Overall the build looks well thought out with reasonable bang for the buck. Here are my own nitpicky choices for some of the items.
Consider this HSF artic cooling freezer i30, highly rated by hardocp as a low cost but high performing cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186058I use this HSF in my computer, which is the same artic cooling freezer i30 but with a fan rated for 24/7 operation. It is just $7 more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186085As others have also stated in other threads, consider seasonic power supplies and look for real reviews like the killer PSU reviews that hardocp does. I have never had a seasonic psu go bad, they are very quiet, and their modular ones are reasonably priced and help with cable management and decluttering the case for better cooling airflow. This is "only" 550w but is 80plus "gold" rated and has lots of good reviews and is reasonably priced:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151119This PSU is only 80 plus "bronze" rated but is 620w, for the same price, with tons of good reviews:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095Regarding memory, your system will run a bit faster with 2 memory sticks but if you get 2x4GB and later on want to upgrade then you may need to toss out both sticks if you have clearance problems with your cpu heatsink that prevent you using 4 sticks. Going with a single 8GB stick will slightly hurt performance but it makes it easier to upgrade to 16GB later on. Personally, I'd just go with 16GB (2x8GB) up front, and be done with it. I've had good luck with gskill, so I'd get something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231606I like corsair cases. If you are considering quality smaller cases with great airflow, look at this one (considered a "budget" case but with many more features than most in its price range), and read the review at hardocp:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139018http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/01/07/corsair_carbide_series_200r_compact_atx_case_review/#.UwOYYU2YZaQI have had great luck with western digital black drives and just had a Seagate drive fail a month ago, but I have no real hard data either way, just my own preference based on my own experiences. They had a sale of their 1TB western digital black drive for around $79 at newegg if you get their promo code from their ad mailer. I have also had good luck with running a 1TB western digital blue drive, and that's only $59.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339Consider a BD drive. They're only about $60 now for OEM versions without BD player software. You may only need it that one time, but if you don't have one when you need it then it'll be irritating when the price difference between a DVD burner and BD drive (which will still burn DVDs) is not very large.
I prefer windows 7 because I hate the UI for windows 8, but if you're ok with win8 then there is no reason to not use win8 that I know of.
