"Budget" High End system (~$3000)

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rs2k

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May 20, 2008
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I put together a "dream build." I then put in lower cost components that would basically do the same thing for me and ended up with the following build, what do you think? I'm hoping to get a 4.5 GHz overclock out of the following build. I also want to try 3D surround vision.

I was going to buy this all today since I had to wait until this year to make a purchase. Since Newegg is out of the BenQ monitors it looks like I have a little bit more time to tweak this build.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($204.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme6 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($144.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($45.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($409.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($409.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 620W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($93.98 @ Newegg)
Monitor: BenQ XL2420T 120Hz 24.0" Monitor ($398.98 @ Newegg)
Monitor: BenQ XL2420T 120Hz 24.0" Monitor ($398.98 @ Newegg)
Monitor: BenQ XL2420TX 120Hz 24.0" Monitor ($458.98 @ Newegg)
Keyboard: Das Keyboard Model S Professional Wired Standard Keyboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $3036.83
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-01 10:11 EST-0500)
 
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jonjonjon
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Some people love it, some people don't care. My first 3D game was the Sega master system back in the 80's. I've loved 3D games ever since then and am really excited rt o play games in high quality 3D. 🙂
 
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You can't really be competitive while playing multiplayer in 3D though. You end up spending too much time doing things like enjoying how the side of a building changes as you move instead of shooting the zombie coming out of it. It's a blast. 😀
 
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Seemed like you missed the Seasonic X750W Gold sale on newegg for 90 bucks yesterday for PSU. That Corsair HX 750W is nice and good choice on video card selection. While AMD HD 7970 has more bandwidth and perform better at such high resolution, their 3D support, on the other hand, needs a lot of improvement.

Going multi monitor is nice, but I must give you a head up. It may be bothersome in the beginning to ignore the 2 black lines in the middle of the monitors but over time you may get used to it. I too tried Nvidia Surround set up just couple weeks ago with 3 2560-1440 monitors (2 Asus PB278Q and 1 Samsung S27B970D). In the end I decided to return the 2 Asus monitors not because of the black lines between the monitors but because of the "stretched" images on the 2 peripheral monitors. No matter how I adjusted the FOV, the images on the 2 peripheral monitors remain too "stretched out" and I decided to just use 1 monitor for now.

Lastly, I do notice a significant performance drop going 3 monitors (7680-1440 resolution) using my overclocked GTX 670 SLI (both cards run at 1275 Mhz GPU and 7 Ghz memory) in BF3 at Ultra Settings with 0 MSAA. My fps stay around 30ish with the occasional dip to the 20s. Since you will be also using 120 Hz monitors set up, I reckon you will also need at least decent frame rate to render those 3D images, and even though your resolution (5700-1080) is a bit lower than mine but you probably need to run it at 120 fps to enjoy those 3D images and thus I would suggest something a bit more powerful than those 2 GTX 670.

At the moment there are only couple of choices that are more powerful than 2 heavily overclocked GTX 670, a pair of heavily overclocked Asus Matrix Platinum HD 7970 in cross fire or a pair of heavily overclocked GTX 680s in SLI. Both of those choices have its con and pro. The Asus Maxtrix Platinum is the more powerful of the 2 at this ultra resolution but AMD 3D support leaves a lot to be desired. The Nvidia GTX 680s solution while have superior 3D support but lacks performance at high resolution due to limited bandwidth potential. (Note that I say video card memory bandwidth, not the size of the VRAM itself)

It's up to you to decide which way to go, but I just want to give you a head up before you spend all those money.

 
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I am just fed up with $3000-$4000 computer having a little i5 CPU. If you have a large budget go with a i7 or even go with x79. I know a lot of people say that the i5 is better than the i7, but going with the i5 will be bottle-necking your computer. The same with your cheap motherboard. Go with the gigabyte g1. Sniper 3 or the ASUS Maximus V Formula. You WILL NOT regret going with nicer and better products in your build. If you tried you could redo your entire plan and go with a x79 build, that's what I did with my computer.

Now to the monitors. Running 3 3-D monitors with only 4GB of VRAM? That will put a whole lot of stress on your computer. The GeForce GTX 680 4GB on sli will fill in this gap. I have them in my build. I heard someplace that 4 gtx 680s can run 24 monitors, if that doesn't convince you...


Now please spend your money wisely and don't cheap out.
 
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To be honest, there's no point in buying an i7 for gaming since an i5-3570K will perform similar in any game and that's a fact. If you don't believe it then you clearly haven't done your homework. Premium expensive motherboards are even worse (gigabyte g1. Sniper ?? ASUS Maximus V Formula??), most of the extras are non-beneficial to a gaming optimized build. Most board at $150 will perform similar if they're using the same chipset.

4GB card could come in handy if OP wants to apply AA because 3x1080p will use a lot amount of VRAM and to game at triple 1080p, multi gpu is highly recommended.
 
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Using an i5 for gaming is not cheaping out, it is being smart. Anything more expensive than an i5 offers massively diminishing returns for gaming, same goes with ultra high end motherboards. Just because the budget is high doesn't mean he should just throw the money away.

If you're going with 3D surround, plenty of vRAM is a good idea though. 2GB would be your absolute bare minimum really, Ideally I'd get a pair of decent 3-4GB cards
 
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Exactly what I've been saying for a while now. +1 😉
 
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Thanks for all the input again. :)

I really thought hard about which processor to get. The 3570K, 3770K and the 3930K were all on my list. Money is not an issue, but I simply cannot rationalize going with the 3770K or the 3930K if I wasn't going to see any benefit. I have a Xeon E3-1230 server with 32 GB of RAM for when I need to bring in the big data processing guns, and when I do I usually let the process run overnight anyway.

This rig will be primarily used for business management, web design, system administration, simple virtualization (testing) and the "occasional" gaming session and 3D movie. I do nothing that requires heavy CPU multitasking on this particular machine. To be honest, the i5 is probably overkill, but I do run apps that are very single core intensive that I'm hoping will see improvements over my Phenom II X4 955 BE. I quite often max out 1 - 2 cores currently and I have only once maxed out all four cores when not doing a benchmark in over 3 years. That was while rendering a video. I will not need hyper threading. Heck, I doubt even my public server is taking advantage of the hyper threading. It gets a lot of traffic and spends its days sitting at 0.10 load.

As far as the monitors are concerned, I'm leaning towards the dual 4GB GTX 670's. If it wasn't for the fact new cards will be coming soon I'd probably get a GTX 690. I'll probably get 3 24 inch 1080p 120hz monitors. Nvidia can't do 3D at more than 1080p, and 1080p looks bad on a 27 inch screen. 24 inches is my limit for 1080p. My guess is that this limitation will change in the next year or two.
 
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I know what kind of gaming hes interested in he needs NV cards if it's the same kind a few of my friends are into also as far as monitor if you're looking for the best 3D monitor that will also play great in 2D, then you should choose between the BenQ XL2420T and the ASUS VG278H. Both incorporate nVidia's 3D Vision 2 with 3D LightBoost which greatly improves the overall 3D experience.

While the BenQ doesn't disappoint as far as specifications with a 2ms response time, 120Hz refresh rate, low input lag, and a great picture, The XL2420T comes with a lot of other features built-in to this monitor specifically for gamers including FPS Mode, RTS Mode, Intuitive OSD, S. Switch;Height Adjustment, and Game Mode Loader.

If you just want this monitor for the 2D technology, then you might want to consider its predecessor, XL2410T, which is significantly cheaper and has many of the same features as the XL2420T, but has nVidia 3D Vision rather than 3D Vision 2.
 
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That's an excellent article.

I think I'm going to get 2x refurb 2GB GTX 670s, 3x BenQ monitors now, and replace the cards with the new stuff that comes out in spring if I find them lacking. I don't think the gtx 690 is capable for doing exactly what I want and I don't want to buy two of them right now. I'd much rather spend $1000 - $2000 on a new card and not one already several months old. Since I'm going to compromise I might as ell stay cheap for the time being.
 
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Thanks for the info on the monitors. I think I'm going to get 3x BenQ XL2420T as soon as newegg gets them back in stock. I don't want to go with a 1080p 27 inch screen. I have a feeling in a few years 1080P will be old news anyway. I'd rather have a retina display than a large display.
 
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