I'd really like to know what kind of logic your friend uses.

Third fan for the NH-D15 while using a silent case with only 2 fans. Effect -> Louder, same temps because even with only 2 fans on it the NH-D15 doesn't get enough air. If you want lower idle/low load temps get an NH-D14. If you want lower high load temps get better/more case fans and/or delid it.

Mini-ITX motherboard in a full-size ATX mid tower. Please explain.

RM650. No. Just no. There are so many things wrong with it, I'd hit the character limit listing them.

A few question:
How far do you want to overclock?
Are you willing/able to flash the BIOS without a CPU (Z87 mobos tend to have better VRMs).
Are low noise levels a priority?
Do you want to go SLI in the future?
Are there any other reasons why you'd want a mid tower?
Do you want a semi or fully modular PSU?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£167.50 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£74.72 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£107.26 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston Savage 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£62.99 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 ATX Mid Tower Case (£80.39 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£43.00 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £535.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-02 08:38 GMT+0000

My self-control let me down again and now I have to wait 4 days like everyone else.
Thanks for the link Wreath!

Midterm exam's finished, finally started watching TLOK yesterday.
Starting with season 4 right after HL today. I should probably slow down if I don't want to have to wait for the last few episodes.

Definitely HYPED!

Definitely no problems, pretty close to an ideal build.

Basically they only thing I could do was swap parts for slightly cheaper or slightly better equivalents. I'm not usually doing this sort of optimization since prices tend to change a bit until people actually buy the parts but this time I'd recommend you buy until Monday, because there are some pretty nice deals going on right now.

Better cooler, if you don't need it that quiet the 212 Evo is hard to beat for 23$.
Mobo was the only thing I disagreed with you, the UD5H is cheaper than the ID3H atm. There's also the UD3H-BK, literally the same thing in black, only cheaper right now.
Cheaper and better memory.
I usually recommend the MX100 or 840 Evo, not much of a price or performance difference.
Saved a whopping 1.50$ on the HDD.
Gotta love 50% rebate via mail-in rebate on that PSU.
XL2411Z > VG248QE

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Enermax ETS-T40-TB 86.7 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($62.14 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($334.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer ($16.95 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($90.26 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: BenQ XL2411Z 144Hz 24.0" Monitor ($239.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1302.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-29 14:13 EST-0500

Yeah, the 212 Evo isn't really suited for anything insane. It depends on how far you want to go and wether or not you are delidding.
There's the Enermax ETS-T40-TB not that much better terms of temperature but a lot more quiet.

If you want to go further than just a mild overclock without delidding you should probably look at the usual suspects like the Phanteks PH-TC-14PE or the Noctua NH-D14. The NH-D15 is still too expensive atm.

No reason to upgrade RAM then. With 1600 CL9 the difference is even less, 2% or something like that. Unless you need 300MHz for bandwidth I wouldn't bother.

What cooler are you getting? It's probably the limiting factor, difference between the ASUS and Gigabyte is probably 0.2GHz worst case, maybe none.

#318
Is the RAM CL9?
Anandtech got a nice article about it:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell

tl;dr
Anything that doesn't require a metric fuckton of bandwidth (not size, bandwidth) will be <5% difference.

How did you choose these 3 motherboards? If you haven't yet, consider the other features and price.
Keep in mind that the 4790K is a bit special, if your mobo doesn't run a BIOS/UEFI version that supports it, it won't boot at all. That means if that mobo can't be flashed without a CPU you're fucked.

All those mobos use the same chipset so the VRMs are going to make the biggest difference.
I'd say the Z87-PLUS is the weakest in that regard (identical VRMs to the Z87-A).
Phases: UD4H (8) >> Mpower (5) > Plus (4)
MOSFETs: MPower > UD4H > Plus
Inductors: Plus > UD4H > MPower
Capacitors: MPower > UD4H > Plus

That said the MPower looks like it's full of marketing BS and seems a bit imbalanced. I have no idea how it's connected but they're using 5 Phases, 5 doublers, 20 drivers (guessing 10 high, 10 low) to drive 32 MOSFETs (16 high, 16 low) and advertise 20 phases. Compare that with the UD4H, 8 Phases going into 8 combined doublers and drivers driving 16 MOSFETs (technically 32, high and low side MOSFETs combined into one device). Makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?

#319
For anything other than TF2 a GPU would probably help the most. 2 X5550 are more than enough for streaming. Check your PSU though, if it can handle a power hungry GPU. Maybe an SSD if you haven't got one already and your motherboard supports SATA 6Gb/s. Other than that I can't think of any upgrades that make sense.

Depends a lot on what you're going to use it for.

If it's still good enough for whatever you're doing I wouldn't upgrade at all.

You should be able to reuse the case and PSU, maybe the RAM, but I'm not sure what would need that much CPU power and only 6GB of RAM. You might simply run out of slots if you want to keep those 6 DIMMs and need more RAM.

What programs are you going to use?

#312
Forget the 3rd and 4th build. 4th is miles over budget and the 3rd gave me cancer.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock B85M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($65.64 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($98.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($46.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: HIS Radeon R9 270X 2GB IceQ X² Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($24.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($86.42 @ OutletPC)
Total: $702.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-28 08:03 EST-0500

You can obviously use a different case if you want to.
ATX mobo option, if you decide to go for a case that supports full-size ATX.
The budget would allow for a few upgades if you want, GPU (not worth it for source engine) or maybe an even better GPU e.g. the Xeon E3-1231 V3 (still <760$ total).
Not going to go into Windows 7 vs 8 vs 8.1, there's enough budget left to get either.

#313
No glaring problems.

Would swap a few parts though and add a cooler.
Mobo: cheaper, no mSATA though, can flash BIOS without a CPU which might come in handy with the 4690K
GPU: cheaper and faster
PSU: half the price, non-modular though and not enough power if you want to go SLI.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.00 @ Canada Computers)
CPU Cooler: Enermax ETS-T40-TB 86.7 CFM CPU Cooler ($31.35 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Memory Express)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($78.98 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ NCIX)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Dual Superclocked ACX Video Card ($179.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.25 @ Vuugo)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Memory Express)
Total: $753.54
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-28 07:42 EST-0500

Performance goal?
Which games?
No peripherals?
Got any reusable parts?

Just in TF2 or in toher games aswell?
I'm guessing it's the combination of TF2 being a piece of shit and your CPU not being able to handle the load. Not ruling out driver issues though.

If the CPU is the problem you could get a used 2500/2550/2600/2700/3570/3770 for somewhere between 100$ and 200$.

My reasoning is if it's Tonga upscaled, they're fucked.
If there are significant changes compared to Tonga the yield rates might fuck them even harder.

It's a pretty narrow timeframe for tapeouts and considering how Tonga turned out I'm not really believing it right now.

The Germans are on it.
http://www.3dcenter.org/news/erste-reale-daten-zu-amds-fiji-chip-4096-shader-einheiten-einem-hbm-speicherinterface
https://www.zauba.com/import-fiji-xt-hs-code.html
http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/show_run.php?q=c2ffccfddbbadbe6deedd4e7d3f587ba8aacc9ac91a187f4c9f9&l=de

No. Not 20nm.
Why do you think GM204 is 28nm? Why do you think Fiji and GM200 are going to be on 28nm? 20nm without FinFets isn't the best node anyway but for high clockrates it's absolutely atrocious since there is no HP process only SOC. And one size doesn't fit all in semiconductor manufacturing.

If 20nm becomes viable at all it'll probably be so late it's quite likely AMD and Nvidia will go straight for 20nm FF (aka 16nm, marketing BS).

Refer to the upgrade flowchart:
Do you want/need better performance?
No -> Don't upgrade
Yes -> upgrade*
*maybe delay for a month max if a new GPU is about to be released

And that's it. GPUs continously get cheaper, so if you can wait a year it'll be cheaper.

To answer your question, Nvidia won't release a card to compete with themselves. Nothing with the same performance as the 970/980 coming from Nvidia until Q3/4. That's still next year but I think you meant the start of next year aka Q1.

The 960 is coming in Q1 2015 though and AMD should be releasing the 380(X) around that time. Since Tonga won't win in terms of efficiency (and therefore temperature & noise) they'll probably just undercut Nvidias price again.

There's also Fiji and big Maxwell coming at the same time but, spoilert alert, unless Lisa Su made some serious magic happen, Fiji is going to get wrecked.

#10
CLN20SOC is shit.