Gaming rig

[sparky1x]

Hi been a long time lurker here, now 1st time poster. I have built a few systems over the years but this is the 1st time i will have the budget to build a serious gaming rig. Any advice you could give would be great.

Purchase Date: next week

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Budget Range: $3000 AUD

System Usage From Most to Least Important: Gaming, Web Surfing, Movies.

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, monitor(23") HDD, OS, speakers.

Prefered Website For Parts: www.MSY.com.au

Overclocking: Mabey when its a few years old

Sli/Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: one 1600x1050 (23") and one 1920x1080 (27")

Additional Comments: 2 monitor setup, plan to use my old video card (Nvidia 8800 GTX) to power my existing 23" monitor and use it for email, wiki, social networking etc while gaming. 2 new video cards connected with crosfire to power the main 27" monitor.

So here is what im looking at based on research (ie. lots of lurking) so far.

CPU: i5-2500K
Motherboard: ASUS Z68 Maximus IV Extreme (one of the few boards i can get where the 3rd video card wont run at x1)
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower 1500w (not purchased from MSY, about $400 AUD)
Case: Thermaltake LVL 10 GT (yep its excessive but i love the look and those bays for hard drives)
Ram: 2 x 8G solids (probably 1600 or faster)
Video Cards: ATI 6970 x 2 (plus my old card for the 2nd monitor)
Monitor: ASUS VK278Q (27")

So any thoughts or sugestions? What brand of Ram do people recomend? also what brand of video card? I have access to PowerColor / HIS / Gigabyte / ASUS.

Also im worried about cooling, this thing will run HOT with 3 video cards. I have never used water cooling before, i know the case i have chosen is set up for it. Im after any advice about that as well. Thx

 

[Taylor422]

I don't think you need that much of a power supply.

 

[gmcizzle]

That PSU is excessive even with 3 graphics cards. This should be plenty enough power: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139034&Tpk=corsair%201050w

That board is nice since it runs 16x/16x/8x giving you max bandwidth on the 2 6970s and 8x on the 8800gtx. However, you may have a hard time fitting the 3rd one in there comfortably without suffocating your second 6970, but on second thought it should be OK as long as you don't get a 6970 with a huge cooler on it.

Which RAM is that exactly? 8gb sticks are extremely expensive, I would go with 2x 4gb for now as that is still plenty enough.

As for the GPU brand, ASUS, Sapphire, XFX, and Gigabyte are all fine, not sure about HIS or PowerColor though but they should be decent as well.

 

[sparky1x]

Yeah that PSU is overkill, i guess its just an over reaction, i have fried a good graphics card in the past because my PSU was not up to the job. Im also an electrician by trade and have seen the effects of people over taxing power supplies / transformers in all sorts of things. A small one however will be nicer on the budget. The annoying thing is i cant find a case that will take 2 PSU's I have a really nice thermaltake 500w PSU and would happily buy a second and run the 2.

 

[gmcizzle]

Not many cases really fit 2, you would probably have to get a super tower to fit 2. I would just stick with one honestly.