GTX 680

It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Can't wait to break the seal.

This just leaves the thermal compound and the tubing. Expected Monday.

Components minus RAM

Looks like people packing up your boxes just can't be trusted to double check things. I have received my package from Newegg to find the Toolkit, Motherboard, SSD, Power supply, keyboard, and DVD reader/writer, but alas. No RAM. I have hopes that they just couldn't fit it in the box and it will come tomorrow alongside the GPU, but it seems I may not get it until well into next week. That would be most unfortunate.

Cooling Supplies Shipment

Below is the opened package of cooling supplies. Six fans, two rads, the barbs, screws, clamps, LEDs, blocks, and the pump/res. Unfortunately, they only cut half of what I needed of the tubing and they forgot to put in the thermal paste (both are kinda important). -_-

So it seems I will be waiting for one more shipment. Dude on the phone said Monday, it should come. Not a big deal since I'll be camping this weekend with my sis.

Case: Switch 810

It's simple, but pretty. It's ultimate beauty is on the inside, which I will post pics of once the assembly begins.

"Project Astarot"

Building a new desktop. Getting sick of laptops, as I don't have a use for the mobility with my tablet, so I'm going to build my own desktop. First time I'm doing this so I'm pretty excited. All parts are ordered and are expected to be here by the end of the week.

The goal of this project is to yield a desktop that will stand up better to the tests of time better than my previous, prebuilt machines. For this, I am going to jump into water cooling, which inflates the budget the build will require, but after research I feel that the temperatures will be worth it to keep my heavier loaded components last longer than they have been, and be able to better use their full power.

Here's the components:

Barebones:
NZXT's Switch 810 Full tower chassis
      I believe this may be one of the best, economically priced cases with water cooling in mind during its design. It has an excellent cable management system, overhead room for one of my two radiators, as well as easily removable hard drive cages which will allow me to fit my second radiator in the bottom. While searching for cases, I stumbled upon a reviewer on YouTube whom I am thoroughly convinced he really knows what he's talking about, and makes easy to follow videos that aren't obsessed with effects and presentation. ((TimeToLiveCustoms))

Motherboard
ASUS Rampage IV Formula

CPU:
Intel i7-3820 Sandy-Bridge-E
Quad core
3.80 GHz

GPU:
GTX 680
1006 MHz (1058 when "boosted") clock
2Gb vRAM

RAM:
G.Skill 4x4Gb
      I plan on doing virtual machines and private server hosting for Minecraft (and another), so I decided to take up a bargain on Newegg for a 16Gb set of RAM that fully supports Quad Channel (a new motherboard feature in the Rampage IV)

Hard Drives:
128Gb Crucial M4 SSD (for the OS and my primary game at any point in time)
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black (for media, game installations)
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green (my corrupted external hard drive which I am still trying to recover. Otherwise it will be nuked, formatted, and used for temporary storage)

PSU:
AX850w Corsair

Water Cooling:
2x 240 dual-thickness radiators
Both the CPU and the GPU will be included in the loop.
The full parts list is tedious. It's a bunch of small parts all ordered separately from each other. There's tubing, clamps, barbs, the blocks, radiators, pump & reservoir, the liquid itself, biocide, a kill coil, etc.


Everything is ordered and paid for, with the bulk of it coming tomorrow (Wednesday) with the GPU lagging behind to be expected Thursday.
I have already purchased the CPU, which I found for $70 cheaper than Newegg (Thank you, Micro Center!) locally, and the Chassis, which I decided to bring home myself in order to save on shipping.