Time flies! It's amazing how long it can take to get a new computer build tweaked just the way you want it.
Thanks to everyone's great advice, I've been enjoying my new build for long enough now that I felt it was time to comment on how it all went.
The Hardware
Everything went pretty smoothly putting it together. There was a bit of a scary moment when I wondered whether the Noctua CPU cooler would actually fit in the case. It's huge!
The only hardware regret I had was the case itself. The Cooler Master HAF 912 is fine, but it turns out there's a version of it that's the same price, but includes USB 3.0 ports in the front.
Noise
The computer is very quiet, as I'd hoped it would be, since I tried to pick quiet components. I wouldn't say it's impossible to tell a computer is on in the room, but you really need to close your eyes and concentrate to hear it.
Windows 8.1
I like it as much as one can like Windows, but only after installing Classic Shell.
Virtualization
Definitely loving it so far. For anyone that hasn't tried it, the best way I can describe it is it's kind of like running a portable app, except the app is a whole new machine.
It's great because you can just install these virtual machines (each with their own operating system), and mess around with them as much as you want, while leaving your 'real' or host operating system in a practically virgin state.
And then you can just sit there on your 'real' OS and toggle back and forth between all your virtual machines, as though they're just applications.
About the only downside to the virtual machines seems to be that you can't do anything that's really graphics intensive. So my host, or 'real' machine is used for games and movies, while the virtual machines are used for everything else.
Setting up the virtual machines in Windows 8.1 was pretty painless.
Things I still need to figure out...
Intel Rapid Start Technology - good? bad? similar functionality already built into Windows 8? Set it to [disabled] in the UEFI for now.
Hyper-V settings - NUMA spanning, good? bad? Left it on for now.
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