Mini ITX Build overview

[justanotherusername]

Before I start things off, this build is my very first pc build, and I am new to pc building. My knowledge of parts and all that is not the greatest, but I have a friend who has done hours upon hours of research and I have come up with this build:

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Asus Z97I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard

Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Hard Drive: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Graphics Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB Video Card

Case: Corsair 380T Mini ITX Tower Case

PSU: Corsair CSM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

OS: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro (OEM) (64-bit)

Total: $2558.00

This build will be mainly for gaming and photoshop. I am not too sure about the PSU but my friend says it's the best one, but I think this build uses only around 350W.
Feel free to give any suggestions and change anything in this build. As much help as you can give will be very much appreciated. The budget for this build will be around $2500 (little bit over won't hurt)

 

[Rammy]

Other than being very expensive it's basically ok.

The i7 and 16Gb of memory (vs. an i5 and 8Gb) are potentially places to save. Both can have an impact if you are rendering or something but for gaming the gains will be minimal.

Case+cooler are pretty much tied together. The case is pretty cool and works well enough, but it's not cheap and it's pretty big. For easy transportation it's not a bad choice (despite the size) as the handle is actually useful, but if you are going for ITX to save space then it's likely there are better options on the market.
The cooler is a good choice for the Corsair cases (250D/380T) as they are designed around using one and it performs well. Similar to the case though, it's not necessarily the best value or the quietest option.

The motherboard is good but at your budget level (where you've kinda lost the "value for money" element somewhat) I'd be tempted to splash out for the Maximus VII Impact. It's incredibly expensive versus other Z97 boards (sometimes double the price) but it does have an incredibly good list of features and really is the best board money can buy. At a $1k budget it's a waste of money but at $2.5k then extra $50-100 wouldn't improve performance dramatically.

The memory is definitely overpriced. I'd definitely be looking at some of the cheaper kits running at at least DDR3-1866.

For storage you are fine - the 840 Evo is good quality and sensibly priced, and 120Gb is enough for an OS and some games. Only you will know if you need a 3TB HDD (that's a lot of storage for gaming/photoshop) but the Caviar Blacks are very expensive and no faster than some of the cheaper options like Barracudas, their main selling point is the long warranty.

The GTX980 is fine but officially speaking the Gigabyte model won't fit, it's 312mm long and the case only (officially) supports up to 290mm. It's actually quite likely that cards longer than 290mm will sneak in here with some creative cable-routing but because the case is fairly new (as is the card) there's not a lot of helpful images yet.
This assumes you were intending on using a Windforce cooler (either the OC or G1 versions) as the reference (silver Titan cooler) model should fit. There are plenty of GTX980s which will fit with room to spare though, such as the EVGA or MSI custom models.

You are right, 750W is massive overkill, and the Corsair CS-M isn't a great PSU by any means. Any good ~550W PSU will work fine for you and at that capacity most of the best models are the market are made by Seasonic either under their own name (M12, G-series etc.) or under the XFX banner (Core/XTR etc.) or the Antec HCG-Ms. Most of these should be 150-160mm in length but do double check before buying.

 

[justanotherusername]

Other than being very expensive it's basically ok.

The i7 and 16Gb of memory (vs. an i5 and 8Gb) are potentially places to save. Both can have an impact if you are rendering or something but for gaming the gains will be minimal.

Case+cooler are pretty much tied together. The case is pretty cool and works well enough, but it's not cheap and it's pretty big. For easy transportation it's not a bad choice (despite the size) as the handle is actually useful, but if you are going for ITX to save space then it's likely there are better options on the market.
The cooler is a good choice for the Corsair cases (250D/380T) as they are designed around using one and it performs well. Similar to the case though, it's not necessarily the best value or the quietest option.

The motherboard is good but at your budget level (where you've kinda lost the "value for money" element somewhat) I'd be tempted to splash out for the Maximus VII Impact. It's incredibly expensive versus other Z97 boards (sometimes double the price) but it does have an incredibly good list of features and really is the best board money can buy. At a $1k budget it's a waste of money but at $2.5k then extra $50-100 wouldn't improve performance dramatically.

The memory is definitely overpriced. I'd definitely be looking at some of the cheaper kits running at at least DDR3-1866.

For storage you are fine - the 840 Evo is good quality and sensibly priced, and 120Gb is enough for an OS and some games. Only you will know if you need a 3TB HDD (that's a lot of storage for gaming/photoshop) but the Caviar Blacks are very expensive and no faster than some of the cheaper options like Barracudas, their main selling point is the long warranty.

The GTX980 is fine but officially speaking the Gigabyte model won't fit, it's 312mm long and the case only (officially) supports up to 290mm. It's actually quite likely that cards longer than 290mm will sneak in here with some creative cable-routing but because the case is fairly new (as is the card) there's not a lot of helpful images yet.
This assumes you were intending on using a Windforce cooler (either the OC or G1 versions) as the reference (silver Titan cooler) model should fit. There are plenty of GTX980s which will fit with room to spare though, such as the EVGA or MSI custom models.

You are right, 750W is massive overkill, and the Corsair CS-M isn't a great PSU by any means. Any good ~550W PSU will work fine for you and at that capacity most of the best models are the market are made by Seasonic either under their own name (M12, G-series etc.) or under the XFX banner (Core/XTR etc.) or the Antec HCG-Ms. Most of these should be 150-160mm in length but do double check before buying.

Cheers Rammy, this helped me out so much, and has probably changed my mind on most of the parts. The reason behind my first pc being a Mini ITX is because I'm gonna move it a lot (not often but around the house sometimes and when I go to friends places), and the 380T honestly suits me perfect as it won't be awkward to move around. The Graphics was originally going to be the EVGA, but now it will have to be that card because I know that it fits in the 380T (well from what I can remember from a review). For the hard drive I will probably go with a 1tb because I actually won't be needing that much space, at all. Even if I do fill it all I'll just move some stuff onto a portable hard drive. To be honest I don't actually have a budget, I am just trying to see what I think is going to be the best computer for me and to get an idea of the cost (probably should have said that before). The games I am really tying to achieve on this machine are Battlefield 4 and GTA V when it arrives next year (just aiming for them to be smooth, don't care too much about ultra, but higher than medium is what I'm aiming for). Of course there are other games, but they are much much less demanding. I might think about getting an i5 over an i7 as it will save me cash and I don't really accomplish anything on photoshop, I just mess around and see what I can create when I'm struck with boredom. I'm still unsure about the motherboard though, so if you could just help finalise this build and give me an idea of a price tag, again it would be very much aprreciated.

 

[Rammy]

The one point I kinda missed was what display resolution you intend to run. A GTX980 is an excellent card and actually not extortionately priced (I imagine the GTX980Ti or GTX990 will fill the "more money than sense" niche) but it's arguably overkill if you are just running a 1080P monitor as most people are. It's a tricky one to judge as anything from a $100 card upwards is a competent 1080P gamer of varying degrees and certainly spending 5times+ is unlikely to give you good value for money.

By no means is the Maximus VII Impact a good value board but it really has all of the bells and whistles you could think of, if you can afford it then it really is the best around. If you do want to try to decrease your budget though, then this is a good place to cut back - the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac is half the price of the Impact and has the majority of the features it offers.

Only you can really decide exactly what you want to spend but based on the fact you are happy with turning down a few settings here and there, you could potentially spend a whole lot less.
Realistically, a gaming build of (near) identical performance to your OP build would start at around $1300, approximately half of your budget.
A build which can handle BF4 at respectable settings? That could cost you as little as $700-800.

 

[logainofhades]

Your build is overpriced.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($336.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus Z97I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($154.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($148.50 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($149.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($175.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($569.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 250D Mini ITX Tower Case ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($90.26 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1936.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-03 12:30 EDT-0400

If you really want to stick with that case, you will probably need an external optical drive to install Windows.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($336.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus Z97I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($154.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($148.50 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($149.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($175.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($569.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 380T Mini ITX Tower Case ($139.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($90.26 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1941.67
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-03 12:33 EDT-0400