3-4k build - heavy gaming.

[Googley]

Approximate Purchase Date: The end of this week.

Budget Range:3-4k

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Video Editing, Surfing.

Parts Not Required: Don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg

Parts Preferences: Full tower case, intel CPU and Nvidia graphics.

Overclocking: Maybe (Depends on the parts)

SLI or Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I do not mind the noise or anything, I want a fast, efficient and high-end computer.

 

[AdrianPerry]

You shouldn't need to spend anywhere near 3-4k to get a high end gaming build.

ASRock Extreme7 GEN3 motherboard
$290 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157269&Tpk=extreme7
GTX 580 x2 (SLI)
$470 ($940) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130587
Intel i7-2600k CPU
$314 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070
SamsungSpinPoint F3 1TB HDD (buy more of these if you need more space)
$60 each http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=spinpoint%20f3
120GB SSD (Crucial M4 or Corsair Force GT recommended)
$195 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442
1000w PSU (Corsair, XFX, SeaSonic, Antec recommended)
$180 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341045
Full tower Case of your choice
8GB 1600MHz RAM (Corsair or G.Skill are popular choices)
$52 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
CPU Cooler - Hyper 212 EVO (budget choice) or Corsair H100 (if you want something a little "different")
$35 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099&Tpk=hyper%20evo
$120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181017
CD/DVD/BluRay Drive

Total: somewhere just under $2500

 

[rvilkman]

Like Adrian said, the above pretty much maxes out anything at 1920x1080, it actually pretty much does the same thing at 2560x1600.

For case arguably the best case out there for cooling and looks ( in my opinion anyway ) Silverstone Fortress FT02. ~$250
Sure it costs a bunch but it also has pretty much the best cooling setup around. It does however prefer an air cooler since it would be impossible to install H100 in it
Noctual NH-D14 works great though ~$80.

 

[Googley]

Thanks guys, I like all of the ideas, although i wanted a bit more ram (Might just buy a few more sticks) I am still tossing about the case though, I want the best case I can get but as rviikman said, It's one of the best cases but cant install water-cooling. Any idea's on another case?

 

[AdrianPerry]

Chances are you will never use more than 4GB out of the 8GB installed, if you really want more (for whatever reason) just buy 2 of the kits I listed above. Id recommend buying ONE kit first though, check your RAM usage, if its somehow using over 7GB, then add another 2x4GB sticks in.

Case: Corsair 800D, Thermaltake Chaser MK-I

 

[AdrianPerry]

You could get a custom built pc from murderbox for that price if just for gaming lol :/

Nah you need to have a budget of more like $10k+ to get something sweet from them

QUOTE;' "A well appointed murderbox with a single liquid cooling loop, GPU and a few drives typically comes in around the $7,000USD mark while something on the level of Daniel's 008 build is in the neighborhood of 2-3x that. Every murderbox is executed to perfection – it really comes down to degrees of 'ultimate,'" the company adds'

 

[rvilkman]

Also Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced and Cooler Master HAF X/942 for cases. Great airflow, lots of space.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Also Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced and Cooler Master HAF X/942 for cases. Great airflow, lots of space.

Eww @ HAF X

Corsair 650D

 

[rvilkman]

The corsair 800D and 650D just have crappy airflow, they do look nice though, and have amazing cable management options.

Corsair 500R might be worth a look too if available.

 

[ariscov]

I have a HAF X 942 and i absolutely LOVE it. Quite a fantastic case.

But i mean if you really have all that money to spend... My friend has a corsair obsidian and it is really really nice. Not so much bling bling but its very well made. Great reviews Ive seen, and its what the newegg guy uses on his computer q:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139001

 

[Googley]

Hi guys, thanks for the information on the cases. I have decided to go with the corsair obsidian case, it looks very very sweet for the money.

After looking up on it, this case is huge. Doubt I will need to rethink the liquid cooling on this one.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Hyper 212 EVO is a great budget cooler
Noctua NH D-14 is one of the best air coolers
and
Corsair H100 is a nice closed-loop water-cooling solution.

The choice you make really depends how much you want to push an over-clock on your CPU.

212 EVO will perform great to 4.5GHz+
Noctua will perform great to 4.7GHz+
H100 will perform 4.8GHz+

 

[Googley]

Might get the h100 just to be safe.

It does look like an awesome build, I plan to have this completed before skyrim is out

 

[eagleblueline]

I'm sorry, but I think I should jump in. You are spending this much and building this system to play Skyrim out of all games? If those are the main games you play then please save yourself some money for possible future upgrades!

 

[AdrianPerry]

I'm sorry, but I think I should jump in. You are spending this much and building this system to play Skyrim out of all games? If those are the main games you play then please save yourself some money for possible future upgrades!

True to be honest.

The proposed build so far is absolute overkill for Skyrim. SLI 580's are going to max absolutely everything with very high FPS. If SKYRIM is your main goal, then something like a single 6970 would be fine.

 

[AdrianPerry]

You know what might be a better idea, buy a single 6970, and grab yourself a nice multi monitor set up. x3 22" or 24" monitors. You can always add a second 6970 if you need the performance and a sweet multi monitor set up will provide greater entertainment than running games at 100+ fps with SLI 580s

 

[mjmjpfaff]

@OP- why dont you get 2 more 1080p monitors? then get 2 580 3gb's.

 

[AdrianPerry]

@OP- why dont you get 2 more 1080p monitors? then get 2 580 3gb's.

Surely 3GB versions wouldn't be necessary running SLI anyway? 1.5GB per card should be more than enough performance on 3 monitors?

 

[rvilkman]

It has been shown that in some cases the framebuffer size does make a difference.
So when going for 3x 1080p it can be an issue, especially with AA.

 

[mjmjpfaff]

It has been shown that in some cases the framebuffer size does make a difference.
So when going for 3x 1080p it can be an issue, especially with AA.

exactly. 1.5gb's isnt enough if going with aa.

 

[NirXY]

1. it doesn't matter if you have 2x1.5GB cards, it still counts as if you have 1.5GB total VRAM, for resolutions above 1920x1080 go for 3GB Cards.
2. 2x4GB RAM Sticks is the sweet spot, 4 sticks will decrease performance since it hogs the Internal Memory controller, and 8GB sticks aren't as fast as the 4GB ones.

 

[spentshells]

Sometimes I wish had these problems, what do I spend my 4 grand on, Enjoy !

 

[Googley]

It's not just for skyrim, I have many games I am planning to install, however skyrim is the closest game to me finishing this computer date...

I have looked into the 3 monitor thing, I do not like it as much. Im not sure why I just feel like I wont like it and there is no need.

 

[yumri]

Approximate Purchase Date: The end of this week.

Budget Range:3-4k

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Video Editing, Surfing.

Parts Not Required: Don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg

Parts Preferences: Full tower case, intel CPU and Nvidia graphics.

Overclocking: Maybe (Depends on the parts)

SLI or Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I do not mind the noise or anything, I want a fast, efficient and high-end computer.

so here is my build when i forget about a budget:
5x Rosewill 10" Serial ATA III Red Flat Cable w/ Locking Latch Support 6 Gbps, 3 Gbps, and 1.5 Gbps transfer rate Model RCA-RU-10-SA3-90-RD
3x HITACHI Deskstar H3IK30003272SW (0S03208) 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
2x LG Black Super Multi SATA WH12LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM
2x MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 3072MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
2x CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A2000C9
1x ZALMAN ZM-RC1000 TI Aluminum / ABS / Steel Fans
1x SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-222AL/BSBE LightScribe Support - OEM
1x Xigmatek Elysium Black CCC-HSA0DS-U01 All Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Super Tower Computer Case
1x Intel EXPI9402PTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Two Gigabit Copper Server Connections - OEM
1x EVGA P67 FTW 160-SB-E679-KR LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
1x Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K
1x OCZ RevoDrive 3 series RVD3-FHPX4-240G PCI-E 240GB PCI-Express 2.0 x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
1x Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card
1x Logitech Z506 75 watts RMS 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers
1x KINGWIN Lazer Gold Series LZG-1000 1000W ATX 12V v2.2 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
1x Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
1x NZXT HAVIK-140 CPU Cooler w. Dual 140mm Fans

For a sub-total of $4,231.76 before shipping and i think for right now this will be one of the fastest computer configurations you can have. It will also have a separate processor for everything in an attempt to eliminate sufficient bottleneck in the system which might be there other wise. It also comes with 2 free single 25GB 2x Blank blu-ray disks. The power supply is also capable to go farther and beyond what i have put into this config but the motherboard is not. The motherboard is fully utilized and cannot be made to go up any more without having to take off other pieces. But to max out the abilities of the motherboard i had to go a little over budget to $4,231.76 but it is probably worth it to have the best computer around which will be able to make the highest marks in gaming and everything else too for now and the next year too unless PCI-e x16 gen. 3 is able to be utilized quicker then all the other generations of it but i doubt that as technology does not move that fast and this build has a processor for everything including sound, video, and networking the 3 big things which drain on cpu time for computing the task at hand whatever that might be.

 

[yumri]

i do agree that getting a Tesla PhsyX card would be costly but unless he/she is going to be using the extra power of a dedicated industry card it is kinda super overkill while taking away the network and the sound card as a Tesla card is a dual slot card. I think having a sound processor and a network processor will be better then have a Tesla GPU added unless he/she is planning on doing heavy duty 3D rendering on a constant scale way over what games will need in the foreseeable future anyways. Don't get me wrong Tesla cards are great for in a sever just he/she said he/she wanted a highest end gaming rig thus a Tesla card will not outstrip a sever network card on multiplayer performance as the sever network card will take the network burden off of the main system processor but the Tesla card will only take the Phsyx and/or some other graphics load off of the other 2 GeForce 580s. Also having a sound card will allow the system to put out better sound will less CPU time taken up. The system build i put forth is for a minimalist which wants to be able to upgrade any part at any time depending on what goes out of date and when but even though the network card is already not the fastest i am assuming he is on a Ethernet network and not a Infiniband network in which case i would have put in a Infiniband network card and the network speeds would be around 40 times faster in bandwidth not taking overhead into account. Having all the parts having a dedicated processor will reduce the amount of time needed for the system processor to work and better performance all around and more upgradeable paths in the future.