, etc.) don't worry, the numbers and parts I gave you are all from NCIX, all parts are sold there, and the price listed was from using only their store. You would have to go to their website, and individually select each part, however that's the most work you'd have to do.

 

[balys]

Thank you very much!

 

[419Recon]

Thank you very much!

You're welcome! Hope it turns out great! 😀