obobskivich wrote:

I wouldn't touch a 780 at this point - despite being a generation old retailers will still happily charge you near $1k for them, and the performance just isn't there. 😠 I wouldn't regard the 780 as a "power saving" device either. 😊 Also, what's wrong with GTX 750 not having a power connector? It doesn't need it, so there's no danger. Other nVidia cards I'd look at would be the GTX 970 and 660. 😀

You may also consider the AMD R9 280 and 290 series - the prices have come down dramatically in recent months, with the top-dog 290X sitting at around $350 (and it's still the same card that will run right up there with GTX Titan, 780 Ti, etc). 😎

970 is what I meant - sorry, typo.
There's a whining problem with the ACX 1.0 cooler - but it's fixed with rev 2.0. At idle, it's power consumption isn't much greater than the 750. I've read about random BSOD with the 750 and wonder if it's something with the PCIe power limitation - maybe in certain games?

With other projects going on and Cyber Monday coming up - I'm just going to wait and see what deals come up.

I kind of got the nVidia/Intel itch this time around 😀

I doubt its power related - the 750 is well under 75W. Its likely BIOS incompatibility with old boards, or who knows - could just be some unlucky/incompetent users. You'd really need more info to make a determination.

I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to weigh in with their advice and help answer my questions. You rock!
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Over a year in the making but worth the wait. I couldn't be happier!
Everything said and done, cost was about $1,000.

Final Build Specs:
ASRock Z75 Pro3 1155
XEON E3-1230 V2 (BX80637E31230V2)
MSI NVIDIA 970 GTX Gaming 4G
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB PC3-12800 (BLS2KIT4G3D1609DS1S00)
Samsung 840 EVO 500GB (MZ-7TE500BW)
Cooler Master HAF 912 (RC-912-KKN1)

Does that chipset takes Xeons? 😕

Yes, system's rock solid over a wk now.

Z75 Pro3 - CPU Support List
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z75%20Pro3/?cat=CPU