Building a PC - Let's Talk About Processors

[tokala]

@tokala -

Roger that on the case, totally whiffed on that one.

I will look at other FM2+ boards. As far as the 1150 board goes, I'm having difficulty fitting the i5 into my budget as it is (I'm over it at the moment in fact). Which chipsets should I be looking at for a good budget 1150 board?

Chipset type is pretty much irrelevant , given your requirements.
I would choose the board according to their connectivity options, and check the comments on a large retailer site or two to avoid a lemon.
An additional point, the i5-4590 is fairly new, and might not be supported by the BIOS/UEFI yet, so you should check the CPU compatibility lists on the manufacturers homepages.
Usually it should run anyway, but it might not if the BIOS/UEFI only starts up with whitelisted CPUs.

Your MSI B85M-P33 for example doesn't have an internal USB3 connector, and cannot make use of a USB3 front port on a case. And it has only one PCIex1 slot, so overall your options for future expansions are somewhat limited.

For even a bit less you could get a MSI B85M-P33, which has an internal USB3 connector, two additional external USB3 ports and an additional usable PCI slot.

The ASRock H81M I listed on the first page does have an internal USB3 connector, a free PCI and a free PCIex4 slot.
The PCIex4 is really rare in that price class, and gives you the option of using expansion cards that require high bandwidth. Something like this, for example, if you run out of usb3 and SATA ports a few years down the road.
And it's $65, not much more than those MSI boards.
$2 more, and you get another 2 sata ports and PCIe3 instead of 2 for the x16 slot (Asrock B85M)


The only realistic option of getting the i5 build down to $800 would be to go with Quintillus suggestion and start out with a single $40 4GB memory stick. It really doesn't hurt performance all that much, and only very few, and really new games will noticably benefit from 8GB. So it would be fine to get another 4GB a bit later.

If you can use those various rebate cards, it might get even a bit below $800

I had heard/read some very good things about the MSI branded cards, which is the only reason why I chose MSI in particular. How do I tell by looking at the card if the ventilation/fan is in the proper direction? Are there any brands you recommend over MSI?

Those open GPU coolers are pretty much standard these days, and for got reasons. The closed coolers tend to get awfully loud on mid-to high powered cards under load. The increase in case temperature isn't all that much for open cooling systems, and there aren't many components left on modern, highly integrated board/CPU combos that might fail prematurely due to elevated case temperature.

In any case, a 100W card like the 265 won't cause thermal issues, unless put into a very small and badly ventilated case. At the moment, a Sapphire with a decent cooling system is the cheapest 265 at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202096&cm_re=r7_265-_-14-202-096-_-Product

MSI has a nifty tool (MSI Afterburner) to tinker with your video card settings (over/undervolting and -clocking, adjusting fan speeds), but it works with most other cards, too.