Peripherals: Ah, right, I have a G500S and a monitor that will suffice for now.
I'll likely pick up a mechanical keyboard... I saw a review for the Razr Chroma and I'm in looove, but I'm not sure I want to spend that much.

CPU/Mobo: I'm pretty set on the 4790k. Also, there are Z97 mobos out there that are half the price, but looking at the reviews, it seems like such a crap-shoot. I feel like all these mobo manufacturers have really iffy QC. I'll need to really dig in more and compare features. But that Mark S is sturdy, has lots of inputs, room for fans, good air flow, and goddamn it looks pretty. Kind of sparks my idea for a black/white theme... that being the only white component

HDD: So you'd recommend bumping to the 500 gig EVO and a WD Blue or equivalent?
Not going to lie, I saw the Seagate issues YW posted in that other thread and got scared so I jumped on a solid product line from a different manufacturer I knew well.
Can I ask how big is your Windows install? Also, how feasible is it to swap games between harddrives? Like if you stopped playing BF3, could you just switch it to the standard drive?

PSU: I did have an 850 W PSU spec'd, but a buddy told me that might be unnecessary. I'll have to do some more research, but yeah, an 850 seems like the logical choice to me as well.

Optical Drive: This was another thing I was unsure with. Honestly, installing Windows was my key contributing factor for selecting this. Now that I said that out loud, here's a dumb question: What are my other options for installing the OS without a disk?