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[Chirality]

Poasting with prices from newegg -

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
-$10.00 Instant
$89.99
$79.99


EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI
$699.98
($349.99 each)
2 (Why no 580's? For 5 to 7 more FPS it's not worth 300 dollars. EVGA makes the best video cards and the lifetime warranty wins over any serious enthusiast)


CORSAIR Professional Series HX850 (CMPSU-850HX) 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular
-$26.00 Instant
$20.00 Mail-in Rebate Card
$189.99
$163.99


G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory
$159.98
($79.99 each)
2 (16Gigs basically)

ASRock Z68 PROFESSIONAL GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
-$35.00 Instant
$269.99
$234.99
(Compared to the 279 dollar ASROCK Extreme 7 Gen3, this board has one more PCi 3.0 slots and is cheaper! It's still Ivy bridge ready. Great motherboard.)

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
$219.99
(If you want to waste another 100 dollars so you can do hyperthreading get the 2600k, I'll do graphic design and video editing on my mac)

Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler
$85.87
(Holy Force - watch a video on this thing... it's MASSIVE. Yes, I'm going to go air cooling for the time being. Water cooling is nice but if you know what you're doing - not needed)

LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Disc Reader SATA Model iHOS104-08
$64.99


Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$249.99
(Crucial makes the best SSD in the world, do your research. It's expensive but you get what you pay for when it comes to this technology.)

This setup is designed for three monitor gaming, and is really strong while not totally breaking the bank.

I'm using the Silverstone Tj-07 as a case because I'm doing a custom paint job on it and it's wonderful in that regard as well as being one of the best cases you can buy. It's not cheap and it's massive (41 pounds alone).

 

[Chirality]

I'm changing the SSD to the Crucial M4, dropping to 8 gigs of ram, and changing the PSU to CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850.

 

[Chirality]

I'm now wondering if this http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z68%20Extreme7%20Gen3 is better because I'll be using two video cards (the NF200 is on this board, I don't think it's on the one above).

Some feedback would be appreciated.

 

[leandrodafontoura]

Only get 8GB memory. Get only 1 videocard, a $350 card is already awesome. You also dont need that of expensive motherboard. You are going with a discrete videocard, so why the Z68 chipset? Get a P67 mobo, its the same, but less expensive..(and no HDMI, but this isnt a HTPC, is it?). dont get the cooler also, stock from intel is already great.

With the money, get a larger SSD. By the way, Here is a $120/120GB SSD, half of the one you listed:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227739

Later....when games get more demanding, you may add a SLI card

 

[Chirality]

Originally I was going to go with EVGA GTX 580 x 2 way SLI but it's 300 dollars more. I might just get a AMD video card since Eyefinity is supposed to be better. I can spend 600 to 1000 dollars on video cards - thats why the mobo choices are there. I'm just floating on what will be better over the long term. I'm going to put an Ivy Bridge on these mobos - thats another reason I'm liking the ASRock ones.

 

[Chirality]

Looked at a few things... Leandroda, are you saying this would be better for me?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

ASRock P67 Gen 3, it's future proofed for Ivy Bridge and I read that P67 boards are better for overclocking.

 

[leandrodafontoura]

All p67 h67 z68 boards will acept ivy bridge, intel will keep the socket, I think the p67 solutuion is as ok as the z68, only a lot cheaper. You may even go for $100 boards

 

[BlackHawk91]

I have nothing against the WD black drive, but the Spinpoint F3 it's also a good option. There's no really need for 16 GB of ram, but if you want it, you could get 16 gigs for $120 @1600. The P67 Extreme4 Gen3 it's a great option. Finally, go for the crucial m4 ssd.

 

[mjmjpfaff]

keep with the hx850 it is a much better deal than the ax since it peaks at 91% efficiency (gold). ive heard the hx850 beats out the ax850 in few tests. i dont know which off of the top of my head though. save some money and get a faster hdd- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=spinpoint%20f3 . if you are going with a tri monitor setup get a card with more memory- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102918 . beats the 570 badly at higher resolutions. motherboard- get either the asrock z68 extreme3 gen3 if a usb3.0 header is not important to you but if it is get the p67 extreme4 gen3. +1 for the crucial m4 128gb

 

[Chirality]

keep with the hx850 it is a much better deal than the ax since it peaks at 91% efficiency (gold). ive heard the hx850 beats out the ax850 in few tests. i dont know which off of the top of my head though. save some money and get a faster hdd- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=spinpoint%20f3 . if you are going with a tri monitor setup get a card with more memory- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102918 . beats the 570 badly at higher resolutions. motherboard- get either the asrock z68 extreme3 gen3 if a usb3.0 header is not important to you but if it is get the p67 extreme4 gen3. +1 for the crucial m4 128gb

That HDD pales in comparison - the WD has a 64 cache. That Sapphire is nice - but heat is an issue in it, I'm going to go with 2 of these - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127575 , if you overclock them a little bit you got 6970's in a heartbeat. I'll look into that PSU review though , thanks

 

[mjmjpfaff]

That HDD pales in comparison - the WD has a 64 cache. That Sapphire is nice - but heat is an issue in it, I'm going to go with 2 of these - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127575 , if you overclock them a little bit you got 6970's in a heartbeat. I'll look into that PSU review though , thanks

even though the WD has a bigger cache it is slower overall. the 6950's you posted need to be clocked over 880mhz to get near the performance of the 6970 because the 6970 has shaders enabled that the 6950 2gb doesnt. even with that heatsink you will have a tough time getting that to 900mhz