Gaming PC with Watercooling (High-End)

rwiera

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Nov 7, 2011
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18,510
Hello Community,

I'm planning on building a high end gaming pc with watercooling. I've been looking at Puget and Digitalstorm and was really impressed with the cryo-tec, however, the prices are just unjustifiable.
The last pc I built was in 2008 but had to sell it very quickly due to a move. But I never had the chance to play around with water cooling so far.
I intend on doing heavy gaming with overclocked parts and video editing.
I would prefer an Intel cpu and the gpu should be Nvidia and preferably come with water cooling block. Casing should also support WC and should be spacious. I would really like a motherboard with lots of room, usb 3.0 support and good OC option. For HD, I really want to try SSD, but I’m not quite sure if raid 0 is necessary. My limit is 3500$.

What parts do you recommend?
Is a SLI setup good? Do games take advantage of two cards?
How about SSD? Raid 0 overkill?
How much ram and at what level of mhz?
What WC parts should I get to have very good cooling but not too much noise? How many radiators would I need to cool cpu, gpu, northbridge? Is there a good unit to track flow, temperatures and other related things which also looks cool and is easy to use? Is a TEC-Peltier arrangement too complicated?

Thanks!

 

cdpink1

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Nov 7, 2011
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18,510
heya

By no means am I an expert however I am in the process of building a new gaming PC as well and wanted to jump into this thread. I have built a gaming PC before (2005) but I am itching for a new build. I will be using my old GPU's for now (2x nVidia GeForce 8800GTS w/SLI), but everything else will be new.

I am really liking the Thermaltake Level 10 GT Case, its seems to have lots of room even with its liquid cooling system added.

I am also looking at going RAID 5 with 4 1TB HHDs and a dedicated 120GB SSD for the OS and some applications.

An Intel Core i7-950 3.06 GHz Quad Core Processor, sitting in a GIGABYTE G1.Assassin Intel X58 LGA1366 Motherboard.

I would be interested in hearing what your looking at, what you think of my components as well as other outside comments and recommendations.




 

rwiera

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Nov 7, 2011
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18,510
Wow, we got a lot of help here!!! Everybody is so helpfull...
Nevermind.

I think that your motherboard is kick ass but you could easily go for a i5 2500k or wait for the new sandbride-e's. Your raid setups sounds nice. The case your looking at is a bit ugly but seems to be really big, but the watercooling system in it will only be enough for the cpu as far as I know.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator


1366 is pretty out of date at this point - especially with X79 motherboards not even a mere few days away.

You definitely want an SB processor, with upgradability to Ivy Bridge later next year.

And wait for the prices to drop on HDs before splurging on a RAID 5 setup - that will cost you big time right now.

If you want liquid cooling, go with a Corsair Carbide 500R and a Corsair H100 - that is one of the best closed block loop setups you can get right now.
 

Emelth

Distinguished
Upgrade whatever you want (BR player, SSD, HDD, get another GPU etc..)

Corsair Graphite Series 600T CC600TM Mid-Tower Gaming Case - $160.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139007

Intel Core i7-2700K Sandy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) - $370.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115095

ASRock Z68 PROFESSIONAL GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 - $255.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157263

CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler - $120.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181017

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM - $160.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

Crucial M4 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - $208.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 - $45.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

MSI N580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB - $500.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127567

ASUS 24X DVD Burner - $20.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE - $176.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171049

Total: $2014.00
 

jorunder

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Feb 12, 2012
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18,510
Nonono. Go to digitalstorm and get the cryogenic tec. The sli is only helpful when you feel that your graphics are getting to crappy. And don't get any hard drives. Get the ssd. Straight up ssd.

my build
Rampage 4 extreme
I7 3960x
peltier assisted water cooling(I didn't know about digitalstorm until I did the modding lol)
4 radeon 7970 video cards
8 ocz deneva 2c 120 Gb slc ssds in raid zero
Adaptec 6805 raid card
level 10 gt modded with a silverstone top, front and bottom bezel glued to the case
Blue ray burner
64 Gb of crucial ballistix 1600 ddr3 ram
Total cost≈16000 dollars