I build this like a month ago, and uploaded it to PCPartPicker, but I figured I'd show it off to the LTT community. I am pretty proud of it for a first build, but I will continue to improve on it, as I already have since building it. I know I write a lot, but that is why I sectioned this off, so you can pick and chose which sections you want to read.
Backstory
Before this desktop, I had a Lenovo Y510p with a single 755M and i7-4700HQ. It was actually a very good laptop, and suprisingly silent. It was super good looking (imho) and provided decent performance in games and amazing performance with everything else (even some light video editing). I wanted a laptop mainly for LAN parties which I went to frequently, and family vacations. However, I recently purchased an HP Stream 7 Tablet running full windows 8.1, which made me seriously consider replacing my laptop with a desktop. After some thought, I pulled the trigger, sold my Y510p for $800 off craigslist and went to work on researching parts.
Choosing the Parts
Part selection was a big deal to me. I didn't buy all the parts all in one day because I wanted to get good deals on all the parts I got. I also wanted quality parts which I wouldn't regret getting later. I also didn't want to dump all of my money into Corsair and Asus's pockets, which IMO too many PC builders do nowadays. (not saying I don't like Corsair/Asus, I just think they are overhyped. After a LOT of research (probably too much), and about 2 weeks worth of spread out buying, I got the following parts:
ASRock Z97 Fatal1ty Killer ATX Motherboard - $89.99 After MIR
i7-4790K - $353.99*
Zotac Geforce GTX 970 + Corsair Vengence 8GB RAM - $389.98 - Newegg Combo
NZXT S340 Black - $72.99 Shipped
EVGA SuperNova B2 750W - $62.99
SilenX 120mm Red Fan - $10.99
2x 160GB Seagate Hard Drives (Raid 0) - Already Owned
TP Link 54Mbps PCI Wireless - Already Owned
1x Silverstone 24Pin Extension (Red sleeved)
2x Silverstone 6 pin Extension (Red/Black Sleeved)
*I originally paid $326 for this on SuperBiiz, but I ordered it and after 7 days they still hadn't shipped it, 3 phone calls and a lot of hastle later I got a refund from them. I think it is rediculous for a large(ish) buisness to not even SHIP a product after a full week, for something that is supposidly in stock. So, I same day shipped in on Amazon which cost me quite a bit extra but in the end was probably worth it imo.
Why I Chose the parts I did
ASRock Motherboard - Quite frankly, this was the cheapest Red/Black Z97 motherboard there was at the time. ASRock is one of the smaller motherboard manufacterers, but I have used their motherboards in lots of builds before and I think they provide high quality and reliable parts for a really good value. Also, ASRock is one of the only mobo manufacterers that has true black PCB, and not a dark brown shade. SLI isn't a big deal to me, as I don't think SLI is a good value over selling your current card and upgrading, so it was not a big deal that this motherboard didn't support it.
i7-4790k - I wanted an i7, because I felt like going from an i7-4700HQ on my laptop, I needed to keep an i7. I know that an i5 is pretty much just as good in gaming, but I sometimes video edit and I didn't want to lose ANY performance over my laptop if I was going to give up basically all portability. I considered a 5820k just because it was only like $50 more over the 4790k, but I decided against it when I figured out the cost of x99 as a whole.
Zotac Geforce 970 - Again, this is another one of the "this was the cheapest 970 I was willing to go with". PNY did offer a slightly cheaper blower-style card, but I read a lot of reviews saying the fan was abnoxiously loud, so I decided on the Zotac. I figured that the 970 was such an efficient card that it wouldn't matter too much that the card didn't have 17 pounds of aluminum strapped to it. I later ended up changing this for another 970, but I will get into that later.
Corsair Vengence RAM - Let me start by saying I don't think Corsair's RAM is any better than anyone elses. It's not the end-all be-all of RAM. I only got this because I think its looks good, and with the combo deal it was essentially $59.99, not any more expensive than a standard 8GB kit. Unfortunatley, I ended up paying the full $79.99 for this kit, which is rediculous and there is nothing about this RAM kit that is worth $20 more than a standard kit. More on that later.
NZXT S340 - When I saw this case I pretty much fell in love with it. I was well within my price range, and it was so much more professional looking than some of those super gamer-blingy cases that I just cannot stand. I like a subtle, but agressive looking style, not something that has 9001 LEDs and some cyborg looking exterior. I honestly thought this was the perfect case. I still thing it's a pretty decent case, but I have found out a lot of things about it that may have swayed me to another case if I had considered these things before. I will get more into this later in this build log.
EVGA 750B2 - I did WAYYYY too much power supply research. I am a nut about power supplies and won't just throw in any old peice of junk power supply in my computer and call it a day. I needed something that was at least 80+ bronze effiency (but honestly, what isn't these days?), and got exceptional reviews from trusted power supply reviewers. The B2 got a 9/10 from JonnyGuru. He said that it was a great power supply, and one of the only performance issues it had was slightly-worse-than-exceptional ripple on the 12v rail, which probably ended up being a bigger issue than anticipated (again, more about that later). In the end I still think this is one of the best power supplies you can get for the money. I know 750W was WAYY overkill for my build, and trust me, if EVGA offered a 600W version that was just as good for $10-15 less, I would have gone with that, but unfortunatley they don't.
SilenX Red Fan - Contrary to power supply, I did absolutely no reasearch on this part and basically picked up the first 120mm red non-led fan I found. Everyone on newegg said this fan was extremely silent, and so I bought it. It's not exactly super silent, in fact, it's quite a bit louder than the stock NZXT fans that came with my case, but I should have known better than to trust the internet on what "silence" is.
Build Time!
Build day finally came! I was super excited, all my parts came in on a Friday, so I got to build my computer while watching the WAN show on my tablet. What an experience! Unboxing was definately my favorite part.
The parts all in their boxes
Moving the included fans to intake positions, and installing the new exhaust fan. (Also watching the WAN Show 
)
My room quickly becoming a mess
Installing the CPU And RAM
Installing Motherboard into Case, and testingPower Supply.
Most things installed into case
Cable Managing
Graphics Card, Wireless Card installed.
What cable management looked like in the back.
AAAnddd the finished system....
With the side panel on
Close up shot.
Changes I've made since original build
Since the original build day, I have made a few changes. These included the following:
Added a Corsair Force LS 120GB SSD. Newegg has a screaming deal on this for $39.99 after MIR. Yes Please! Definately not the fastest SSD out there (by a long shot). But It's faster than a hard drive, and was extreamly cheap. A few days after I bought it the OCZ Arc 100 went on sale for $51.99 with no rebate. I would have gone with that, considering it's a lot faster and no rebate to deal with. But, whatever.
Swapped the 2x Seagate 160GB Hard Drives for a 1TB WD Blue. Best Buy had a sale on the single platter 1TB WD Blue drive for only $44.99. I picked up that and oh what a relief it was to get rid of those seagate drives. Not only were they slow as molasses, they made more noise than everything else in my computer combined. The WD Drive is plenty of space for me, and it is actually very fast for a hard drive.
Swapped the TP Link 54Mbps wireless card for a TP Link 450Mbps dual band card. My old wireless card was giving me about 10mbps up and down, so it needed to go ASAP. I spent about $40 picking up a new one, and I thought it was worth it to get the best TP link had to offer (outside of their ARCHER series), as I may end up getting google fiber if it comes to phoenix.
Changed the Zotac 970 in favor of an ASUS Strix 970. When I got the Zotac 970, I was pretty dissapointed. The thing had coil whine that made it sound like a bug zapper. No kidding. I could practically hear it across the house. I did an RMA through newegg and got another Zotac 970 that was just as bad. The other thing is that these cards get very hot. I am talking about 80+ degrees celsius. Very dissapointing for a card that is suppose to be power efficient. I think Zotac applied a very relaxed fan curve here, and without manually adjusting it caused it to get into pretty high temps. Anyway, I ended up sending the Zotac back for a refund, but since I got it in a bundle deal with the RAM, they gave me $20 less than the full refund, meaning I had to pay for the full price of corsair's completely overpriced RAM. Bummer, but what are you going to do about it. I ended up chosing the Strix because it has a 5+1 phase power delivery system, which I was hoping would reduce the coil whine so prevelent on the 970s. It also included a back plate, which, for a large card I thought was necessary. Overall I am very pleased with the Strix 970, it is phonomenally quiet and never gets over 65 degrees celsius, and passively cools itself under 60.
Moved the rear exhaust fan to a top intake fan. I did this in anticipation of getting a rear AIO cooler that will double as exhaust. I am deciding between a lot of options, but am leaning towards the Cooler Master Nepton 120XL. I actually have this fan unplugged at the moment, as I don't need the additional airflow right now, and that fan is much louder than the included NZXT fans.
What I think of the build a month later
I really like it, with a few exceptions.
Motherboard - Still think this is a great motherboard. Looks great, is Z97, has all the features I need. Only thing I think I would improve is the BIOS. It is clearly not as polished as ASUS/MSI/Gigabyte. But I guess thats a "get what you pay for" kind of thing.'
CPU - Its great as expected. I expected nothing but top of the line performance in every application. And that's exactly what I got!
RAM - Its RAM. It works. I overpayed for it 
. At least it looks nice.
GPU - Like I said, I really love the Strix. I think it's a great card and I love how silent it is. I think it's definately one of the best 970s, albeit it is a really bad overclocker. However, I would take silence over overclockability any day.
Case - Like I said in the beginning, I fell in love with this case when I first saw it. However, now that I am exploring aftermarket cooling I really wish it had better watercooling support. I am really dissapointed that this case does not support ANY top-mounted radiators. Even if it did, there isnt 2 120/140mm fan mounts! This is rediculous in my opinion. Even the most budget-oriented cases have 2 120mm fan mounts at the top. This leaves me 240/280mm rad mounts in the front as intakes - really don't want a radiator as an intake, and a single 120mm in the back. Very limited. I also kind of wish I had an ODD sometimes. I haven't needed one yet but it would really be good to have that as an option in the future.
Power Supply - I really like this power supply. Although it doesn't have a passive feature, it stays really quiet all the time and doesn't even kick out slightly warm air. However, the 12v ripple proved to be a bit of an issue, as I don't doubt that is why I had such bad coil whine with both Zotac 970s, and (to a MUCH lesser degree) the ASUS 970.
Future Upgrades
First and foremost, I need to get a better CPU cooler. I want to get an AIO watercooler because I really don't like the look of the 212 EVO, and I don't have LP memory to fit a larger air cooler. I have been eyeing the Cooler Master Nepton 120XL, but have been considering a number of different options. Any suggestions are appreciated on this matter.
I may end up changing out the two front fans and top fan for 140mm fans, but I am still looking into that. Not a big priority.
That is the end! I am going to reserve the next 2 posts for future upgrades and mods!