Part list/rationale

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. Even though Ivybridge/Haswell are out now, the raw power I get from two additional cores is more beneficial to me than increased IPC from a newer CPU that only has 4 cores.

The H100i is a strong contender here for a cooler, but the Thermaltake 3.0 performs pretty much equally and doesn’t come with obnoxiously loud fans.

Motherboard – ASRock X79 Extreme9

There’s no great reason to go with this board over the comparable Extreme6. This one has excellent support for overclocking, which I plan to do a lot of, and a ton of available SATA ports.

32 GB of RAM is huge overkill, but the LGA2011 platform supports quad-channel memory and throwing 4GB sticks into a $2,500 system seems kind of silly. But it’s really not, I honestly just wasted money on this part completely for no reason, heh.

SSD – Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB

Amazing SSD with an amazing controller using amazing NAND.

GPU – MSI GeForce GTX 780

Single card solutions are superior for streaming than crossfire or SLI set-ups, otherwise I would probably be running crossfired 7970’s. The 780 is superior to the Titan when you consider the price point, as the Titan barely outperforms it, they are built on the same GK110 chip, and the Titan is far more expensive ($1050 vs $650). These days the 780 Ti is also a strong contender in this category as well.

Case – NZXT Switch 810

The case is huge and gives you tons of space to work with, but I’m not sure if I’m big on the appearance anymore, and I think I’m past the part in my life where I want a huge, noisy case. The fans can all be turned down/off, but I think I’d rather a smaller case with silent fans for streaming.

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.

The sound quality is great, but my main reason for going with this set of headphones is because of how comfortable they are. 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 motherboard doesn’t have onboard sound so I need a discrete DAC.