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Ultimate Gaming RIG

T

tubui

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 15, 2008
Messages
346
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$5000++

3) Where do you live?
NJ

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Everything

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Fresh Parts

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
I plan to run 4 screens, about 20 inch, not sure yet on this one.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
By May-June

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Not sure

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
No, I'm thinking about buying a WinXP 64bit OS

My budget is $5000+

I want to build the ultimate gaming rig from the ground up. Most importantly I need the top of the line CPU, GPU, and RAM

Please help me in my project, I want a beast tower, beast parts, beast EVERYTHING!!

I am open to ANY suggestions!!
 
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Look at this thread for some initial ideas, but revisit this thread about a week or two before you order everything.

I'm going to say this now -- as I'm sure that others will ignore it later -- but I don't believe that you should be going for top-of-the-line everything. The long story short is that within a year's time, your system will no longer be "top of the line," so it would be better to just buy some high-end parts that will last you a few years before you need to upgrade again.

Here's a "baseline" build to consider (listed below). The thing is that the prices on existing components will fluctuate (some higher, some lower) and new (possibly better) components will arrive between now and the May-June time frame that you've given us.

tiraides said:
$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.
Click to expand...

Actually, you should replace the X58A-UD3R with a better OC-friendly board, like the Asus P6X58D Premium, and get a good CPU cooler, like the Cogage TRUE Spirit.
 
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First of all, you would not buy an almost 10 year old OS for a $5000 pc, win 7 is the only way to go.

As for the build, I would say put about $2500 into the computer, $1k into monitors and then $1500 into a nice big TV and bluray player/htpc.
 
Might I suggest running the NEC 23" EA231WMi IPS LCDs ($300 each. They were just $279 shipped at Newegg recently: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1507891 ) - With the extra size, maybe you'll only need 3 screens? + you'll get 1080p resolution on each of them.

- If you're running ultra-high resolution (more combined pixels than 2560x1600) gaming, and you want to keep anti-aliasing or even other features, then you'll NEED more than 1GB of video memory, so that narrows it to the GTX 480 (1.5GB) or 2GB/4GB editions of the 5870/5970.

- The 5870 remains competitive as a single card (especially due to the overclocking headroom), but not in crossfire. For multiple card systems, I'd go with the GTX 480 SLI.

An i7 930@4.1+Ghz will likely be "enough." It's $200 at Microcenter. The next logical step up is the i7 980X, which is nearly $1k... it's 6 cores with slightly higher cache latency, but manufactured at 32nm. It'll clock just as high. I don't think it's worthwhile... I've read that intel will be releasing a non-extreme edition 6-core chip soon... if that comes in at under $600, then I'd consider it.

6GB or 12GB of DDR3 1600 or higher. Lower latency (8-8-8-24 or lower) isn't much more expensive usually. Mushkin, g.skill, corsair, OCZ - my top 4.

X58 motherboard obviously. Your choice... Gigabyte UD5 (or UD7), Asus R3E or even the regular Asus lineup, Evga classified or Evga SLI, etc...

Hard drives: Samsung F3 1TB HD103SJ is great. WD blacks are almost as fast in sequential transfers, but possibly a little faster elsewhere. I own (3) F3 drives.

SSDs: Indilinx (OCZ is most popular distributor), Intel G2, Sandforce (OCZ limited edition 100GB and 200GB + some other manufacturers may be using sandforce), and crucial's possibly unreliable c300... go for the best deal? not sure... I have an Intel G1 80GB, and I'm happy despite the slow sequential writes.

PSU: Enermax Revolution 1050w is great: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10010480&prodlist=search - but I've seen it priced lower ($150-$180 AR). There are several other options of course, but this is probably the smallest PSU I'd use for GTX 480 SLI. You might want to look into a 1200w PSU if you're going to overclock them.

Case: meh... your decision really... Corsair 800D is popular right now. The old CM atcs 840 is STILL popular amongst watercooling peeps (ability to fit multiple radiators). Silverstone and Lian-Li make quality cases... take your pick.

Cooling: Air-cooling is the best bang for the buck. Slap a Noctua NH-D14 (king of heatsinks right now) on the CPU (maybe change the fans if you want another 2C), leave the GPU's with stock cooling if you don't care about noise. - FANS: Scythe Gentle Typhoons (GT) AP15 (1850RPM) are my favorite right now. They seem to best the lower RPM GT variants when undervolted anyway (9.0-10.0v being the sweetspot for noise/cfm). I'm thinking about picking up several more and running them at specifically that voltage. :)

Edit: And yes... Win7 64-bit is your best option.
 
Seriously, conduct some research now and revisit this thread about a week or two before you plan on ordering everything.

You've been given some good advice so far, but prices and components may change between now and the time that you place your order.
 
Ultimate + 5000+ budget = $1099 i7-980X + $449 X58 Classified 4-Way SLI + $404 CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB DDR3 2000 + $1058 2x GTX 480 SLI + Windows 7 Ultimate + a 200GB SSD + 1T HDD + a good PSU that can power up both Fermi's + watercool the CPU & GPU's + some high-end case + keyboard, mouse etc.

around $7000 I guess, 300% more than what tiraides suggested but maybe 30% performance increase that would be outdated in less than a year, but who cares :D
 
firas said:
around $7000 I guess, 300% more than what tiraides suggested but maybe 30% performance increase that would be outdated in less than a year, but who cares :D
Click to expand...

He speaks the truth ;)

That Fermi architecture seems to have amazing potential, but in this generation, it's just too power-hungry. Still, I can support using GTX 480 SLI... it makes more sense than using an i7 980X, or a dual-CPU mobo for GAMING.

GAMING...

In a year we might see 28nm or 32nm GPUs, and a proper FERMI with reasonable power consumption. Noting that, I wouldn't mind running a single 5870 for 3X LCD Eye-Finity until the new cards come out.

Edit: I don't think I'd spend more than about $200 on 6GB of RAM. Here are the relevant G.skill sets (but the Trident is a bit tall - might interfere with the CPU heatsink/fan):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231254
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231306

I've seen them do close to 2000 at 7-8-7, and close to 1700 at 6-7-6 (best case scenario, but still impressive). - there are some other options...

Edit2: There's also the option of using lower voltage RAM like the g.skill eco or mushkin Blackline CAS7 DDR3-1600, 1.35v. Some people are claiming they're getting lower CPU temps using lower voltage RAM (something to do with the memory controller being located on the CPU).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231321&cm_re=1.35v-_-20-231-321-_-Product - g.skill eco 1.35v (there's also an 8GB kit).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226122&cm_re=1.35v-_-20-226-122-_-Product - mushkin blackline 1.35v
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231335 - g.skill's 1.5v CAS7 DDR3-1600 offering...
I think OCZ has the 1.35v DDR3 too, and Kingston has their new LoVo line, one of which is rated at 1866mhz: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2010/03/18/kingston-lovo-power-saving-1-25v-ddr3-ram/2
 
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firas said:
Ultimate + 5000+ budget = $1099 i7-980X + $449 X58 Classified 4-Way SLI + $404 CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB DDR3 2000 + $1058 2x GTX 480 SLI + Windows 7 Ultimate + a 200GB SSD + 1T HDD + a good PSU that can power up both Fermi's + watercool the CPU & GPU's + some high-end case + keyboard, mouse etc.

around $7000 I guess, 300% more than what tiraides suggested but maybe 30% performance increase that would be outdated in less than a year, but who cares :D
Click to expand...

lol
 
Ok so after reading I no longer want a super beast computer that will get outdated. I am however still looking at something that has a good CPU, GPU enough to run about 30+ World of Warcrafts.
 
tubui said:
Ok so after reading I no longer want a super beast computer that will get outdated. I am however still looking at something that has a good CPU, GPU enough to run about 30+ World of Warcrafts.
Click to expand...

Da fuck? Dude, you're better off building multiple boxes for 30 WOW clients running at the same time. More cost effective that way.

EDIT: Though if you're running multiple WOW accounts already, please tell us how many clients you can run before performance is seriously degraded. That'll give us a baseline for the other boxes.
 
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Danny Bui said:
Da fuck? Dude, you're better off building multiple boxes for 30 WOW clients running at the same time. More cost effective that way.

EDIT: Though if you're running multiple WOW accounts already, please tell us how many clients you can run before performance is seriously degraded. That'll give us a baseline for the other boxes.
Click to expand...

My current setup (in my sig) can run up to 12 WoWs but then I start to lag because I think my GPU is cheap.
 
If you can run 12 on your current setup I would say go no less than:
I7 930 oc'd to 3.4+
6gb DDR3-1600
5870 or possibly 5970
Two SSD's in Raid0 which store the wow data along with OS
 
My friend's current setup can run 30+ WoW but he says when he runs 30 WoWs his mouse starts to jump, he believes that it is because of the GPU. His setup is:

Intel Core i7-920 with 12 Gig RAM and an small 64 GByte SSD, including an ASRock Mainboard and an ATI 5770 GPU.
 
tubui said:
My current setup (in my sig) can run up to 12 WoWs but then I start to lag because I think my GPU is cheap.
Click to expand...

The 8800GT isn't a cheap GPU :)

Anyway, if what you and your friend has said is right (I thought multiple WOW clients would require more heavier and multiple hardware), then I recommend the following build (based on a combination of Tiraides' and Shadowsong's builds:

$290 - Intel Core i7 930 CPU
$210 - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 ATX Motherboard
$340 - 2 x G.Skill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$400 - XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$220 - Intel SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SSD
$100 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$23 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner
$160 - Corsair 950TX 950W PSU
--------
$1743 plus tax and shipping

Choose your own case and monitors. The HD 5870 can run 3 monitors by itself as long as the third monitor has a displayport.
 
enginurd said:
third only? not first or second? weird. :p
Click to expand...

LOL!

Went for the most simplistic explanation :) From what I've been reading, the display port adapters have some issues to say the least. So to avoid that issue, at least one of the monitors should have a displayport IMO.
 
Danny Bui said:
$290 - Intel Core i7 930 CPU
$210 - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 ATX Motherboard
$340 - 2 x G.Skill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$400 - XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$220 - Intel SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SSD
$100 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$23 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner
$160 - Corsair 950TX 950W PSU
--------
$1743 plus tax and shipping

Choose your own case and monitors. The HD 5870 can run 3 monitors by itself as long as the third monitor has a displayport.
Click to expand...

Stupid question -- though your build would have been what I recommended had I ignored the "Ultimate" "requirement" from the OP -- but why the 950TX? Are you anticipating that the OP would go towards a multi-GPU setup?
 
tiraides said:
Stupid question -- though your build would have been what I recommended had I ignored the "Ultimate" "requirement" from the OP -- but why the 950TX? Are you anticipating that the OP would go towards a multi-GPU setup?
Click to expand...

I recommended the 950TX mainly due to price: I was originally gonna recommend the 850TX however it costs $146 shipped from Newegg. I figured might as well spend the extra $14 for more power and that CYA measure should the OP ever decide to go with a multi-GPU setup.
 
The 950TX will be fine if I decide to add another GPU.

Will the 6GB RAM be enough? My friend said he had 12 GB ram and with 30 WoWs he had 1.5 GB left, I'm not sure what kind of RAM he's running on though.
 
The kind of RAM? He's definitely using DDR3. :p The speed doesn't matter unless you OC your CPU, and neither does the latency. Grab 12GB DDR3-1600 if you have the cash for it.
 
Kreiger1981 said:
Maybe offtopic, but why so many WoW clients? Just as a benchmark?
Click to expand...

Kinda but not exactly. I would discuss more about it but its not a topic everyone agrees on so I wanna keep this on the right track, if you want to know more you can PM me.
 
Danny Bui said:
The 8800GT isn't a cheap GPU :)

Anyway, if what you and your friend has said is right (I thought multiple WOW clients would require more heavier and multiple hardware), then I recommend the following build (based on a combination of Tiraides' and Shadowsong's builds:

$290 - Intel Core i7 930 CPU
$210 - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 ATX Motherboard
$340 - 2 x G.Skill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$400 - XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$220 - Intel SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SSD
$100 - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$23 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner
$160 - Corsair 950TX 950W PSU
--------
$1743 plus tax and shipping

Choose your own case and monitors. The HD 5870 can run 3 monitors by itself as long as the third monitor has a displayport.
Click to expand...

Can I get most if not all of these on TigerDirect? They have 12.3% cash back and I would like to use it :D
 
tubui said:
Can I get most if not all of these on TigerDirect? They have 12.3% cash back and I would like to use it :D
Click to expand...

Well since you have all the info there it wouldnt take long for you to search the site for all those parts. :)
 
tubui said:
Will the 6GB RAM be enough?
Click to expand...
In the list I provided, I listed two sets of 6GB RAM for a total of 12GB. Just wanted to clear that up.

As the above has said, you have the list of parts already. Shouldn't be too hard to do the legwork and find out.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
I will update my thread when the parts arrive and when I build it together! Stay tune!
 
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