This is my new computer that I have socked away for. I haven't built a system for few years and it was fun to do again. I wanted a PC I could do some video editing with and photography as well as some moderate gaming. I tried to keep to my budget of under $2000. I think I accomplished both things with this build and it should last me for a while. All my prices are in CAD$....so yes I paid for it with money that looks like monopoly money.

CPU: I wanted something I wouldn't need to upgrade for a while and since it's a new build why not. It works great and is an amazing upgrade from my laptops mobile processor from 5 years ago (1.6 quad core.)

Cooler: Had a hard time deciding but the Swiftech H240X has had great reviews and others I looked at had software issues. this one also has the benefit of being upgradable if I decide to add in the GPU later.

Motherboard: I liked the colors fits my Team Canada build. Got it on sale, price matched and a mail in rebate. Also got the first one discounted for open box but had two bad RAM slots. Had bought the IPR from memory Express so I got a brand new unopened one in a few hours. I have found that the Gigabyte OC software is not that great and increases the voltages fast and higher than you might doing it yourself in increments to get stability. However if your looking for a quick boost with no effort it does the job. The system info monitor also reads the processor temp a few degrees lower than other third party software.

EDIT: I would not buy this board again for myself as it has 4-pin fan headers but only CPU are true PWM, the rest are voltage controlled and limit my PWM Fans that I have added.

RAM: Dependable name and again price matched on sale, no complaints. It works well was found and with correct timings on first boot. lower profile in case I go to air cooling.

Video card: Dependable brand name, pretty good reviews online from a lot of places. Hardware canucks liked it as well. No issues at all. plugged it in and installed updated software and drivers. I did hear my first faint coil whine during a benchmark but it was so faint I didn't know what it was at first, definitely not going to interfere with any gaming.

SSD: found it on sale and price matched it locally to get it even lower. not a lot of bad press for it. I have a Samsung 840 Evo in my laptop and was going to use the same in this but I had noticed the slow down that was being reported. The updates hadn't fixed my Evo all that well so thought I would try another brand.

Case: Looked at the NZXT H440 but wanted a Blu-ray for burning videos, looked at the Corsair 400R but liked the power supply cover of the NZXT H440. Then I saw this one and it fit both bills and it was WHITE with RED LED'S!!!! fits my Team Canada theme perfectly. It is larger than I thought it would be but it's only a couple inches larger then the other cases. It was a dream to build in cable management was easy.

Power Supply: I went with one I could afford but that tested well on Johhnyguru. I liked his review as he dove into the unit and not just a plug in and see if it works. very nice to use as I have never built with a fully modular PSU. I also sleeved my own cables in the Red/White/Black.

I didn't list the HDD's as I re purposed them from an old unit for free but there are two 1TB Seagate drives in it as well.