5 Monitor Gaming Rig

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Killawattz

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May 16, 2013
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Hello, I built a PC in the past, but nothing this fancy. I'm trying to put together a 5 monitor setup high-end gaming rig.

I'm looking to do 3 x GTX 670's, 16 gb of ram, probably a 3.5ghz I5...

One 27" monitor (for one of the 670s), and four 22" monitors, 2 each for the other two 670's.

I did a custom build on cyber power, but after it was all said and done, the total came to over $4000...

I was told I could easily do this with about $2000...don't know if that is true.

Any advice is appreciated. Would be nice to do this without breaking the bank.
 
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The 3 GTX 670s would put you around $1200 alone, the monitors assuming they were $160 each (which is a super low assumption) would be about $800, the 16 GB of ram would be around $100 (again, assuming cheapest), i5 3.5 would be around $250, not to mention the mobo you would need, PSU, case, hard drive and cooling...

You should expect to drop at LEAST $3000 for this kind of setup and run it with any kind of success in games like BF3, CoD, etc.
 
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No you definitely cannot do a rig like this for $2K, you're looking at $2700 minimum. Maybe even more than that since dual Titans would be better for a five monitor setup.

You would have a budget like this:

Case: $150
PSU: $250 for 1050W or higher
Motherboard: $250
CPU: $300
RAM: $100
SSD: $150
HD: $70
Optical: $15
GPU: $1500 (or more)
Cooling: $300 (for full liquid CPU - GPU loop)
 
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I've considered the titans, however one of the monitors would be running a higher resolution than the others (the 27"), is it possible to run three screens on one card and one a higher resolution than the rest? This will be mostly used for playing EVE, one client at max settings for each monitor.

I understand GTX 670's are a bit overkill for that, but I wanted it to be a bit future proof, and in the future if I'm playing a very graphic intensive game, I could use a 3-way SLI to have the 670's work together for the one 27" monitor.

Also, I thought I could get away with simply air cooling, with enough fans and ventilation.
 
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Also, I've been told I would need an SSD drive because of the strain of all the information transfer from running 5 clients at once. On the cyberpower it mentions something about Intel Smartresponse technology, apparently it attaches a small SSD drive to the motherboard, which stores frequently used programs for a faster response time. Am I correct in this analysis?

Or should I just get an SSD drive and forget the smart response stuff, not sure if it's any good or not.
 
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I'm sorry if I'm not asking the right questions...I've looked all over the web, and there doesn't seem to be much information on what I'm trying to do.

I think I may just go all out and get three titans, one for the larger display, and the other two can handle the other four monitors (two each). I'm reading that SLI can have issues, and to be blunt about it, I'd rather just throw money at it than deal with the hassle.

Is it possible to run 3 titans without liquid cooling? I've been looking into cases with 230mm and 200mm fans. I won't be overclocking anything.
 
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Lol whats your budget

Would start with 3 monitors...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($124.99 @ Microcenter)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.19 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($399.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($399.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF XM (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 850W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 23.6" Monitor ($159.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 23.6" Monitor ($159.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 23.6" Monitor ($159.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $2272.04
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-17 10:50 EDT-0400)

I would wait for haswell

Cases
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-casw810w1
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-caph820g1
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-case-rc1200kkn1
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/fractal-design-case-fdcadefxlr2ti
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-phan001bk
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/inwin-case-gronegray


 
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PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XTdv
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XTdv/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XTdv/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($27.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus Maximus V Extreme EATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($376.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($239.99 @ Best Buy)
Storage: Intel 520 Series Cherryville 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($256.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX Titan 6GB Video Card (3-Way SLI) ($1019.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX Titan 6GB Video Card (3-Way SLI) ($1019.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX Titan 6GB Video Card (3-Way SLI) ($1019.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case ($169.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA Classified 1500W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($399.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B3ST/BLK/G/AS DVD/CD Writer ($27.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($134.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $4924.85
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-17 11:28 EDT-0400)


I have about a $6000 budget, above is what I have selected from newegg.
 
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Thank you for the build, but I'm pretty adamant about the 5 monitors. What is Haswell?
 
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It's a new line of CPUs that will be released by Intel (rumored) in Q4. As benchmarks would have it, they're supposedly a fairly large improvement from Ivy/SandyBridge. They're cooler, faster and most of all use a lot less power which allow for much better OC capabilities.

Also about that build you listed from Newegg, a $30 CPU cooler with no custom cooling for your Titans is not very smart. I would suggest getting a liquid cooling for both your GPU and CPU, although it'll probably run you quite a bit more in expenses. Not to mention, if not installed correctly, it could potentially ruin your entire computer.

3 Titans is also excessive to be honest, even for a 5 monitor set-up. You should do fine with 2, but then again it's your money.
 
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1200w would be enough
I would pick one of these power supplys:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/kingwin-power-supply-lzg1300
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/antec-power-supply-hcp1200
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seasonic-power-supply-x1250
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-ax1200i
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/enermax-power-supply-epm1200ewt


 
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Thanks for the info guys. I think I may be going a bit overkill, for what I'm doing. Trying to find a middle ground here. The more I look, I think I may be going for an AMD system instead. I've had them in the past, and had no issues.

Although Intel seems to be the higher performing of the two, I plan to use this system only for gaming and non-intensive school work. I don't think titans are really needed for that. I can get AMD's 7970, best card they have, for $450. I know the titan is a much better card, but is it really $600 better for what I'm going to use it for? I doubt it.

I've done some reading about the haswell, but honestly, I don't plan to overclock. I could not care less about power efficiency.

My main issue is I'm trying to get my head around this SLI/Crossfire stuff. My plan was to have 3 cards, two of the cards get 2 displays each, one card gets the larger display. However, everything I read that talks about multiple cards is only pertaining to SLI/Crossfire.

I don't think I want or need SLI/Crossfire, I just want the cards to work independently of one another to the displays they are connected to. Is this possible?
 
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So its not possible to have different GPU's for each display? How SHOULD I try to do this? Spinning my wheels here, lol. I thought SLI/Xfire was to make the GPU's work together, but I have no idea if this would work with multiple monitors and a different resolution.

I just want 5 displays, one 27", four 22", moderately intensive graphical games. The 27" would be running at an obviously higher resolution than the rest. How should I go about this then? I seem to be hitting a brick wall here.

What about cards like the radeon 5870, it has 6 displayports in one card. It's just hard for me to imagine that one single $200 card will be able to do what I'm looking for.


 
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Actually it is, most games, especially the one I want to play, has a "Fixed Window Mode", which scales the game to the resolution on the monitor, so it is, in fact, possible.
 
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