Hello Tek. Looking for build ideas for a Ncase M1. Going to be used for gaming. Cool and quiet are of high priority. No water cooling. Have a Windforce 770 at home. Have an ssd and a 3.5 drive. Cost? The lower the better. Preferably somewhere around $1250 CAD including Windows. No need for monitor or peripherals. I really dig the looks of the M1 project by Malik Customs. Shoot!
Performance note; Probably won't ever over clock, but don't want the CPU to become a gaming bottleneck for as long as possible. I'll upgrade the GPU accordingly.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dZrDf7 - $1002.91
- Haswell for the lower heat output in such a small form factor.
- Z97 motherboard for optional upgrade path to Intel's Broadwell CPUs once they're released
- You said no water cooling, but in such a tight space you might want the extra cooling. Corsair's stock fans aren't brilliantly silent, but they can be swapped out.
- You may eventually want to upgrade to a 900 series GPU, again for the lower heat output.
- SFX power supply is required.
Optional changes:
Asus Maximus VII Impact Z97 +$70
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-maximusviiimpact
Panasonic UJ-267 Slot Load Blu-Ray Reader/Writer - +85 (Tek Syndicate Amazon Affiliate code pre-applied)
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Internal-Blu-Ray-Unibody-MacBook/dp/B00BFU652G?tag=teksynd-20
New Fans - Swap out the stock Corsair H100i fans. EKWB's recently released Vardar radiator fans have been reviewed to be quite silent especially for the performance. You can find them here:
Link: http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=vardar
Quieter PSU - Silverstone will soon be releasing their SX500-LG PSU which has an SFX-L (Long) form factor, and NCASE has said they designed the M1 with the SX500 in mind, so it IS compatible. The added bonus of the SX500 is that it has a bigger 120mm fan, which will potentially make it quieter inside your system.
Link: http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=527&area=en
edit: PCPartPicker link with Maximus VII Formula and Panasonic UJ-267 Slot Load Blu-Ray Reader/Writer added:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/44jZjX - $1157.91
edit2: EKWB Vardar fans are $17.99 each, which is just inside your $1200 budget.
If not overclocking, consider the Xeon E3-1231 V3 and 1241 V3.