New Rig Advice

[cocheese256]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
I will be gaming, general word processing, GIS map creation and data.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1200.00. This price includes taxes and shipping.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

Wilmington, NC USA

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.
Motherboard, Ram, Case(I would prefer to use a Silverstone Fortress FT02 if it will fit my needs), Power supply, Processor, processor heatsink and fan ssd, hardrive.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Three AMD R9 290, key board, mouse, monitor, optical drive, monitor.

6) Will you be overclocking?
No.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
34" Ultra widescreen monitor at 3440x1440 21:9 ratio

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This week

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.
I am looking for a mobo that can support Trifire, USB3.0, onboard audio. It would be nice if the Motherboard could support both Crossfire and SLI.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I do not have transferable license. I need a new OS. I currently like Win7 64 but I will Install Win 8 if there are any benefits for gaming.



I am moving to an apartment. In my house I had room for three 24" monitors that gave me a resolution of 5760x1200. I do not have room for this many monitors so I purchased the 34 ultra wide. I am going to keep my current set up at my house and would like to build another system for my apartment. I already have three R9 290's(purchased them when experimenting with Lite Coins). I sold that system but kept the cards. I would like to use all three since I have them. This brings me to the question, is it worth the effort to use all three? I originally wanted to do a small form factor build with two cards but I hate to have to sell one if it is going to give me a better gaming experience. In that regards I may start another thread for a small form factor build using a micro atx mobo for comparison.

Thank you for the help. If I have left anything out please ask. I look forward to your suggestions.

 

[Dangman]

You already have the cards. So might as well use all three. Not really that much effort to setup a Tri-Crossfire setup once you start with a CFX setup.

 

[cocheese256]

That is what I was thinking. At first I was convinced that I wanted to build a small form factor system, but I think I can handle a full size system in my apartment. Plus at the resolution of this single monitor, I hope I will be better off with three. These are my first red cards.

 

[Dangman]

On closer observation, you're actually better off selling that third R9 290 since your budget doesn't quite support such a setup. Originally I was thinking X99 but the pricing there was just a bit much and would require too many downgrades on the rest of the PC. X79 was another option that I ruled out since it's quite odd to me to recommend an older platform now that its replacement is technically already here. While there were Z97 motherboards that had the necessary PCI-E setup (three or more PCI-E x16 3.0 slots running at x8/x8/x8), they were stupid pricey and quite unreliable. So from a budget standpoint, you're better off with two R9 290s:

$310 - Intel Core i7-4790 CPU
$123 - AsRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer Intel Z97 Motherboard
$158 - Crucial BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00 Ballistix Sport 2 x 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$130 - Samsung 840 Evo Series 250GB SSD
$97 - Windows 8.1 64bit
$50 - Cooler Master Seidon 120V Liquid Cooling System
$130 - XFX PRO 850W Black Edition Modular 850W PSU
$100 - Phanteks “Enthoo Pro Series“ Black ATX Case
-----
Total: $998 shipped

To support that third R9 290 card, you would need larger PSU in the 1200W range and a higher-end motherboard. I'm also assuming that GIS map creation requires a lot of threads and lots of RAM hence the Core i7 and 16GB of RAM. I do recommend Windows 8.1 since it does have some under-the-hood performance tweaks that allows it to have slightly better/smoother gaming performance. As for cases, I recommend choosing your own case. But I recommend the following:
$63 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Case
$70 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black w/ Window ATX Case
$100 - Antec 1100 V2 ATX Case
$100 - Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Arctic White ATX Case
$100 - Phanteks “Enthoo Pro Series“ Black ATX Case
$110 - Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Gunmetal Black ATX Case
$115 - Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Case
$116 - Thermaltake Chaser A71 Full Tower ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Graphite Series 730T ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Obsidian Series 450D ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$133 - NZXT Phantom 530 Black Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$140 - Corsair Obsidian Series 750D ATX Case
$150 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$152 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$150 - NZXT Phantom 630 White Windowed Full Tower ATX Case
$158 - NZXT Phantom 630 Gunmetal Full Tower ATX Case
$170 - Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower ATX Case
$190 - Corsair Graphite Series 760T ATX Case
197 - Corsair Graphite Black ATX Full Tower 780T
208 - Corsair Graphite White ATX Full Tower 780T
$240 - Silverstone FT02B-USB3.0 ATX Case

In case you're wondering what happens if you go mATX, swap out the motherboard and case for the following:

$160 - MSI Z97M GAMING Intel Z97 mATX Motherboard

mATX case of your choice. I recommend the following:
$90 - Corsair Obsidian Series 350D mATX Case
$105 - Fractal Design Arc Mini mATX Case
$130 - Silverstone TJ08B-E mATX Case
$140 - Lian Li PC-V354B Black mATX Case
$160 - Lian Li PC-V354A Silver mATX Case

 

[cocheese256]

Thank you for the advice. Those are both great builds. My total amount is actually $1200.00. I changed it but I might not have changed it before your initial read.
Here is another possibility. I may just do an upgrade on my current system. If I did that I would just need a new mother board, CPU, and RAM. I currently have a 1200w power supply. I could reuse that if it is enough. What would you recommend in this respect to use all three R9 cards? I would like a motherboard that could support both Crossfire and SLI just in case I want to switch back to Nvidia in the future.

 

[Dangman]

Thank you for the advice. Those are both great builds. My total amount is actually $1200.00. I changed it but I might not have changed it before your initial read.
Here is another possibility. I may just do an upgrade on my current system. If I did that I would just need a new mother board, CPU, and RAM. I currently have a 1200w power supply. I could reuse that if it is enough. What would you recommend in this respect to use all three R9 cards? I would like a motherboard that could support both Crossfire and SLI just in case I want to switch back to Nvidia in the future.

What are the specs of your current PC?

 

[cocheese256]

My current specs are:
i5-2500k Sandy Bridge 3.3Ghz
MSI P67A-GD65 motherboard
(4) 4 gig sticks of G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1333 for a total of 16 gigs
(2) EVGA Nvidia GTX 680 SLI
Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200w power supply
Silverstone FT102b Case
Generic DVD Burner
128 gig Crucial SSD for OS Drive
1 TB hardrive for storage

 

[Dangman]

Honestly, with those system specs, you really shouldn't upgrade the CPU, mobo, and RAM till 2016 as thats when Intel's mainstream DDR4 platforms will be released and when DDR4 pricing will be at optimal value. Current Haswell platforms aren't fast enough to justify the costs of upgrading over a Sandy Bridge setup and that third R9 290 won't provide that much of a performance increase to justify the price.

So yeah, just upgrade to R9 290 CFX and you're pretty much set until 2016. Some other upgrades to consider would be a larger SSD or more RAM if you feel like you need more than 16GB of RAM.