New budget multimonitor rig

[Tudz]

G'day all, this is for a mate who is building (or I'm building for him) a new work-from-home PC.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Work computer for someone who does trading, so a couple of broking programs and charting programs mostly + web browsing, online seminars, all that jazz. No gaming.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Open ended, ideally want to keep price around $900-1200AUD. Ideally the lowest that'll do the job and last a good few years so he doesn't have to upgrade again.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

Australia, Victoria
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Everything not a valid answer? LOL, well basically everything, CPU, mobo, RAM, case, GPU, CPU cooler, PSU, optical drive, HDD.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Only carry over parts will be a couple of spare fans (Noctua P-12)
6) Will you be overclocking?
Nope
7) 7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Multidisplay, 4 to 6 displays, 1920x1080 on all of them.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP, old computer died, need the new one for work.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Other than supporting multimonitor, nothing specific comes to mind.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Will be upgrading to Windows 7.


$295.00 CPU Intel Core i7 2600 (3.40Ghz / 8MB / LGA1155 / Quad Core)

$135.00 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2HB3 Intel Z68 Chipset, Socket 1155, 4xDDR3, uATX, RAID, GBLAN, PCIe16 x1, SATA3, USB3, VGA/HDMI


$59.00 Memory G.Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 Kit, PC-12800 (1600Mhz), Ripjaws X, 9-9-9-24-2N, Dual Channel Kit

$79.00 Hard Disk Hitachi 500GB Deskstar 7K1000.C

$149.00 Case Antec Sonata III , Black, ATX, 500W PSU.2 x USB2.0, 1 x eSATA, Washable Air Filter

$29.00 Optical Drive Samsung SH-222AB INTERNAL DRIVE, 22X DVDW SATA

$135.00 for 3x Video Card EVGA Geforce G210 (520Mhz), 512MB DDR3 (1230Mhz), PCI-E 2.0, Passive heatsink, DVI-DL, HDMI, VGA, Low profile (bracket included)

$99.00 Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64bit DVD OEM

Total $980 AUD

All the components are from the same shop because initially we were gonna get the store to build it, but they want to charge $105 to build it and $30 to install windows, so I might put it together for him. Though I'm going overseas soon, so one advantage of the store building it is that he can take it to them to troubleshoot for the first year if anything goes wrong, where as if I build it for him he'll struggle to figure out any problems by himself.

The main goal is 4 to 6 monitors, reliable and capable of running lots of charts, charting applications and trading platforms at once.

One possible swap is the video cards, could go for 2 x ATI cards with diplayports, but I couldn't find many below $70 and it'd require buying DP -> DVI adapters, so end up costing more than the 3 x dual monitor cards. Also those cards are passive cooling, so with a decent CPU cooler and some of my old Noctua fans the thing can potentially be damned near silent.

Thoughts?

 

[Tudz]

Also what do you guys think of the mobo? Normally I like to go a bit higher end on the mobo as I figure its better for reliability, and reliability is one of the key design parameters for this system. Not really sure.

 

[Durinthal]

I just posted this in your other thread too, but that motherboard should be able to run two monitors on its own.

 

[DeathsDeath]

What the video card is going to be based off of should be what LCD's u actually got/getting ... and if they are only DVi any digital signal should be able to be put to a DVi link ...

 

[Dangman]

The motherboard is a fine budget option. Not terrible but not exactly high-end. But still solid. The rest of the setup looks fine to me. Though as Durinthal pointed out out, the motherboard can power two monitors as well. So you can drop one of those cards if you want.

 

[Tudz]

Alright, well I picked up the parts today. Basically what's written there minus a video card plus a Xigmatek Gaia (looks like a great budget cooler at only $30AUD and decent performance in reviews).

 

[Dangman]

Good luck with the build!

 

[Tudz]

I've put it together now. The thing is damned near silent. I went with an Antec high current gamer and used my old Sonata 3 case instead of buying a new case.

I'm already regretting the mobo, the PCI-e slots are a bit too close together for my liking. The mobo was recommended by the guy in the shop, but I'm wishing I had of just gone for a regular sized mobo with more slots so I could spread out the graphics cards a bit more. As it is, I'm only using 2 graphics cards, but if I add a third 2 of them will end up right against each other which I can't imagine would be good for the passive cooling, and he was wanting a TV card as well which means 4 cards in 4 slots all up close to each other. But now its together I can't really be bothered pulling it apart to take it back.

The Gaia cooler, well, its mounting was a bit shitty, the foam on the backplate presses against the soldering on the caps near the CPU socket and the way they've designed it there's no way to know how tight to tighten the backplate screws, you can just keep tightening and it'll just keep compressing the foam! So the mounting just seems a bit dodgy to me. But for $30 AUD, geeze, I can't complain too much. It cools well and was well under half the price of my Noctua P12 or my Thor's Hammer or my Megahalems. Its a great option for a budget build over the noisy and pathetic stock Intel cooler. I just wish they designed the mounting better, which I don't think would cost them any more to make really. I don't think most coolers in that price range even come with a backplate, tohugh after seeing this backplate I thought it was a wasted chance to do something better for such a great budget cooler.

Overall I think its a good system for what he wants. I gave him my old 60GB SSD that I wasn't using anymore, so the thing feels extremely snappy for regular desktop use. Overall I probably gave him about $200 worth of components I wasn't using anymore, lol.