New HTPC/Gaming

[Beatmatcher247]

Corsair Graphite Series 600T mid tower case w/ 6 internal side mounted 3.5" HDD bays
Enermax Revolution 85+ 1020w ATX12V PSU w/ 140mm fan
Intel Core i7 2600k CPU OC to 5.0+ GHz
Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler w/ dual 120mm fans
ASRock P67 Extreme motherboard w/ 2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 slots
Gigabit LAN, E-sata, 1394 and 8 USB onboard (6 x 2.0, 2 x 3.0) rear mounted
High Definition 7.1 audio onboard
16 GB (4 x 4096 MB) DDR3 1600 SDRAM
Crucial M4 256GB SSD
3 TB SATA-2 hard disk drive w/ 64 MB cache for mass data storage
SATA DVDRW / CDRW combo drive (black)
2 x Powercolor AMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB PCI-E video card - Crossfire Configuration

Here's a new build I hope to have done in a couple weeks. Any thoughts on potential bottlenecks, microstuttering, etc..?

 

[its phillip]

Super overkill on the PSU, but it looks like a solid build. I like the 650D more than the 600T.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Corsair Graphite Series 600T mid tower case w/ 6 internal side mounted 3.5" HDD bays
Enermax Revolution 85+ 1020w ATX12V PSU w/ 140mm fan
Intel Core i7 2600k CPU OC to 5.0+ GHz
Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler w/ dual 120mm fans
ASRock P67 Extreme motherboard w/ 2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 slots
Gigabit LAN, E-sata, 1394 and 8 USB onboard (6 x 2.0, 2 x 3.0) rear mounted
High Definition 7.1 audio onboard
16 GB (4 x 4096 MB) DDR3 1600 SDRAM
Crucial M4 256GB SSD
3 TB SATA-2 hard disk drive w/ 64 MB cache for mass data storage
SATA DVDRW / CDRW combo drive (black)
2 x Powercolor AMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB PCI-E video card - Crossfire Configuration

Here's a new build I hope to have done in a couple weeks. Any thoughts on potential bottlenecks, microstuttering, etc..?

Too much PSU, Seasonic 750W would be more than enough
Newegg.com - SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

I have Asrock Extreme4 (make sure to get the 4 for extra bandwidth for PCIe) - it's ok, but not without it's quirks, like slow "bios" boot and few more
I'll strongly rec to use saved money to get a better board like Asus (yes, I know Asrock is value brand of Asus, but key word is value)
Core i5-2500k is more than enough for gaming, i7 will only add a few % performance increase, but significant price.
I doubt you'll ever need even full 8 Gb... I have 8gb in my work pc and unless you have at-least 100 of apps open in same time, you wont need 16 (100 is not my imaginary number and each browser tab counts as a separate app)

Checkout CM HAF 922 case, I love mine - it's well worth it's price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197

I'd also skip the Powercolor brand - they are not known for high quality products...

However my best two pieces of advice to you are:
a) See computer advice at computer forums like Hardforums.com
b) This pc would WAY too loud to use as HTPC

 

[Beatmatcher247]

Is the PS still way overkill if I filled this thing with the max for 3tb hard drives? 6 total? That's the plan for my .flac storage. Guess I went with that one because of it's 0 power consumption when off and its reliability track record.

 

[its phillip]

Hard drives really don't use that much power. In the past I had a phenom ii x4 920, 8800gt, seven hard drives, two optical drives, seven case fans, and a few pci cards and the like and i never went over 300W. I still have the same processor and psu but a few other things have changed of course.

I would recommend NOT having a ton of hard drives in your primary/game machine though. That's how I have mine. The case is heavy as hell and hot with all the drives, and it's just not a very efficient use of your machine. I would recommend building a low power/high storage box for your media. It's something I plan on doing eventually. It won't take a lot of power to stream music and movies.

 

[Beatmatcher247]

Thanks for the advice. I'm not really too concerned about the noise from the system with the volume levels that I listen to my games, music, and movies at. If i listened at lower volumes, this would be too much a leaf blower I agree. Building it as proposed with overkill. Hopefully it will hang for 2 years. They still have yet to release anything actually more demanding on hardware than Crysis and Metro 2033.