I'm looking for some pointers tweaking this rig, I am a broke college student :/ But not terribly, I am also saving up for a new desk, keyboard, other peripherals and a freeNAS server Plex and whatnot.
I really want as close to silence as I can get in this general price range.
I don't really want to buy a graphics card because I'm not a gamer.
I have mass storage from my current build that I can use to hold me over until I build the NAS
The final stickler, because I don't play games often but I do play some games like Dota 2 and BBT idk if I should get an Intel processor which would allow me to make it a Hackintosh or if I should just stick with the A10, but be stuck with linux only
Looks pretty decent, the stock cooler won't be too loud until it ramps up. I used to dabble in the land of hackintosh a while back and can say that it's really a pain in the butt. If you can get by with everything you need on linux, do that, believe it or not, you'll have a much better time.
I haven't tried it yet but there are reports of AutoCAD2008 working on wine. I'm going to try it out next weekend. A copy just washed up from the bay....
You might want to check if the APUs will run nicely without fglrx (proprietary) drivers, you'll be saving yourself a lot of trouble with AMD's notoriously buggy drivers.
If i remember correctly, Draftsight is free and linux compatable. It is a little different than say AutoCAD but it is made by the same company that does solidworks if i recall
IIRC Iris Pro is definitely not enough for anything except basic web browsing. However, since this is a desktop build, things could be different. Head over to some IRC channels and ask around, might get a faster answer there.
You will be way better off with an Intel CPU. Even though the GPU won't be as good, it will save you a lot of trouble with the drivers since Intel ones very good and AMD... usually not so great.
Do you really need 16GB of RAM? I hope you know what you are doing :P
The PSU is a complete overkill, it's one for two graphics cards but you won't have even one. Get a decent PSU with low wattage. So low as 300W will be enough.
You can get a case that's smaller and better build than the 250D. Look for Lian Li cases, also aluminium Rosewill ones since (I guess) you are from the US.
I know the psu and ram are overkill, I am ok with spending the extra money for silence and quality, and I am going with the because I am going to be Painting it to look something like the golden whale from Battle Block Theater :D. Although I was considering the PC-Q30 and Paint A Penguin on the front...
Well, there are 2 main factors with a PSU, quality and wattage. You want the quality, you don't need the wattage, so you will just burn your money. You can buy a PSU that's the same silence and quality, but lower wattage and price. You won't gain anything by buying lots of RAM neither. The Q30 would be a way better choice as the case ;)
I do some light gaming, Dota 2 and some indie games, a lot of programming, so text editors and compilers and I use virtualboxes for some things and I do some work in cad
There is nothing Intel can do that AMd can't and you would save yourself a lot of cash by sticking with AMD for the CPU. Intel's iGPU blows chunks versus AMD's iGPU. I don't know of anyone who says, they want an intel iGPU for gaming. Plus, Intel only beats AMD at Single-threaded applications which a CAD program is NOT. A decent CAD program would make use of the full CPU and be Multi-thread/Multi-core optimized. The 7850K is fine paired with 2400Mhz RAM and you are golden for some BF4 1080p gaming. (if it ran windows) the 860K is good too paired with an AMD 270X/280/280X. The claim that AMd drivers suck completely is unfounded as of Omega driver release. Sure, intel's drivers for iGPU under linux are better......the iGPU still blows chunks vs AMD's. AMD's iGPU with opensource drivers still kicks Intel's iGPU's ASS.