~$5,000 gaming PC

[Dangman]

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

Yes when it's a $3000 GAMING PC. Since gaming is pretty much the only major thing the OP is doing with this $3000 to $5000 PC, then yes game benches are the primary measure.

 

[singe_101]

Well what about power on to usable desktop, home theater capabilities assuming there isn't a separate system or PC*, obviously the three monitors and picking the right ones, temps, noise, and "wow" factor at this price range?

Eyefinity is already a feature that isn't on the usual 1920x1200 benchmarks (in favor of the 5770 over 4870, etc.), besides being a plus for, well, space and multiple windows.

*for the 55" flatscreen he can afford now with the "savings"

 

[Dangman]

Well what about power on to usable desktop, home theater capabilities assuming there isn't a separate system or PC*, obviously the three monitors and picking the right ones, temps, noise, and "wow" factor at this price range?

Let's see, we've covered that with SSDs, no mention whatsoever of using the PC as a HTPC, point taken about the monitors, he's not overclocking nor has he said anything about living in a particular hot place and considering the fact that most PC's run relatively cool with stock fan setups, hasn't mentioned anything about noise level, and not exactly sure what you mean by "wow" factor.

EDIT:

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.

Did a little bit of research and the only evidence I've been able to find so far regarding Eyefinity and 120Hz LCDs is that post you linked to earlier and an older one dating back to December 2009. So until I can find more info, it does look like you cannot run triple 120Hz LCD monitors in Eyefinity at 120Hz.. Nor can you can have mixed refresh rates (120Hz and other two running at 60Hz). However those two issues are mainly driver/software issues that might be fixed later on. So if you want to take your chances, go ahead and buy three 120Hz LCDs and hopefully there will be a driver update covering those issues,

Also, no info yet whether or not Nvidia Surround supports triple 120Hz LCD monitors at 120Hz.. Hell, not much info has come out about Nvidia Surround besides the website saying "(*Scheduled for April 2010)". Oh wait, it looks like you can't mix refresh rates either: "All displays must have the same resolution, refresh rate, and sync polarity"

 

[taion]

Well what about power on to usable desktop, home theater capabilities assuming there isn't a separate system or PC*, obviously the three monitors and picking the right ones, temps, noise, and "wow" factor at this price range?

Eyefinity is already a feature that isn't on the usual 1920x1200 benchmarks (in favor of the 5770 over 4870, etc.), besides being a plus for, well, space and multiple windows.

*for the 55" flatscreen he can afford now with the "savings"

I'm not going to be doing hardcore number crunching, or anything along those lines, if that's what you're suggesting. I imagine that a system sufficient for gaming will be sufficient for whatever modest productivity demands I put on it, if any.

And it's not like tiny Manhattan apartments have room for 55" screens anyway

EDIT:

Did a little bit of research and the only evidence I've been able to find so far regarding Eyefinity and 120Hz LCDs is that post you linked to earlier and an older one dating back to December 2009. So until I can find more info, it does look like you cannot run triple 120Hz LCD monitors in Eyefinity at 120Hz.. Nor can you can have mixed refresh rates (120Hz and other two running at 60Hz). However those two issues are mainly driver/software issues that might be fixed later on. So if you want to take your chances, go ahead and buy three 120Hz LCDs and hopefully there will be a driver update covering those issues,

Also, no info yet whether or not Nvidia Surround supports triple 120Hz LCD monitors at 120Hz.. Hell, not much info has come out about Nvidia Surround besides the website saying "(*Scheduled for April 2010)". Oh wait, it looks like you can't mix refresh rates either: "All displays must have the same resolution, refresh rate, and sync polarity"

I imagine that NVIDIA 3D Surround will work with 3x120 Hz monitors, since they are claiming that it will be possible to run all 3 in 3D. Hopefully this implies that it will be possible to run all 3 in 2D at 120 Hz as well. I guess I'm best off waiting to see more details and reports on 3D Vision Surround.

On second thought, the games for which I will be using all 3 screens are not likely to be the same ones for which I will care about running in 120 Hz, so it will probably be fine if I can't run Eyefinity at 120 Hz anyway, as long as I can switch to a mode where I am running at least one of the screens at 120 Hz and playing games on just that screen, when needed. I think I would still prefer identical (or at least matching) monitors just for aesthetics and convenience, though.

 

[Hels]

There are only currently 3 120hz monitors out there. Samsung 2233RZ, which is 22 inches and 1650x1050. Acer GD235HZ, a 23,6 1920x1080 and the aforementioned alienware.

Alien is the most expensive of those 3, it's a brand name and tom's hardware test of 120hz monitors showed it generally abit better than the acer. That's what I base my opinion on

http://anandtech.com/show/2977/nvid...tx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/9

Anandtech review of Fermi and sli (it's more comprehensive than hardocp). EVGA releases a watercooled edition soon after the launch and it looks to be a good idea with 480 SLI termals and noise.

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121040
1,2 KW should do, even with sli 480.

With case, look around and decide for yourself which you like, make sure it's roomy.

 

[Massacre215]

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.

If you are referring to putting the intel SSD's into a RAID 0 I would suggest you do a little bit of research regarding that. I know during my last build, I considered a RAID 0 for my SSD's, but there were trim issues with the SSD's and RAID 0. I know there were some SSD's coming out at the time of my build that supported trim, but I do not know how they perform or if they are reliable in that configuration yet. Best check up on that before RAID 0-ing Solid state drives.

 

[Massacre215]

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.

Oops sorry redundant post... Didnt read through the whole second page till after I posted.
Glad I wasnt the only person to catch the TRIM issue though

 

[engiNURD]

AnandTech addressed TRIM concerns in their latest SSD+RAID0 review of the X25-V:

The more random your access pattern is, the more you'll miss TRIM. Thankfully desktops don't spend too much of their time randomly writing data across the drive, but I'd say a good 30% of most desktop writes are random to an extent. Over time, these random writes will build up and bring down the overall performance of your RAID array until you either secure erase the drives or write sequentially to all available free space.
...
The more random your workload, the higher your write amplification (and thus the lower your performance, shorter your NAND lifespan). Increasing spare area can go a long way to reducing write amplification. While it can't eliminate it, it can definitely make a dent. If you're looking to keep performance as high as possible with a pair of X25-Vs in RAID, you can always allocate more NAND as spare area. Secure erase each drive, create your RAID array, and then create your partition on the drive smaller than max capacity (try 10 - 20% smaller). The unpartitioned space should automatically be used by the controller as spare area.

Intel X25-V in RAID-0: Faster than X25-M G2 for $250?

 

[Deleted member 201992]

I would overclock that monster

 

[tiraides]

taion, here's something else to consider:

$710 - Core i7 960 and G.Skill 3x2GB DDR3 1600 combo deal
$210 - Gigabyte GA-EX58A-UD3R
$499 - Intel X58-M SSDSA2MH160G2R5 160GB SSD
$90 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD
$22 - Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS SATA DVD Burner
$840 - Two XFX HD-587X-ZNFC HD5870 cards (at $420 each)
$160 - Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-1000 1000W PSU
$100 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit System Builders DVD
(Pick your own case)
===============
$2631 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates)

The above build list a compromise among the parts that you need (a dual-GPU setup, plus the board and PSU to handle them), the parts that I would normally recommend (relatively cheap board and RAM, combo deal on the processor and RAM), and some of the parts that others have chimed in on (high-speed processor, SSD+HDD combination). I didn't include a case as that's oftentimes as much a matter of personal tastes as it is about individual features. Just about any mid-tower or tower case recommended here would fit everything.

NewEgg's currently sold out on the HD5970 and the GTX 480 is in relatively short supply everywhere, so I went with dual HD5870 cards. Since you aren't overclocking, and you've given no indication of needing anything other than CF/SLI support, I chose a relatively cheap motherboard in the form of the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R.

 

[taion]

taion, here's something else to consider:

$710 - Core i7 960 and G.Skill 3x2GB DDR3 1600 combo deal
$210 - Gigabyte GA-EX58A-UD3R
$499 - Intel X58-M SSDSA2MH160G2R5 160GB SSD
$90 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD
$22 - Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS SATA DVD Burner
$840 - Two XFX HD-587X-ZNFC HD5870 cards (at $420 each)
$160 - Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-1000 1000W PSU
$100 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit System Builders DVD
(Pick your own case)
===============
$2631 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates)

The above build list a compromise among the parts that you need (a dual-GPU setup, plus the board and PSU to handle them), the parts that I would normally recommend (relatively cheap board and RAM, combo deal on the processor and RAM), and some of the parts that others have chimed in on (high-speed processor, SSD+HDD combination). I didn't include a case as that's oftentimes as much a matter of personal tastes as it is about individual features. Just about any mid-tower or tower case recommended here would fit everything.

NewEgg's currently sold out on the HD5970 and the GTX 480 is in relatively short supply everywhere, so I went with dual HD5870 cards. Since you aren't overclocking, and you've given no indication of needing anything other than CF/SLI support, I chose a relatively cheap motherboard in the form of the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R.

Awesome, thanks. This looks like mostly what I want, and it's significantly under the budget I had as well. I'll probably order something along these lines – but not for a few weeks; I just realized over the weekend that my current desk can't actually fit three monitors in any reasonable way, so I need to wait for new furniture to ship first.

Maybe if I'm lucky, GTX 480s will be in stock again by then, and more details on 3D Vision Surround will be available.

ETA: Do I get anything by getting 12 GB of RAM, or is 6 GB sufficient?

 

[singe_101]

Well you get more performance for video editing or something like that, but not for games.

 

[Squalish]

A) You get some headroom for future games (may make a difference in whether you can just upgrade the vidcard 3 years down the road and keep playing just-released games).
B) You get a lot of Windows 7 disk cache.
C) You get the ability to make a RAMDISK, which for anything database-backed that is bottlenecked by hardware read/write or that uses a large scratch disk(like Photoshop), can dramatically increase performance, somewhat like a large SSD.

Most pure gamers don't regard it as important for current games, but the era where game designers can in practice assume that customers will be able to use more than 2GB (a 32-bit Windows limit) began when Windows 7 was released... and Windows 7 also incorporated a much more aggressive disk caching strategy.

 

[tiraides]

Awesome, thanks. This looks like mostly what I want, and it's significantly under the budget I had as well. I'll probably order something along these lines – but not for a few weeks; I just realized over the weekend that my current desk can't actually fit three monitors in any reasonable way, so I need to wait for new furniture to ship first.

Maybe if I'm lucky, GTX 480s will be in stock again by then, and more details on 3D Vision Surround will be available.

ETA: Do I get anything by getting 12 GB of RAM, or is 6 GB sufficient?

Regarding RAM, 6GB is more than enough for gaming. Had you plan on performing other resource-intensive tasks, like heavy video editing or multiple VMs, then I would have included a second 6GB kit.

I assumed that you weren't going to spend all $5,000 on the system, but at the same time, I wanted to make a compromise that everyone wouldn't tear into shreds. (We'll see how long that lasts....)

 

[engiNURD]

Again, I'd suggest you get 2x 80GB X25-M's and put them in RAID0 instead of a single 160GB -- you'll get better performance for less money. Though, you'll want to keep a backup image on your storage drive -- but this is true regardless if you have a RAID0 array or not.