NOTE: NZXT offered me a partnership and I was able to choose some products to demo. If the products were shit, I would be the first to say it, but I wanted to include this tidbit here in the interest of full disclosure.

Part list/rationale

All parts listed below use my referral link. It may be possible to find the parts at a better price if you look elsewhere. Ordering via my referral link helps me continue to do what I do and is appreciated.

I need a really beefy processor so that I can handle streaming at a high quality ([email protected]) while being able to play without suffering a major loss in performance. I’m so excited that Intel finally released an enthusiast processor with 8 cores instead of 6! I’m able to stream now with a much less significant impact on my gameplay, even Starcraft doesn’t feel sluggish now when I’m playing and streaming at a high quality. I’m really, really happy with this processor.

I wanted to get something beefier this time than a Thermaltake 3.0 Extreme or an h100i. The Kraken X61 has always gotten great reviews on performance, but people have said it’s rather bulky. I have a case, however, that allows me to fit the radiator with relative ease so I can take advantage of the cooling it has to offer. I’ve been running this build for about a month and there have been no cooling issues yet, and the cooler looks really nice as well.

I love ASUS boards and this board is decked out with features for overclocking support and potential SLI stuff down the line, as well as a ton of SATA ports for all of my HDDs.

Just 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. Nothing special here.

SSD – Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB

Amazing SSD with an amazing controller using amazing NAND.

GPU – MSI GeForce GTX 780

This 780 is still getting the job done for me. I’m really tempted to bump this up to a 980…maybe in the future…

Case – NZXT H440

I’m really happy with how this case turned out. Getting some of the cords into the power supply was a little annoying, as it’s tucked underneath the case where it’s out of sight. It was a little difficult getting the radiator in as well, though I was eventually able to finagle it into the case. All in all, though, I think the case looks nice, I like that the PSU is hidden as it gives a much cleaner look to the bottom of the case.

PSU – SeaSonic 850W

What can I say? SeaSonic makes excellent power supplies and 850 watts is more than enough power for my system. It also gives me the option to SLI 780’s down the line, should I chose to do so.

Microphone – Blue Yeti

An amazing sounding microphone for a great price.

I still have these same headphones. I think I’ve had these for over 4 years, they’re an amazing set of cans. The sound quality is great and they’re still amazingly comfortable. These are the only headphones I can wear for 14+ hours without them bothering me.

Headphone Amplifier – Fiio E10

Cheap, great quality. I don’t necessarily recommend everyone get an external DAC, but my previous motherboard didn’t have sound and I carried this over.