Recommended PC specs for triple monitor, high settings gaming

[Billy Pilgrim]

Please excuse if there's already a thread on this (I've looked, but couldn't find it)

I've been console gaming for the last ten, or so, years, so I'm not totally clued up about PC gaming (specs etc.) yet. I've been reading up about PC gaming for triple monitors but it's not that simple to get comprehensive, and easily comprehensible, info on this.

I want to get a PC for triple-monitor gaming. I'd like to play triple A games (driving sims especially, e.g. Project CARS) on it.

Could someone please recommend me a set up (GPU, CPU, RAM and other issues I may be less aware of) so that I can play at high settings with a high (60 to 90 or more) framerate on three monitors?

My budget's not tight but, obviously, I'd rather not spend more than I have to (who wouldn't say that ). I'd be starting from scratch.

 

[AshyCFC]

If you want something to run on triple monitors at 1080p you're probably looking at SLI GTX 780s or Crossfire AMD 290s


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($244.30 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($159.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: Kingston Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($57.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($489.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($489.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 850W 80+ Silver Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($122.98 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($84.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1830.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-07 04:06 EST-0500)

Assumed you was American, If not say elsewhere and I'll produce a list.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

If you want something to run on triple monitors at 1080p you're probably looking at SLI GTX 780s or Crossfire AMD 290s......

Assumed you was American, If not say elsewhere and I'll produce a list.

That is great! Thanks a lot for that complete reply. I'm actually British, but live in France, so if I get parts shipped to me, those parts would be shipped from France or Britain, or elsewhere in Europe.

I've got a (stupid?) question. What does a person usually do about getting all those parts put together? Do you take them to a local PC shop / build it yourself (I'm pretty nifty with Lego, but...)?

 

[AshyCFC]

You can build them yourselve there's a ton of guide on toms such as this one: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/274745-31-step-step-guide-building

If you aren't confident in building you can contact a local part shop si vous parlez francais 😛

I'll trawl through the french part shops here on toms. (PCpartpicker doesn't do france but I'm sure there's french retailers on the part retailer list on toms)
Pcpartpicker can be done for Germany,Italy,Spain and the UK though.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

You can build them yourselve there's a ton of guide on toms such as this one: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/274745-31-step-step-guide-building

If you aren't confident in building you can contact a local part shop si vous parlez francais 😛

...

Yeah, I speak French, no worries. But I'll check out the step-by-step guides you linked to too.

Thank you for your excellent, and prompt, help!

 

[AshyCFC]

http://www.materiel.net/processeur-socket-1150/intel-core-i5-4670k-89290.html?promocode=17033 - i5 4670K (sadly no xeon's in france) - 206Euros

http://www.materiel.net/carte-mere-socket-1150/asus-z87-a-c2-96029.html - 118Euros Mobo

http://www.materiel.net/carte-graphique/msi-geforce-gtx-780-3-go-n780-tf-3gd5-oc-93943.html - 496Euros GPU x2

Sorry, this was as far as I could get without the site being rather dodgy for me. http://www.materiel.net/ - use it to try and find parts that I suggested as it seems to be the best value french part retailer.

As for the PSU any XFX,Seasonic,Antec and SELECT Corsair(TX,HX,AX) 850W will be fine.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

http://www.materiel.net/processeur-socket-1150/intel-core-i5-4670k-89290.html?promocode=17033 - i5 4670K (sadly no xeon's in france) - 206Euros

http://www.materiel.net/carte-mere-socket-1150/asus-z87-a-c2-96029.html - 118Euros Mobo

http://www.materiel.net/carte-graphique/msi-geforce-gtx-780-3-go-n780-tf-3gd5-oc-93943.html - 496Euros GPU x2

Thank you so much!

 

[AshyCFC]

No trouble. Feel free to post what parts you found here and I'll say if they're worth buying or not etc.

 

[Wrecklesss]

Are 2 gxt 780's really necessary? That is a huge dent in you wallet, and I was under the impression that the 780's 3gb of RAM was not as good as, say, the 770's 4gb option for multiple monitor setups. For the sake of arguement, we all know a single GTX780 is faster than a single GTX770...but how does each card's virtual memory come into play in regards to multiple monitors? (since a 780 w/ 3gb in SLI does not make 6gb)

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

Are 2 gxt 780's really necessary? That is a huge dent in you wallet, and I was under the impression that the 780's 3gb of RAM was not as good as, say, the 770's 4gb option for multiple monitor setups. For the sake of arguement, we all know a single GTX780 is faster than a single GTX770...but how does each card's virtual memory come into play in regards to multiple monitors? (since a 780 w/ 3gb in SLI does not make 6gb)

Thanks for your reply, Wreckless.
I wouldn't know if two GXT 780s was overdoing it. What I'm looking for is to play triple-A, graphics-intensive games at 70/80/90 fps (especially racing simulators), with some level of "future-proofing".
You reckon I'll get better results using two 770s at 4gb each than two 780s at 3gb each?

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

No trouble. Feel free to post what parts you found here and I'll say if they're worth buying or not etc.

I've run into a problem with the triple-monitor project: space! The problem is fitting the three monitors in the house in a way my loved one will find acceptable. I've figured a solution would be to keep the 46" Panasonic plasma TV I have and add two screens on either side (those screens would be best at 27" in portrait - an almost perfect fit, in fact). With the peripheral monitors in portrait, I guess that's a 4080 x 1080 resolution across the three monitors (1080 + 1920 + 1080 = 4080).

If you're wondering why it's best to keep a very large TV: it's because with the large TV screen, I can keep the TV against the wall; whereas with smaller monitors, they will need to be brought towards my face, thus imposing on the space in a difficult way).

So I'm hoping to use mismatched monitors. I've understood that you can use mismatched monitors with GPUs in SLI, but they have to have the same resolution, refresh rate, and sync polarity. I'm thinking this won't be possible for me as it's pretty much impossible to get info on what sync polarity a monitor has. And the plasma is reportedly 600hz - also hard to match.

How can I get around the same-resolution, refresh-rate, sync-polarity problem? Have you got an idea?

Is it to just use one GPU? That'd affect results badly. Wait for a GTX 780 ti 6gb?
Is there another way to achieve what I want?

 

[AshyCFC]

The GTX 780 Ti 6GB is called the GTX Titan Black 😛

I've never tried using 3 monitors that aren't the same so I can't really help there.
I've also read on some forums that it's possible to set the 600hz tv to 60hz or 120hz
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/509369/plasma-600-hz-maximum-windows-refresh-rate-

Same resolution? That's no trouble at all if it's a proper HDTV it is probably set to 1080p

Sync polarity I'll see if I can find anything for that.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

The GTX 780 Ti 6GB is called the GTX Titan Black 😛

I've never tried using 3 monitors that aren't the same so I can't really help there.
I've also read on some forums that it's possible to set the 600hz tv to 60hz or 120hz
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/509369/plasma-600-hz-maximum-windows-refresh-rate-

Same resolution? That's no trouble at all if it's a proper HDTV it is probably set to 1080p

Sync polarity I'll see if I can find anything for that.

Thanks, AshyCFC
The plasma is a 1080p full HD TV. I don't yet know if I can set it to 60. I'll have a look.

Thanks for the Titan Black info - I see it's for sale already. How do you reckon the Titan Black with 6gb compares to the two GTX 780 at 3gb in SLI for the set up I want to achieve?

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

The GTX 780 Ti 6GB is called the GTX Titan Black 😛

I've never tried using 3 monitors that aren't the same so I can't really help there.
I've also read on some forums that it's possible to set the 600hz tv to 60hz or 120hz
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/509369/plasma-600-hz-maximum-windows-refresh-rate-

Same resolution? That's no trouble at all if it's a proper HDTV it is probably set to 1080p

Sync polarity I'll see if I can find anything for that.

I'm posting the parts I'm likely to order for the build at one of my local pc shops. With prices for the curious.

If you can see something that's amiss, please let me know (I'm new to the pc gaming thing):

PSU ANTEC 850W ATX, €140 (or Cooler Master V series €180)
ASUS mobo Z87-PRO, €175
CPU I7-4770K - 3.5 GHz - LGA1150 8 MB, €295
Two GPUs = ASUS GTX 780-DC2OC - 3 GB, €940 (€470 each)
KINGSTON DDRAM3 - 8 Go (x2) 1600 Mhz PC3-12800 - HYPERX RED, €159 (that's 16Gb of RAM)
KINGSTON SSD V300 - 240G, €200
HDD 1Tb SATA - WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR BLUE, €69
COOLER MASTER HAF X942, €149
COOLER MASTER NEPTON 140XL, €89
DVD±R/RW - SATA, €30
WINDOWS 8 - 64BIT, €129
I'm hooking it up to three Benq XL2720T monitors at 120Hz. Does anyone know what cables are required for that? I read somewhere that you need to use the -maybe- DVI cable to get the benefit of the 120 Hz (I might be wrong about that). But I'm wondering how I hook up three screens from one gpu (I'm getting two gpus, but don't you link the monitors to just one gpu?) and there are only two DVI outputs on the GPU, I think.

Your views, opinions, experience will be most welcome...

EDIT: Another thing: Will this system be upgrade-able in say a year or two. I f I wanted to add two new GPUs?.

 

[MrTitanDrifter]

The GTX 780 Ti 6GB is called the GTX Titan Black 😛

I've never tried using 3 monitors that aren't the same so I can't really help there.
I've also read on some forums that it's possible to set the 600hz tv to 60hz or 120hz
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/509369/plasma-600-hz-maximum-windows-refresh-rate-

Same resolution? That's no trouble at all if it's a proper HDTV it is probably set to 1080p

Sync polarity I'll see if I can find anything for that.

I'm posting the parts I'm likely to order for the build at one of my local pc shops. With prices for the curious.

If you can see something that's amiss, please let me know (I'm new to the pc gaming thing):

PSU ANTEC 850W ATX, €140 (or Cooler Master V series €180)
ASUS mobo Z87-PRO, €175
CPU I7-4770K - 3.5 GHz - LGA1150 8 MB, €295
Two GPUs = ASUS GTX 780-DC2OC - 3 GB, €940 (€470 each)
KINGSTON DDRAM3 - 8 Go (x2) 1600 Mhz PC3-12800 - HYPERX RED, €159 (that's 16Gb of RAM)
KINGSTON SSD V300 - 240G, €200
HDD 1Tb SATA - WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR BLUE, €69
COOLER MASTER HAF X942, €149
COOLER MASTER NEPTON 140XL, €89
DVD±R/RW - SATA, €30
WINDOWS 8 - 64BIT, €129
I'm hooking it up to three Benq XL2720T monitors at 120Hz. Does anyone know what cables are required for that? I read somewhere that you need to use the -maybe- DVI cable to get the benefit of the 120 Hz (I might be wrong about that). But I'm wondering how I hook up three screens from one gpu (I'm getting two gpus, but don't you link the monitors to just one gpu?) and there are only two DVI outputs on the GPU, I think.

Your views, opinions, experience will be most welcome...

EDIT: Another thing: Will this system be upgrade-able in say a year or two. I f I wanted to add two new GPUs?.

awesome build im quite jealeous haha but you can stil hook them up what u may need to do is get a dvi to HDMI adapter if your gpu has a HDMI port whish it should, this way u have two dvi only cables and then one DVI to HDMI i have my triple monitor setup this way on one gtx770 at the moment. as well as in the futrue ffor the GPU yes you can pretty much always upgrade and considering your getttnig all new items you will be more then ok as far as compatability. id say only thing to think of changing for future would be if you plan to get the newest CPU's from intel that will be releasing soon. those im not sure but may need a new mother board due to chipset change if any. other then that, your build should provide you some awesoem gaming, i too am a sim racer i run AC rFactor and rFactor 2 and looking to get P.C.A.R.S once it releases. do you have yuour wheel and things all ready as well?