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~$5,000 gaming PC

T

taion

n00b
Joined
Apr 2, 2010
Messages
34
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Mostly gaming. Some video watching and web browsing. Maybe live streaming as well.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$5,000 all inclusive, not firm. My goal is to be able to play current generation games on a 3 monitor setup at around 60 FPS at high-ish settings, but I'd prefer not to spend more than $5,000 or so if possible.
3) Where do you live?
New York City (Manhattan).
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Everything – CPU, RAM, motherboard, primary HD (SSD, probably), data HD, graphics card(s), monitors, PSU, case, and anything else I might be missing.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Just about nothing.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably not.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
I really want a 3-monitor setup, with 120 Hz monitors, probably Acer GD235s (though I am willing to be persuaded otherwise), though I don't plan on using the 3D stuff heavily.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next 2 or 3 months or so, hopefully. I'm lazy.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Nothing in particular, beyond what's needed to make everything else work. I imagine SLI or CF will be required to meet the performance level I want.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
No.
 
For a desktop, take a look at any of the $1500-$2000 Core i7/X58-based build threads that have been posted recently. Just about any setup that people have gone with recently would work for your needs now.

As for the OS: Windows 7 Home Premium. OEM. 64-bit.

In regards to the monitor, you may have to perform some research. People generally are very opinionated in regards to which monitors they believe are good/bad, but you still have to find something that you feel would meet your standards. You may even have to compromise a bit. (Not really -- there's no reason why the computer tower and all of its components should eat up half of your budget.)

Stupid question, but how soon would you like to start ordering everything?
 
I'd like to start as soon as possible, but I'm willing to wait up to 2 or 3 months if necessary, especially if there would be some sort of advantage in terms of significant new hardware releases.

The only requirement I have in terms of the monitor is that it be a 120 Hz monitor, although I'd strongly prefer a 3 monitor setup with Eyefinity or the NVIDIA equivalent. I was under the impression that the Acer GD235 and the Alienware OptX AW2310 were the only 1920x1080 or higher resolution 120 Hz LCDs out there, and there doesn't seem to be anything about the Alienware monitor that makes it worth an extra $100/screen to me.
 
Well, I'm wondering what I need to successfully drive three 120Hz monitors. Searching around the site a bit suggests that Eyefinity doesn't work properly with 120Hz screens. If that's the case, wouldn't I have to go with GeForce 480s? Is a single GeForce 480 enough to run something like Bad Company 2 on 5760x1080 at high? Otherwise, if I'm going with the 480s in SLI, and spending an extra $1,200 or so on just monitors besides, it seems like the total cost of the system will be somewhat expensive.
 
taion said:
Well, I'm wondering what I need to successfully drive three 120Hz monitors. Searching around the site a bit suggests that Eyefinity doesn't work properly with 120Hz screens. If that's the case, wouldn't I have to go with GeForce 480s? Is a single GeForce 480 enough to run something like Bad Company 2 on 5760x1080 at high? Otherwise, if I'm going with the 480s in SLI, and spending an extra $1,200 or so on just monitors besides, it seems like the total cost of the system will be somewhat expensive.
Click to expand...

Links showing Eyefinity not working with 120Hz screens please.

Also, there aren't any reviews AFAIK showing GTX 480 working with 3D Vision or whatever the Nvidia version of Eyefinity is called. With that said, even the HD 5870 struggles a bit with BC2 at 1920x1200 at high let alone 5760x1080. While yes the GTX 480 is faster, it's not that much faster. So a SLI setup or Crossfire would be ideal for 5760x1080.

However again, AFAIK, there aren't any reviews showing the Nvidia's version of Eyefinity working with either the GTX 480 or GTX 480 SLI or any video card for that matter.
 
I think you would be better off maybe xfire 5870's with a watercooled i7 and 6gb of quality ram. Even then your not going to hit $5k unless you really drop some cash on some nice SSD's. I would say raid0 intel 80gb x25g2, two or three 1tb samsung f3's/wd black's. A nice case, a nice arm for monitors and 3 nice monitors. Don't forget a nice speaker set up either, as well as a comfortable mouse, keyboard, chair and even a desk. With 5k you could make an entire nice gaming station. But tbh, your better off spending about $3500 on the PC and then buying a nice htpc setup with a nice 50"+ tv.
 
Shadowssong said:
I think you would be better off maybe xfire 5870's with a watercooled i7 and 6gb of quality ram. Even then your not going to hit $5k unless you really drop some cash on some nice SSD's. I would say raid0 intel 80gb x25g2, two or three 1tb samsung f3's/wd black's. A nice case, a nice arm for monitors and 3 nice monitors. Don't forget a nice speaker set up either, as well as a comfortable mouse, keyboard, chair and even a desk. With 5k you could make an entire nice gaming station. But tbh, your better off spending about $3500 on the PC and then buying a nice htpc setup with a nice 50"+ tv.
Click to expand...

^^^
This

The core i7, mobo with SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0, 6GB of RAM, 5870's in crossfire, and the 3 monitors will make up the bulk of the cost, and even then you'd only be at about 2000-2500 dollars. The rest of the components such as OS, hard drives, case, power supply, sound card, speakers, mouse, and keyboard aren't going to cost another 2500-3000 dollars.

If you already have a decent desk and chair, then not only could you build a quality HTPC as suggested, you could also get a decent laptop and quite possibly build a pretty solid file server with the rest of the money.
 
Danny Bui said:
Links showing Eyefinity not working with 120Hz screens please.
Click to expand...
Found it at
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035484043&postcount=28

Danny Bui said:
Also, there aren't any reviews AFAIK showing GTX 480 working with 3D Vision or whatever the Nvidia version of Eyefinity is called. With that said, even the HD 5870 struggles a bit with BC2 at 1920x1200 at high let alone 5760x1080. While yes the GTX 480 is faster, it's not that much faster. So a SLI setup or Crossfire would be ideal for 5760x1080.

However again, AFAIK, there aren't any reviews showing the Nvidia's version of Eyefinity working with either the GTX 480 or GTX 480 SLI or any video card for that matter.
Click to expand...
Heh, yeah, sorry, I guess this is a little premature. I should probably at least wait for the real 480 release and more information on the NVIDIA version of Eyefinity.
 
If he's probably not overclocking but can drop $5,000, he might as well get the i7 980X. That will last into the next generation of SSDs, GPUs, etc.

Dual 5870s is a good idea, or two 5970s for quad-GPU power, bumping up the "high-ish" settings at such a high resolution.

If you buy the 5970, you can open one up and try it, see if it is powerful enough.
 
I disagree with the recommendation for the Core i7 980X.

First, Extreme Edition processors are never worth their value, not even when you consider the fact that they are hand-picked and have unlocked CPU multipliers.

Additionally, few games are designed to take advantage of four CPU cores properly -- and this is the first six-core processor out in the market today.
 
staticlag said:
I spent $5K on a PC once, it wasn't too fun becoming obsolete in 6 months.
Click to expand...

Agreed. After the first year I started parting out and downsizing. First to go was the watercooling system. Spending $5k is fun, if you can do it on a regular basis. It's much better to get "older" components, save the premium on the latest tech, and just upgrade more regularly.
 
tiraides said:
I disagree with the recommendation for the Core i7 980X.

First, Extreme Edition processors are never worth their value, not even when you consider the fact that they are hand-picked and have unlocked CPU multipliers.

Additionally, few games are designed to take advantage of four CPU cores properly -- and this is the first six-core processor out in the market today.
Click to expand...

Okay without the standard i7 920 and overclocking to 3.4 or 3.6, what is there to do? I would do that but he says it will probably not have overclocking, but he wants high-ish performance over all the displays.

There's nothing wrong with the i7 900 line at stock, but the 980X is also within the budget. For an Eyefinity beast under $5000, that's my pick, and what could compare to the $1200 or so i7 920 rigs or 1156 ones. Right now there isn't a non-extreme hexacore that would work as well for gaming, maybe in 6 months.

I also bet the 980X will be more of a Q6600 than most Extreme Edition processors, lasting for quite some time, probably the length of X58's life. And I wouldn't laugh at anyone with a QX9770 from 2008, or question the power of that CPU for playing Metro 2033, AVP, etc.
 
singe_101 said:
Okay without the standard i7 920 and overclocking to 3.4 or 3.6, what is there to do? I would do that but he says it will probably not have overclocking, but he wants high-ish performance over all the displays.

There's nothing wrong with the i7 900 line at stock, but the 980X is also within the budget. For an Eyefinity beast under $5000, that's my pick, and what could compare to the $1200 or so i7 920 rigs or 1156 ones. Right now there isn't a non-extreme hexacore that would work as well for gaming, maybe in 6 months.

I also bet the 980X will be more of a Q6600 than most Extreme Edition processors, lasting for quite some time, probably the length of X58's life. And I wouldn't laugh at anyone with a QX9770 from 2008, or question the power of that CPU for playing Metro 2033, AVP, etc.
Click to expand...
Extreme Edition processors have historically been bad buys, as newer, better processors oftentimes arrived within a year's time that made them overpriced. Plus, most of today's games aren't optimized to properly use multiple CPU cores; the chances are great that you'll never use all six cores of the Core i7 980X while gaming.

The money one would save from not buying the Core i7 980X (over, say, the Core i7 950) would be better utilized elsewhere. You could buy a second SSD for a RAID 0 configuration or buy two or three good quality monitors that would probably last much longer than the computer system itself.
 
Danny Bui said:
Not spend the whole of $5000?
Click to expand...

"My goal is to be able to play current generation games on a 3 monitor setup at around 60 FPS at high-ish settings, but I'd prefer not to spend more than $5,000 or so if possible."

To me, reach the goal, and in this case overclocking is a "probably not." That's a lot of stock power needed unless there's a change. Is OC'ing really any danger on an i7 920 or 950? No. Has the savings in getting the 920 or 950 been stressed? No. Why is that the end destination other than frugality? The 980X performs better than its peers and should do even better in 6-12 months. The premium is incredible compared to the Phenom 965 at about 6 times the price, and also extreme against the i7 900s, that is for sure.

If someone wants the 55" XBR8 or a 60" Kuro, there are certainly other extravagant TVs, but they are legitimate purchases, especially compared to cars or homes.

If it's about savings and game competency then I agree, whittle away and maybe even switch to AMD. But why? The issue of making the $3500 PC build is more pertinent. And I don't want to harp on the Q6600, but it came out when no games used the 3rd and fourth cores, but still thrived and most were satisfied or thoroughly impressed with it for about $1000. Necessary? No. But then again, multiple monitors aren't, yet they are a key part of this recipe and should be entertaining.

There's nothing about liquid cooling, or reservations about dual cards, I won't get into that. There's nothing about a $3500 or $4500 rig being too expensive, I won't get into that.
 
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singe_101, you act as if the processor will be the bottleneck for this system. It won't be; in fact, an overclocked Core i7 920 or 930 (pushed to at least 3GHz) could easily mitigate any possible bottlenecking effect. Yes, the 980X has a higher stock speed, six CPU cores, and (with its unlocked multiplier) can potentially overclock higher than any other Core i7 processor available, but (IMO) it's not worth the $400+ premium over the 950 or 960. At stock speeds, for most games, you'd probably see no major performance difference between the 950, 960, 975, or 980X at stock speeds. It's only under heavy overclocking (to at least 4GHz) and while running resource-intensive software (especially software that's designed to utilize multiple CPU cores) that the 980X begins to stand out, but it's hard to justify the $1000+ price tag of the processor when the sub-$300 Core i7 920, at stock speeds, is capable of outperforming any Socket 775 Intel or all AMD processors in most tasks.

Danny and I share the same belief that you shouldn't spend money on a more expensive component when a cheaper part will work just as well. Simply put, there are cheaper alternatives to the 980X that will perform just as well for gaming. But the true benefit of the Socket 1366 platform (in regards to the OP's requirements) are more with the available PCI-E bandwidth for multi-GPU configurations than it is with the 980X's stock speeds, unlocked multiplier, or six CPU cores.
 
I'll try never build a system for anyone, but you'd wanna go with the i7980X

I7-980x - $1,100
Mobo: Evga Classified -$400
Heatsinks: H50 - $80 or Megahalems $65 or True Black RevC $60
Fans: 2x Noctua NF-P12 $19 each Or go with Gentle Typhoon 1850 $13.79 - Both fans are about the same price after shipping
SSD (OS Drive): Intel X25-M 160GB - $499
Video: 2x Diamond 5970(WHILE IN STOCK) $700 each or Sapphire Eyefinity 6 Cards $500 each
OR WAIT FOR FERMI TO BE AVAILABLE
PHYSX card: Overkill i know but if you wanted BFG 275 $255
PSU: Corsair HX1000 $235 or Enermax Evo 1250W$320
Memory: if you want 6gb go Gskill 1600 $170 if you want 12gb Corsair xms3 1600
 $370
Case: Corsair 800D $300
Storage: 2x in Raid 0 WD 1TB 7200 $100
OS: Win7 Home Premium OEM System Builders $100

I just threw this together. Obviously if you go with combos you can go MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper. that is just if you want

With just the most expensive parts price is: 5062 before rebates and taxes
With the cheaper parts : 4051.58
That is not counting monitor... Now a more reasonable build with combos:

OS: Win7 Home Premium OEM System Builders $100
Storage: 2x in Raid 0 WD 1TB 7200 $100
Case: Corsair 800D $300
CPU + Mem: I7-920 and G.Skill 6gb(3x2gb)1600 448.98
PSU: Silverstone ST85-F-p 850W $150 %100 Modular
Mobo + SSD: Gigabyte x58a-UD3r + Crucial 128GB SSD 605
HSF will be your choice along with video cards
Heatsinks: H50 - $80 or Megahalems $65 or True Black RevC $60
Fans: 2x Noctua NF-P12 $19 each Or go with Gentle Typhoon 1850 $13.79 - Both fans are about the same price after shipping
Video: Sapphire Eyefinity 6 Cards $500 each OR 2 MSI 5850's OC them to past 5870 perormance
OR WAIT FOR FERMI TO BE AVAILABLE

Price with H50 + 5850's is: 2,586.04 With shipping. Leaving you about 2,300 for monitors
Price with h50 + 5870's: 2,929.82 with shipping. Leaving alittle less for monitors but better video.

It will be a bit more with changing out the fans, but you can save if you go with a cheaper case, but most people are impressed with the 800D especially with higher end builds. Hope this helped a little.
 
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I would consider the possibility that you will never get satisfactory 3D 3x1 portrait Eyefinity. You need TN displays (which tend to be bad in portrait arrays) for 120hz, coordinating multiple monitors(imperfectly) with the LCD shutter is likely much harder than a single monitor, the drivers to do so are likely not written, reliably pushing 120fps at that high of a resolution is a stretch even in TriFire, etc, etc, etc.

Go with 3-5 IPS screens(ZR24w, ZR22w, or EA231WMi make sense), plus a larger 1080p 120hz screen. Just make sure that the latter is true 120hz - which you need for 3D. The television industry is fraudulently false-advertising most of their products, unfortunately - so if you buy something from them rather than a projector or a large-format monitor, make sure it's marked for 3D specifically.
 
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depraved said:
I'll try never build a system for anyone, but you'd wanna go with the i7980X
Click to expand...

Explain why YOU believe that the 980X is necessary for this build. You obviously ignored the explanation that I gave on why it isn't.
 
the 980x isn't useful at all, for his needs its a complete waste of money, but you know how some people are after reading these forums. They have a HUGE budget and they think they NEED the BEST for the BEST performance. Sorry should've said that.
 
I'd would also recommend against buying for 5k. However if you do, DualSLI-480GTX with the EVGA watercooling solution, gulftown, An intel SSD and 3x 27" Ultrasharp would be a must.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226096 <- two of these for 24gb ram total i think would be a wiser lasting investment, albeit a dumb expenditure

you may never find yourself going out of your way to use a ramdisk, but i suspect future versions of windows will only make better and better use of high quantities of memory

coupled with a 4x 500gb platter raid0 to get around 500mb/s throughput and a 500mb/s throughput ssd for os, this system would kick immense amounts of ass at a very heavy price, but still be smarter than going with fermi + hexcore :p

ram - 1200
hdds 4x 500gb platter - 220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227498 - 1020usd
5970 cf - 1400
any i7 1366 under 300
budget 360 for case + psu + hsf, leaving 500+ for monitors :p

this system would make me happy :p

note; it will not be difficult to make the above cheaper, i overbudgeted so shop around
 
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depraved said:
the 980x isn't useful at all, for his needs its a complete waste of money, but you know how some people are after reading these forums. They have a HUGE budget and they think they NEED the BEST for the BEST performance. Sorry should've said that.
Click to expand...

Actually I disagree because games continue to become more and more multi-threaded.
 
oh crap, forgot to leave room in the budget for a mobo xD

just put it all together with tinfoil, should work
 
Tentitive list of what I have in mind:

i7-980x already have that $1000
Asus Rampage III motherboard $500
12GB of what what's recommneded for above board $600
Enermax Galaxy 1200W PSU $320
3 GTX 480s $1500
Case? Haven't gotten that nailed down yet $500
One Velociraptor and 7200RPM HD $600
BD Burnner $300
3x 24 1920x1200 $1800

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$7120

Just a sketch of the $7000 budget I had so don't take it literally and I have no idea how mugh the Rampage III is going to cost right now but there's enough money in the budget to get this done.
 
heatlesssun said:
... One Velociraptor ...
Click to expand...
waste of money. any ssd would kill the access times on that drive, and an indilinx based ssd would kill both the access time and throughput.

Hels said:
I'd would also recommend against buying for 5k. However if you do, DualSLI-480GTX with the EVGA watercooling solution, gulftown, An intel SSD and 3x 27" Ultrasharp would be a must.
Click to expand...

just one?! :confused:
 
You guys are making my head hurt. Seriously... Extreme Edition processors? A 3x4GB kit? A $1,000 SSD? VelociRaptor?!? And only ONE person recommending a particular monitor that may or may not be good for gaming?

Stop. Seriously, just stop. There's no need to spend money just because the OP has about $5,000 he could spend on everything. Why don't we all focus on picking the monitors first, and then build a system around them?
 
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oh, i agree there's no reason to spend this much. but hey, if the money's there, i'm all about the throughput :p
 
@tiraides, i tried with my cheaper builds. I left out monitors because i'm not the best, nor is the system i built, but the cheaper ones are logical choices if you want to stay within a $5000 limit and add three monitors. Granted the three monitors would have to equal to around ~2000. I tried though.....
 
tiraides said:
singe_101, you act as if the processor will be the bottleneck for this system. It won't be; in fact, an overclocked Core i7 920 or 930 (pushed to at least 3GHz) could easily mitigate any possible bottlenecking effect. Yes, the 980X has a higher stock speed, six CPU cores, and (with its unlocked multiplier) can potentially overclock higher than any other Core i7 processor available, but (IMO) it's not worth the $400+ premium over the 950 or 960. At stock speeds, for most games, you'd probably see no major performance difference between the 950, 960, 975, or 980X at stock speeds. It's only under heavy overclocking (to at least 4GHz) and while running resource-intensive software (especially software that's designed to utilize multiple CPU cores) that the 980X begins to stand out, but it's hard to justify the $1000+ price tag of the processor when the sub-$300 Core i7 920, at stock speeds, is capable of outperforming any Socket 775 Intel or all AMD processors in most tasks.

Danny and I share the same belief that you shouldn't spend money on a more expensive component when a cheaper part will work just as well. Simply put, there are cheaper alternatives to the 980X that will perform just as well for gaming. But the true benefit of the Socket 1366 platform (in regards to the OP's requirements) are more with the available PCI-E bandwidth for multi-GPU configurations than it is with the 980X's stock speeds, unlocked multiplier, or six CPU cores.
Click to expand...

6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably not.

So unless the OP is wrong about what he wants, I picked the strongest processor. It's pretty ridiculous without overclocking. Others will likely suffice, processors are still ahead of GPUs at this level. Of course it is nice to get a 920 or 930, especially at MC (not sure about going from Manhattan), basically removing all price premium to the point of discount, and any build can certainly jump on that.

I would just use 60 Hz monitors or one monitor, overclock, etc. But my preferences don't disqualify other, expensive options.
 
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Let me be a little more clear about my goals. In order, they are

1) Achieve my desired performance goal.
2) Spend $5,000 or less.
3) Avoid overclocking.

So I'm fine with overclocking if otherwise I'd end up spending more than $5,000. And of course I'd be fine with spending less if I can get to what I want performance-wise.

In terms of displays, the 120 Hz aspect is the most important to me. At least one of the displays must be 120 Hz, and I figure that with a 3-monitor setup, it'd be easiest if all 3 monitors were the same model. What I am not clear on is whether Eyefinity works with 120 Hz screens (or with one screen running at 120 Hz and the other two running at 60 Hz), and what I would need in terms of graphics cards for that to work.
 
 
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Why is 2x 80 GB SSDs preferable to just getting one 160GB SSD? It doesn't look like there is much, if any, price premium for getting the 160GB X25-M.

What makes the Alienware monitors better?
 
I don't know where to begin, but begin we must....

taion said:
Let me be a little more clear about my goals. In order, they are

1) Achieve my desired performance goal. My goal is to be able to play current generation games on a 3 monitor setup at around 60 FPS at high-ish settings
2) Spend $5,000 or less.
3) Avoid overclocking.

So I'm fine with overclocking if otherwise I'd end up spending more than $5,000. And of course I'd be fine with spending less if I can get to what I want performance-wise.

In terms of displays, the 120 Hz aspect is the most important to me. At least one of the displays must be 120 Hz, and I figure that with a 3-monitor setup, it'd be easiest if all 3 monitors were the same model. What I am not clear on is whether Eyefinity works with 120 Hz screens (or with one screen running at 120 Hz and the other two running at 60 Hz), and what I would need in terms of graphics cards for that to work.
Click to expand...

The easiest way to meet your performance goal is with two high-end GPUs -- namely, the HD5870 in CrossFire mode, the dual-GPU HD5970, or the GTX 480 in SLI mode. You could buy a second HD5970 for quad-GPU CF, but some games won't recognize four GPU cores.

Here's ATI's Eyefinity page. From what I can tell, just about any ATI 5-series card is capable of running three monitors on its own provided that one of those monitors is connected to the DisplayPort. There are some additional limitations and caveats that are better explained by reviewing the aforementioned link.

singe_101 said:
So unless the OP is wrong about what he wants, I picked the strongest processor. It's pretty ridiculous without overclocking. Others will likely suffice, processors are still ahead of GPUs at this level. Of course it is nice to get a 920 or 930, especially at MC (not sure about going from Manhattan), basically removing all price premium to the point of discount, and any build can certainly jump on that.
Click to expand...

Good gravy... you might as well tell me that I don't know shit.

Here are some benchmarks from Guru3D, Techgage, Benchmark Reviews, Hardware Canucks, and TechSpot. The long story short is that, in terms of gaming performance, the 980X is not always the best choice available -- and in some gaming benchmarks, there's little noticeable difference between the 980X and cheaper options.

I personally believe that the 980X isn't worth the extra $400+ for a couple hundred megawatts increase and two additional CPU cores -- especially when there's no guarantee that those extra cores will be used while gaming.

taion said:
Why is 2x 80 GB SSDs preferable to just getting one 160GB SSD? It doesn't look like there is much, if any, price premium for getting the 160GB X25-M.
Click to expand...

Take a look at this page. The long story short is that two SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration have faster read and write speeds than even one Intel X25-M SSD. The catch is that if one SSD were to fail, you would lose all of your data on both drives. Plus, (someone correct me if I'm wrong, but) you can't use TRIM -- which aids in overwriting unused portions of the SSD -- with a RAID 0 configuration.

As to why the Alienware monitors are better, I can't tell you.
 
Nope, still no TRIM in RAID0, but with 160GB, you should have enough free space that you wouldn't need TRIM for a while, IMO. Hmm... I need to update my SSD page; it's missing some new links.
 
Thanks for your help.

My concern specifically with Eyefinity is that, by my understanding, all of the 120 Hz monitors on the market require using dual-link DVI to work in 120 Hz. Neither the Acer GD235HZ nor the Alienware OptX AW2310 support DisplayPort, and it's not clear to me from the Eyefinity site whether, if I were to have two AMD cards in CF, I could connect all three monitors using DVI. Alternatively, are there active DisplayPort adapters that work with 120 Hz monitors? If neither is possible, it looks like NVIDIA would be the only option.

Regarding the SSDs in RAID, I've seen the benchmarks showing improved performance, but it's not entirely clear to me that it makes a noticeable difference, versus a single SSD already being "fast enough", with the additional advantage of being a simpler setup with fewer points of failure. I'm okay with losing out on TRIM; longevity isn't a huge concern, and apparently the Intel SSDs are mostly fine even without TRIM anyway? But at the same time, if my primary use for the machine is going to be gaming, does it even matter? I do agree with you that the i7 980X seems excessive for my needs, and probably unnecessary period given the high premium, but does using SSDs in RAID 0 fall into the same category?
 
taion said:
... I do agree with you that the i7 980X seems excessive for my needs, and probably unnecessary period given the high premium, but does using SSDs in RAID 0 fall into the same category?
Click to expand...

For gaming, yes, but it'll speed everything else up nicely, just like the 980X. RAID0 isn't complicated at all, and whether you have a RAID0 array or not, its still a good idea to have a backup image of your OS partition. And as you said, they're about the same price and TRIM isn't much of a concern, so there really is no reason to go for a single X25-M 160GB over 2x X25-M 80GB drives in RAID0 -- especially if you're already pursuing ultimate speed.

OH WAIT! your games will install MUCH faster, since your sequential write speeds will increase twofold. ;) Hell, with a $5k budget, get two RealSSD's in RAID0 instead, lol.
 
tiraides said:
I don't know where to begin, but begin we must....



The easiest way to meet your performance goal is with two high-end GPUs -- namely, the HD5870 in CrossFire mode, the dual-GPU HD5970, or the GTX 480 in SLI mode. You could buy a second HD5970 for quad-GPU CF, but some games won't recognize four GPU cores.

Here's ATI's Eyefinity page. From what I can tell, just about any ATI 5-series card is capable of running three monitors on its own provided that one of those monitors is connected to the DisplayPort. There are some additional limitations and caveats that are better explained by reviewing the aforementioned link.



Good gravy... you might as well tell me that I don't know shit.

Here are some benchmarks from Guru3D, Techgage, Benchmark Reviews, Hardware Canucks, and TechSpot. The long story short is that, in terms of gaming performance, the 980X is not always the best choice available -- and in some gaming benchmarks, there's little noticeable difference between the 980X and cheaper options.

I personally believe that the 980X isn't worth the extra $400+ for a couple hundred megawatts increase and two additional CPU cores -- especially when there's no guarantee that those extra cores will be used while gaming.
Click to expand...

Are there minimum framerates? Are game benches the primary measure of a $3,000+ PC?

The 920 owns 1680x1050, I agree. All hail the king. But isn't this going towards 5760 x 1080 or 1200? The GPU(s) will bottleneck before the i7 900 line, but this even loaded with graphics power, the best RAM, SSDs, etc. for gaming the 930 will fit in. High performance, no large price premium, pretty much the deal of April 2010. But it won't be excessive.

I know from the 6-way 5870, Kyle lowered the settings. This will be three displays and two GPUs, it seems that is clear, so the settings will not have to be lowered as much.
 
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