UnderwearThief

No dust filters for intake? Use dryer sheets and some good old tape. Keeps the dust away and makes the room smell nice.

No dust filters for intake? Use dryer sheets and some good old tape. Keeps the dust away and makes the room smell nice.

Our average non-techie. "How do I download the thing?"

I think his point was that it's Photoshop.  One does not create vector images in Photoshop.

OH MY GOD. Dude I know your pain. I had a lady do the same to me with a cellphone. I spent such a long time explaining to her how it works. She came back the next day and wanted to return it because all her mains plugs were being used and she didnt want to have to unplug one thing to plug in the phones charger. Even though we explained she can buy a multiport if every thing must be plugged in at the same time.

Any Z87 or Z97 board will do. I would suggest an Asus Z97-A or MSI Gaming 5 Z97(my current board). I can't speak on other motherboard, though.

I have the same mobo. A2 means it booted OK, so I;m not sure why it displayed that, and all the POST codes are in the manual that came with the mobo. Can you get into the BIOS? 

GPU Tweak came with my Asus 290 as well, it's an overclocking software just like afterburner, but not as robust. 
 
I would say get into Windows like you did the last time, uninstall the driver and GPU Tweak, and try again. I had some problems with my 290 and GPU Tweak. I think NVidia cards do not support overvolting(correct me if I'm wrong)

Mixing brands is no issue.
 
Mixing clocks speeds is just fine, but the RAM will run at the speed of the slowest DIMM. So, if you have a 1600MHz kit and a 2133MHz kit, then the RAM will run at 1600MHz.
 
Mixing capacities isn't an issue as long as SAME CAPACITY DIMMS ARE IN THE SAME CHANNEL. For example, there are 4 slots; 1, 2, 3, and 4 and 2 8GB sticks and 2 4GB sticks. Put the 2 4GB sticks in the same channel and the 2 8GB sticks in the other channel. If you don't the RAM will run in single channel mode.
 
EDIT: Yeah, as stated above, timings must match, and it is probably best to sell the old kit.

Sorry, forgot about the RAM. New list with RAM: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/UnderwearThief/saved/83FYcf
Personally, I think I would grab that i3 and some RAM and then upgrade the GPU later. The 560 will run things, albeit at lower settings, OK for a little while.

He doesn't have an LGA1150 socket motherboard. He said he's got an LGA 1155 motherboard, so he needs a 3rd gen processor.
 
According to this: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/611/Intel_Core_2_Quad_Q8300_vs_Intel_Core_i3_i3-3250.html
And these: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-3250+%40+3.50GHz
                  http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q8300+%40+2.50GHz
 
The i3 seems to be a pretty good deal if you decide to upgrade your CPU.

Thanks. There wasn't any obvious option or setting when I looked.

don't worrie about degrading or damaging a cpu unless you are a idiot its practically impossible 
if you run insane amounts of voltage for extended periods you might manage to degrade it enough to where the overclock isn't stable anymore
but saying heat is just a by-product of voltage is wholly incorrect there are many of factors at play a example that as the temperature climbs the resistance,impeadence,switching ablity and the leakage of the transistors can change eventually you can get it hot enough to cause a internal short of sorts leading to a cascade effect causing damage remember you are working on nano-meter scale so a 0.05% change in the circuit from thermal expansion can be a real problem at those scales 
 
other things to consider are 
1. the inherent capacitance of transistors of that scale 
2. gate time and the amount of leakage around a fet-type transistor when it is closed
3. circuit load and current handling capacity at a given switching speed as you go up in speed you lose regulation ability to to ~float~ again you are talking about very very small scales here 
4. plain old fashion to many AMP's and not enough pathway 
 
and yes if you can keep it COLD that drastically changes how much voltage you can run 
cold causes things to contract witch at the nano-scale means path-ways become tighter and less leaky allowing you to pump more voltage to drive the transistors there is still a finite limit 

OEM keys can be used on 15 different computers before you need to buy a new one. During installation, use the key you have, then when you boot into windows, go to the "Activate Windows" thing and click call support. Follow the prompts and it will be activated. Takes ~5 minutes.

PSU: Corsair RM 750W
GPU: Asus R9 290(non-x)
Case: H440

Thank you very much, that is exactly the answer I was hoping for!