Testing the water

[Million]

Hi all,
I've got a couple of things going on at the moment. First is fixing my current setup and probably moving it into an mATX case. It's in the tab on the left. Basically I bricked the mobo during a BIOS update, so now I'm looking at a mATX S775 mobo to put all the kit on, and an mATX case to shoe-horn it into. I've been looking at the Fractal Design Arc Mini, probably with a slim 240mm rad up top hooked up to the GPU and a single bay res/pump combi to save space. So shopping list will include:
mATX case - maybe Fractal Design Arc Mini mATX
mATX S775 mobo ideally with OCing headroom - maybe Asus P5G41T-M-LX Intel G41 775 Motherboard
Compact but effective CPU cooler
240mm slim rad - maybe Black Ice GTS-Lite 240 Radiator
Bay res/pump - maybe XSPC X20 single bay res/pump
DDR3 RAM - maybe 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 Classic, PC3-10666 (1333), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.50V

Then next part will probably have to wait. That is a new build based around an LGA 1155 i5 2500, on probably a Z77 based mobo, with perhaps a GTX570 (looking around the £200 mark). There is the complicating factor of Ivybridge approaching, and price drops in Sandybridge to be expected. I don't know much about how these changes will affect my build so any advice would be appreciated. I'm also looking at an SSD (~120GB) for OS and probably a 3TB HDD for storage. Shopping list:
ATX case - e.g. Coolermaster Elite 430 ATX
Z77 motherboard
Sandybridge CPU - e.g i5 2500K
CPU cooler
GTX570 or alternative
4GB RAM
SSD - e.g. OCZ Agility SATA III
HDD - e.g. Seagate Barracuda 3TB

I don't know whether to go straight in for the new build and cut out the cost of the middle exercise, sell the remaining working parts on classifieds, or whether to fix up the old rig and sell it on. Any opinions on cost effectiveness? Also how long to hold off for Ivybridge to cut the cost of sandybridge CPUs.

So, any hints and tips would be much appreciated!

[Million]

Yeesh, tough crowd

I ended up ordering the bits for the mATX build. I'll hold off on the S1155 setup til IB is released

[Pob255]

Sorry I missed this one

Asus P5G41T-M-LX Intel G41 775 Motherboard is not good for overclocking, options are hideously limited
However that's going to be the same for any G41 chipset, for overclocking you want the G45 ideally, however getting hold of one is another thing entirely.

If you want to go mATX and watercooling the mini-Arc is the case you want hands down, the top fan slots are actually offset so you don't need to worry about a slim rad
The issue would come from cpu cooler if you only loop up the gpu

EDIT: the Coolermaster Elite 430 ATX would be a step down from your current p180 or the mini-arc

[Million]

Hi Pob,
Thanks for the reply. Oops, too late, the motherboard arrived from SCAN yesterday, all plugged in now. Socket 775 mATX G45 motherboards seem as rare as hens' teeth from my quick Google session. Really happy with the Arc Mini though, great case, plenty of room for my cooling loop too, with a full size 240mm rad up top