ChadMcCune

I did end up going with the mercury s8

My old machine acts as a media server in the house now with 5x4TB drives in a raid array...I might up it to 512GB ssd, but that will easily last me until my next upgrade. Another cooling question for everyone though...I've read many times that color'd coolants gunk up and clog stuff up...is this still the case? I had planned on just using distilled water, but I just saw the picture of the new evga 980 with factory applied water block, and I think it would look cool as hell (pardon the pun) to have green cooling flowing through it http://static.evga.com/products/images/gallery/04G-P4-2989-KR_XL_4.jpg

For testing before I put in the liquid cooling

Excellent information to have, and you probably just sold me on the Air540 or the S8.

For no other reason than it's what I want to do. I leased a new vehicle last year and technology is the type of "trinket" that I like to mess around with. It's not that I never use it, I just use it considerably less than I used to. I used to be on my computer from the time I got home till the time I went to bed, but now, I use it every afternoon for work, and some occasional gaming. It will also free up my current rig for my girlfriend to use and we can game together, since all she has right now is a crummy laptop.

Thank you! Some very helpful information here. To answer your question, I'm in the US, specifically the Dallas area. I work from home part of the day ever day (after I pick the kiddo up from school), and work on a solution with about 56 projects in it, so, I'll actually benefit from the additional 2 cores/4 threads compiling in parallel.

Someone above mentioned CaseLabs earlier and I went and checked, and the S8 was one that caught my eye...looks like a really good case as well...HUGE but good. I think I like the look of the HAF XB better, but if it doesn't work out, this S8 will...The one I configured was like $550 Glad to hear about the waterblocks, is EK usually the first to get them out?

I'm pretty sure it uses a 5.25" bay, and both of those are vertical on the 540 Additional question I just thought of, how long will it take for full cover water blocks to become available for the 980's when they are released?

I do have the money to spend on this, my only hobbies are playing adult sports, which don't cost a lot of money, so I have a lot of disposable income. To put this in perspective, the last computer I built was in 2009 and I have an i7 3ghz Extreme edition with 16GB DDR3 1600 memory, SSDx4 RAID 0, and had originally put a GTX 280 in it. I think I spent 4 grand on that rig. The only thing I've done since then is upgrade the video card, and it still is faster than any computer I use elsewhere, including the brand new workstation class machine I have at work. So, while I won't be using this machine to its 100% potential, it will get used, and it will last me for quite some time. That said, I had originally chose the Air 540 case, but want to use the fan controller/display that comes with the Rampage V mobo. I think it would look a little stupid mounted vertically where you have to turn your head to read it. Other than that, I really liked what I saw on the 540. The H440 & 900D aren't cube shaped, and I wanted to do something different than the standard full towers I've had in the past. All he reviews I've read on the HAF XB Evo say it is an amazing case with extreme build quality, and it's only like $100. I figure I can order it, and if it's not what I want/expected, I can keep it for a test bench and choose a different case, but I need legitimate answers to the questions I raised in my original post. Thanks Edit, sorry 2009 was my I built the i975, 2011 was when I built the i7 6 core that I have now.

Current system has 16gb, I've never even hit 100% of that. Not really any space constraints, I just really liked that case. I've used the HAF 932 and HAF-X in the past, and was really pleased with those. I was going to use green lighting inside this one and make it kind of look like a borg cube

It's not something that I can not afford, I wouldn't do it if it were...and I don't like ATI cards...I never have...Last time I used one was like 10 years ago and their drivers were buggy as hell.

According to pcpartpicker, it doesn't, but according to a couple posts at overclock.net, it will... Probably, but I only build a new system every 3-4 years, so, we're really only talking about $125 a month

First post here... Basically, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to WASTE a ton of $$ and build a computer that I totally don't need. On top of that, I decided that I would water cool this bad boy just for shits and giggles. I'm probably looking at over 6 grand by time I'm finished, and considering I'm hardly even ever on my computer anymore, and hardly game at all, I know it's a complete waste, but I'm going to do it anyway. This is basically my parts list, but with the announcement of the GTX 980's being available next month, I'll probably wait a couple of weeks and get those instead. http://pcpartpicker.com/user/chadmccune/saved/XXRwrH Like I said before, I've never built a water cooled rig before, always have just air cooled them, so I have some questions. I see lots of contradicting information online, so looking for some clarification. In the parts list, I have some basic parts picked for the cooling system, cpu block, gpu blocks, but I'm totally at a loss on what pump/res I should pick. I believe the case I'm using supports a 240mm rad and a 120mm, should I use both? I may water cool the ram too, may not..I don't know...Depends on what parts I can find. Is there a better place to get the parts than ekwb? I really don't like ordering from overseas, but I couldn't find another site that had a tool like their configurator that takes me to exactly the right block for the gpus. My main goal is for the final product to be SILENT, with a room to overclock some. But other than the pump/res question, I have a couple of other questions...What kind of maintenance is involved with water cooling? Do I need to occasionally drain/flush and put new coolant in? Do I just need to top it off occasionally?