The shoebox is up and running! This was designed to be a portable/LAN gaming rig on a budget (<$1900k incl. all peripherals).
Specs:
CPU: i5 3570 (3.4ghz-3.8ghz)
MB: ASUS P8H77-I
RAM: Ripjaws 8gb (4gb x 2, 1600mhz)
GPU: Gigabyte GTX770 Windforce OC 4gb (1137mhz base, 1189mhz boost)
HDD: Samsung EVO 840 SSD 120gb, Seagate Barracuda 1TB x 2
PSU: Corsair HX650v2
Case: Cooler Master Elite 120 MITX
Monitor: ASUS PB278Q (27" 2560 x 1440 PLS)
Keyboard: Logitech G510S
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder 2013
I was curious to see how Gigabyte's bells and whistles 770 would go up against the mighty 780ti that Leigh had installed previously, in essentially the same system. Given nearly $400 difference between the two cards, I'm pretty happy with being ~2000 points shy at 9739, versus his original 3dmark11 of 11899. This is unclocked, so maybe we can pick up some of the slack with some card tampering...assuming Gigabyte left us enough headroom. Everything stayed very cool during the benchmark - surprisingly cool and quiet, in fact, for an MITX case - but it probably helps having 3 huge fans on your GPU. Two of these cards in SLI would be killer for the money (my exact intention when games get too much for the single card).
The 3dmark result isn't anything spectacular by gaming PC standards, but neither is the $$$$ spent, and this unit is a piece of piss to lug around (see pic below; it's literally just a heavy shoebox). The real test will come when I run up BF4 on 1440 - if she can do that with playable FPS, then I think we've built a little winner. Props to Leigh for helping out with the build.