Simple silent gaming/media wishlist

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Well, your psu does not need to be that big, and your gpu is going to be really loud unless you get one with dual fans.
And maybe get a z77 motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157325&name=Intel-Motherboards

And this graphics card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125440&name=Desktop-Graphics-Cards

No.

First thing is to understand that if you have any moving parts (fans, liquid cooler pump, HDDs) then there is no "silent." So, what you are trying to do is make a "quiet" system.

To save money you should shop hot deals. You can save tremendously on items such as PSU, HDD, SSD and even CPU. For instance Tiger Direct has had some super hot CPU deals lately, and Buy.com sometimes has hot SSD deals. Amazon will often piggyback on deals offered by other vendors, by pricematching as well as offering free shipping. Don't limit yourself to Newegg if you want the best prices. Do you live near a Micro Center? You can get a 3570K for $190, and get $50 off any compatible motherboard making mATX Z77 boards starting at $45 (plus tax).

Motherboard is okay, but realize that the B75 chipset only supports a single SATA 6G port. Also, not overclockable, so useless to get a K CPU with it. Either go with a cheaper non-K CPU, or go with a more expensive motherboard.

Graphics card is not the optimal choice for a quiet system. Typically the cards with dual axial fans are more quiet than a single "blower" fan. Axial fans are ones with curved blades sticking out from the motor in the middle, like your typical case fan. Blower fans (AKA squirrel cage, centrifugal) has what looks like a zillion thin turbine vanes around the edge. That's what makes them noisier, because they need to spin faster to push the same amount of air as an axial fan. The purpose of them is because axial fans blow air through itself, while blower fans blow air perpendicular to the opening. Thus, you will often see blower fans with cards that only do rear exhaust. Something else to note is that the fans will speed themselves up under load conditions (when you are gaming) which can't be avoided. The Gigabyte dual fan "Windforce" units would probably be a good choice, as the fan diameter is larger than some of the others (MSI, Zotac) so it should be quieter.

PSU is almost twice what you need, and quiet pricey as well. I would recommend a low wattage Rosewill Capstone PSU. They are made by Super Flower, and have 5 year warranties. The 450W modular and 550W non-modular are both $70 right now. Either would be a good choice, and 450W is sufficient for your system even if you overclock.

Don't get that CPU. If you get a non-overclockable motherboard, go for a cheaper non-K CPU. Otherwise get the overclockable motherboard and get a different K CPU. The 2550K is just a 2500K with a broken integrated graphics and a higher price tag (to take advantage of "enthusiasts" who swoon over lack of IGP). So, either get a 2500K, or better yet get a 3570K. I don't see a reason to go Sandy Bridge these days when Ivy Bridge is available everywhere, and is around 5% faster at the same clock speed as Sandy Bridge.

Don't get that SSD. First thing is that you won't be able to tell a difference (other than endless benchmarking) between most of the fast SSDs. However, you WILL be able to tell a difference by your wallet. My point is to look for SSD deals for 120/128GB SSDs cheaper than $100. Second thing is to avoid OCZ drives for now. They just got a new CEO, their stock prices tanked and they are late in some required FTC or SEC filings. Combine that with their endless sales these past few months that makes them look as if they were liquidating stock... makes me worried that the warranty will only last as long as the company exists, if you know what I mean. I could be totally wrong (I hope so) but as a consumer I don't have confidence in them at this time. The other thing is that while the Vertex 4 often benchmarks the fastest, a lot of users are reporting that performance drops a lot faster than other SSDs once you start filling up the drive. Besides looking for under $100, drives to shop for are the Samsung 830, Intel 330, Crucial M4, any Plextor drive, Kingston V+200 (but NOT V200, that + is really important), Kingston HyperX and HyperX 3K, Corsair Force 3 or Force GT, and probably a lot of other drives that may end up more expensive. But don't worry about which exact drive you get, just make sure it isn't a crappy one (like the Kingston V200) and that it is on sale.

That RAM is not a bad choice. An even better choice is the Samsung 8GB kit. It will probably cost more, but it is hands down the best 8GB DDR3 kit that money can buy.

Why dual HDDs? Running RAID? If RAID 0, just understand that it would be much faster to go with a single 2TB drive for $110 and put the extra $90 into a 240/256GB SSD for your games. If it is RAID 1 for data redundancy, just understand that RAID is not a backup. You would be better off with the second drive being an external HDD that you back up to on occasion. Also, no need to get special "AV" drives. They are supposedly tuned to work better in a stand-alone device such as a DVR.

Don't get that cooler. You don't have an overclockable motherboard so you won't need the extra cooling. At stock speeds, the stock cooler works just fine. Enable a quiet fan profile in BIOS and it will be quiet too. If you DO get an overclockable motherboard, then it depends on what clock speeds you are wanting to hit. Also, once you make your system quiet enough, the pump may end up being audible. If you end up overclocking and need the extra cooling, consider a tower heatsink that is tuned for super low airflow, such as a Scythe Ninja 3 or Thermaltake HR-02 Macho, if you want to spend a lot.

Fractal Design includes reasonably quiet case fans. May as well just use what they include. Adding more fans just adds more noise. Most configurations (except for super high overclocks) should run fine without additional case fans.

Get a better PSU one that wont have to work so hard to keep up. .. I have the silencer Mk II and its quiet the coolermaster silent pros are good too

Your wish list is a bit better, but still could use some work.

The case doesn't have a side window, so I'm not sure anyone would know about the internal color scheme.

Here's an all black heatsink, though IMO its performance isn't worth $50, but probably closer to $30.

Reasonable choice on the motherboard. Combined with a K CPU and aftermarket cooling, you now have the ability to overclock.

You can save another $15 by going non-modular on the PSU. With that PSU you will be using most of the cables anyways, so with the modular unit you will probably only have ONE of the cables not connected. You willing to pay $15 to be able to unplug a single cable? Still, you've saved a lot of money versus that other PSU you had listed.

HDD is a reasonable choice. Same cost, double the capacity as your previous choice.

I still think you're wasting money with the aftermarket fan.

For RAM, please take a look at this 124 page thread on how awesome the Samsung RAM is.

For the SSD, don't get attached to a single one. For instance right now Amazon has Samsung 830 SSDs on sale for super cheap, and they're one of the absolute best that money can buy. 128GB for $69.99 and 256GB for $154.99 with free shipping. These deals come and go, sometimes on an hourly basis. When you see them on such a hot deal, BUY NOW. Yesterday Tiger Direct had the Intel 330 180GB SSD for $99.99 (+$2.29 shipping) after a $30 rebate.

IMO you are making a mistake with your CPU choice. You are paying MORE MONEY just to disable the integrated graphics in hardware. Why are you doing that? There is absolutely no reason for it. Pop in the graphics card, voila - no more integrated graphics. Other benefits are if you ever take up video encoding/transcoding and your software supports Quick Sync, then you'll need the integrated graphics of the Intel CPU. Also, if you ever need to RMA your graphics card, or you are upgrading and you sell your old one before your new one arrives, you can always use the integrated graphics temporarily for all non-gaming functions such as watching videos and web browsing.

So, you did good on the motherboard, which fixes the aftermarket cooler and K CPU issues. Decent on the SSD and PSU. Good on the HDD.

Still could use some work on the fan, RAM and especially the CPU.

The Rosewill Capstone 550W won't even break a sweat. If not overclocked, that system probably won't use more than 300W. I'd even recommend the 450W, but the 550W is on sale and cheaper right now. Quality-wise, it is made by Super Flower, which is competitive with Seasonic at the 80Plus Gold/Platinum level. Though, the OP went with the more expensive modular version.

So you're not actually buying anytime soon?

Well, at least as you said, you've learned a lot. Cheers!

Capstones are great psus and are generally pretty quiet, only probably with them is that the fan can have some bad tonal spikes, so it's subjectively louder than it's dba scores represent. Other than that it's fine, and you can change the fan for something like a GT 800rpm.

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