I'd just like to start by saying I actually finished this build when the 8600k and 1070ti were relevant. The H200i had just released and I made a mad dash to sell my old build to fund this one. Made about 1700 from my old build and only intended to put in a few hundred dollars just to keep things relatively modern. Well, $3000 and an empty bank account later and here we are!

As stated previously this wasn't my first rodeo, so I wanted a bit of a challenge to spice things up a little. I loved the new styling of the H-Series from NZXT and I had always wanted to do a smaller form factor build. I saw a few other people squeezing the D15's into the H200i and I couldn't get over how small it made the rest of the components in the case look. From there it was just a matter of picking what internals I wanted and I was off to the races.

The reason it has taken me this long to write this up is because I didn't have time time to paint the signature NZXT cable hiding strip spanning the interior of the case. Today (26/02/2019) I have finally painted that bad boy white and I am not sure why I didn't do it earlier because it fairly awesome.

Please do not ask how I managed to spend more money on Noctua Chromax pieces than what I did on my CPU. I probably could have better spent the money elsewhere buy then I would have an oddly coloured 1080ti and signature Noctua vomit coloured fans, and what is the point in that.

I chose to go with an SFX power supply even though the case can fit an ATX power supply because airflow between the GPU and the PSU shroud is limited. That left just enough room to squeeze yet another NF-F12 Chromax underneath the shroud to increase airflow to the GPU. I am not 100% sure if the fan actually does anything being up against the PSU but it makes me feel good that I can flex my $40 fan. I included a pic of this in the build log.

Part Reviews
CPU
Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor
Upgraded from the 6600k because I sold my old system. Good little boost in performance. I have mine running at 5Ghz and it doesn't skip a beat. With the current trend in CPU performance I won't need to worry about upgrading anytime soon either. I chose the i5 over the i7 because I couldn't justify the minimal increase in gaming performance over the slightly more significant price difference

CPU Cooler
Noctua - NH-D15S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler
This thing is a BEAST. Typical Noctua lifetime warranty with performance beating out 98% of the 240mm/280mm and even 360mm AIO's. Keeps my CPU temps low and when I've got headphones on I can't hear the fans run. The thermal capacity on this thing is so enormous, I can have an ambient temp of >30 degrees Celsius and the fans don't need to even need to spin (fans set to stop <40 degrees)

Motherboard
ASRock - Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard
Not 100% sure on the current market however when I purchased this board it was the only mini ITX board with 7 Phase power delivery. Word on the street was the other boards struggled to get Coffee Lake >5Ghz. I got 5Ghz on the dot @ 1.32v with my 8600k.

I removed one star only because this board doesn't have overly large heatsinks. This is an ITX board designed to be used in a small, enclosed environment with cables potentially blocking airflow from case vents etc. Couple this with watercooling (no airflow over motherboard at all) and I think you might have a recipe for disaster.

Memory
Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
At the time of the whole RAM price fixing debacle, this was the cheapest RAM >16GB and >3000Mhz. You can't even see the RAM in my build so this worked perfectly for me and it provided me the ability to expand later on.

Video Card
Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8 GB Video Card
I picked this up SUPER cheap. GPU prices were still inflated from cryptocurrency mining and I ended up paying less than what a new 1070 was worth at the time. Even at MSRP, the card is basically a cheaper 1080. You would be stupid to buy a 1080 unless you needed the extra processing power for something workstation related.

Case
NZXT - H200i (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case
Man I LOVE this case. It gets a lot of flack for being an mATX sized case with the hardware limitations of an ITX case but tbh, I think this is why I like the case so much. Building in this bad boy is an absolute dream, even considering the fact I am running a D15S. Yes, you read that correct. A Noctua D15S fits in this thing if you remove the top fan. I opted to go with a SFX power supply and even managed to squeeze an NF-F12 between the PSU and the PSU shroud to provide more airflow to the GPU (The case's only flaw). If you like the styling and can afford to lose some desk space this is 100% worth the cash.

Power Supply
Corsair - SF 600 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
At first I was worried I wasn't going to have enough wattage to power my PC when everything was overclocked balls to the wall. I looked at the other SFX offerings from Silverstone however word on the street is the SF600 is unrivalled when it comes to build quality, acoustics and performance. I bought this PSU and I was not disappointed. With power requirements of components slowly dwindling, this becomes a more appealing option with every generation.

Operating System
Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit
I paid $4.27 AUD and the boys in blue have not knocked on my door yet

Case Fan
Noctua - NF-A14 industrialPPC-3000 PWM 158.5 CFM 140mm Fan
I have 2 of these bad boys strapped to the brick that is the D15S. They are quiet enough that I can't hear them when gaming, cool enough that my PC wont start a fire in the hell that is Australian climate, and have a long enough warranty that my children will inherit these one day.

Case Fan
Noctua - NF-F12 industrialPPC-3000 PWM 109.89 CFM 120mm Fan
First day I bought these fans I didn't bother with setting a fan curve. BIG MISTAKE. For a solid week my PC was louder than the interior was louder than a straight piped S-Chassis with a stripped interior. Once I figured out how to setup a fan curve in NZXT CAM, my PC runs quieter than a white person stealing grated cheese from the fridge at 2AM

Keyboard
Logitech - G613 Wireless Standard Keyboard
I liked the idea of a clean desk and this was the only full size, name brand mechanical keyboard without back-lighting available in blue only only.

Overall it is quite a large keyboard and the letters on the keycaps are indeed stickers. On the bright side I have been using this keyboard almost everyday for 6 months and I only changed the batteries for the first time last week.

This keyboard would be perfect if it has double injected keycaps and some form of back lighting that offers flexibility between build colour schemes.

Mouse
Logitech - G603 Wireless Optical Mouse
This was a great mouse when it was my daily driver. With both batteries in it is on the heavy side however the mouse can still run at its full potential on 1 battery which was how I used the mouse. Only down side is I have the hands of the BFG and this mouse has a relatively small profile. I have since changed over to the Mionix Naos QG

Speakers
Logitech - Z623 200 W 2.1ch Speakers
I picked these up one week old for $50 from some poor bloke whose mother made him get rid of the speakers because they shook the entire house. I am now experiencing the same issue and can only use the speakers when my roommates leave the house. These things are awesome though and if you don't have annoying room mates who for some reason think its unreasonable to crank Russian hardbass at 4 in the morning, definitely splurge on these bad boys.

SSD
Silicon Power 1TB SSD 3D NAND With R/W Up To 560/530MB/s A55 SLC Cache Performance Boost SATA III 2.5" 7mm (0.28") Internal Solid State Drive (SP001TBSS3A55S25)
I bought this back when 1TB SSD's were $350. I paid $250 for a sketchy brand of an unknown quality and I was pleasantly surprised.

I mean sure the SSD isnt cased in aluminium like the fancy Samsung's are however I haven't had any reliability issues thus far. Reading/Writing for extended periods of time will cause performance to take a hit however if you are a broke uni student playing games to procrastinate your engineering degree this is the SSD for you.