Quote:I might get flamed for probably no good reason but the Intel Xeon 1230V2 (V2 signifies it's Ivy Bridge over V1 which is Sandy Bridge). Why? This chip is also based off of the Ivy Bridge architecture and it's essentially an i7 without integrated graphics on die (so yes, since it's an i7, it has HyperThreading which I don't think you will use all that often). Not only that but it costs $240 (at least on Newegg it does), which is very close to the price of an i5-3570K. The only downside is that you cannot overclock.
Well it's basically a 3770 that's clocked 100MHz lower. At stock it should perform inbetween the 3570 and 3770 and it's priced halfway inbetween them so the price/performance ratio isn't really any better. For dolphin a 3570K is $25 cheaper ($245, and $220 on newegg) and after OC will give you much better performance. Not to mention xeons aren't always compatible with desktop motherboards so that's one more thing that you have to worry about.
Quote:Don't get AIO liquid coolers unless you absolutely must, as in you have absolutely no space for tower heatsinks but most cases with a 120mm back exhaust should be able to hold one. They only perform a bit better than some of the best heatsinks (Silver Arrow, NH-D14, Phanteks PH-TC14PE, etc.) but cost more. At that point you should probably go with your own custom loop (but that burns a hole in your wallet).
In 99% of cases they perform worse than "the best heatsinks". The only cheap AIO solution I know of that outperforms high end air coolers is the corsair H-100, which costs $110, whereas high end air coolers are $70-80. And the radiator is pretty big. If you're trying to build an HTPC you either have to put it inside (in which case you have enough space for an air cooler anyways) or outside (which is ugly and makes the rig bigger, thus defeating the entire point of an HTPC). I don't really see the point of AIO liquid cooling for HTPCs in any situation.
Quote:As far as RAM goes, probably one of the most popular RAM right now is from Samsung, the MV-3V4G3D/US 8GB (2x4GB) which is a kit of great value. Why? Although stock timings and speed are only decent (1600MHz and CL11), this kit can overclock up to 2400MHz (one person has even reached 2800MHz but I think he used some very extreme cooling. Dry ice I think?). In practice you won't notice a difference between most speeds unless you have some horribly loose timings/latency. Only around $40.
Memory overclocking is generally a really bad idea. It's extremely dangerous, even more so than cpu overclocking. It increases stress on the motherboard, ram, and cpu. And it almost never nets ANY increase in performance once you get above 1600MHz.
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-Ron Swanson
"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony