Any advice would be very appreciated on this gaming rig.

[Skelly]

There is a version of the HAF X in lime green if you're interested .

The Xonar DX should be fine for you if you're staying with turtle beach. My taste in sound goes a little out of that price range, which is why I felt the Essence was the right pick for me. I can't really tell you anything about it yet, as I haven't plugged it in yet because I'm anticipating moving everything to a new case in a few days to set up my watercooling loop..

Good guide to mechanical keyboards here by the way http://www.overclock.net/keyboards/4...ard-guide.html

[Thmsbkr3]

No no Crowe I know quite a bit about it, and the stutter issues in the gtx 590 were fixed in the latest driver update. Obviously right now there's nothing the gtx 590 can't handle, but the point was that I imagine it wont be like that forever. And when the time comes where I need more power I'd have the ability to upgrade to quad with relative ease.

I just wanted to make it apparent that I KNOW 2 580s would give a better performance compared to the 1 590, but again that's 2 cards vs 1 and if the price of the 590 were to drop to a better price range then I'd have no problem purchasing another in a few years. For right now, the gtx 590 will help all my needs I think.

Also, to those that have been paying attention after comparing and running some prices I think I'm going to drop down to a lower SPU, though I'm probably still going to stay in the 750 to 850 range to make sure I have play room in case I need it for something. Obviously not trying to be all energy efficient lol...

EDIT: Awesome link on Mechanical Keyboards Skelly much obliged.

[Deleted]

It still sounds like a retarded idea imo.

Since you're an Enthusiast, you obviously always want the best of the best. And I'm sure those massive amounts of Geforce 590s you're throwing at your PC will give you your 60 FPS from now until.....until DX 12 comes along.

And then suddenly, your whole investment will be "outdated".

Since even a Geforce 570 gives you more power than you can use today you're much better off replacing/upgrading your card every year than investing 700 USD at one time and trying to make it last. I mean, Nvidias next-gen is already scheduled for Q1 2012....ergo 6 months from now ad the Keplar architecture is going to be a significant step-up from Fermi.

I mean, this is like buying 3 first-generation iPhones for a single person in the hope they last you as long as possible, rather than simply getting the new iPhone model every other year.

[BicycleMafioso]

Rationalising on not spending money is a bad idea.
He doesn't want to upgrade for a long time, so spreading the builds out over a larger period of time, and chucking more money into them is saving more money in the long run.

He's not spending money to run everything today. He's spending money to run everything for several years.
I'm always a fan of not spending more money than one needs to. But cheaping out now will have him needing to upgrade that much sooner.
I don't see any logic in your way of thinking. Sorry.

[Skelly]

Crowe's post rings a bit of truth. While a 570 won't give you more power than you can use today (benchmarked at 34 fps in Crysis Warhead at 1080p), there is such a thing as overkill, which is bad for GPUs imho. I would never suggest anyone on any kind of budget to ever consider dual 590s.

At least watch this video before you buy anything http://lifehacker.com/5808039/what-futureproofing-your-pc-really-means-and-how-it-can-save-you-money

But in defense of going big now.. I was debating between the Corsair 800D and Xigmatek Elysium cases for my watercooling setup. While the 800D is fine for what I've got now, I've decided on buying the Elysium (it is the biggest mother effing case you've ever seen) because I don't want to have to shell out for a fourth case if I need more room.

[Thmsbkr3]

Right I agree entirely, but I think tetris nailed it on the head. I'm not trying to stay with the best of the best every year and upgrading every 6 months. I like to buy a Quality PC and have it last for a while. Hell if I hadn't bought an i7 laptop I'd still be using my Pentium D that I bought from dell when it was one of the top of the line (Where my little graphics card story happened)

You're all right, for todays market the gtx 590 is overkill... But for tomorrows market, or the next years... The idea is giving me everything I need for today, while leaving room to upgrade if needed. But I plan to run this machine until it literately can't run games maxed out anymore. I mean that's all there really is to it... I mean, you're all entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine, sure it's not the most cost effective but it prevents me from having to upgrade at least for a few years unless something drastic happens.

EDIT: And my list is now updated, though I'm still having trouble finding a good keyboard I imagine I'm after the Cherry MX black switch, but I can't seem to find a quality keyboard that's back-lit. So I may end up going with the Thermaltake keyboard.

[Dysko]

sorry for no links but i cant post any yet

the 590 is redic and completely not needed. you can get better performance from sli 570's and im pretty sure its cheaper. the 590 is downclocked quite abit and with the 570's you can OC them a lot higher than the 590.

sound card isnt really needed unless you do music stuff or dont have a usb headset.

asus hasnt been impressing me much with the boards that they have out, i would choose the MSI Z68A-GD80 over that asus. the msi allows you to do 3 sli.

a really good case that i actually built a system with recently is the SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV01-BW. the system cooling on it is pretty amazing.

the cpu cooler is a great choice, but a great alternative is the Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System.

the intel ssd is a great choice! before choosing this one i would suggest looking at some of others, you cn find some that are a tad faster and sometimes cheaper.


edit... i forgot to mention that (from what iver read) the 590's are limited time thing. also that in most realistic situations tri sli out performs quad due to the lack of programs not optimized for it.

[Deleted]

Ok, fine whatever.

But just to be clear, spending 1000 USD on a new PC every 2 years over a period of 4 years will always warrant you better performance than spending 2000 USD at once and hoping for it to last the 4 years.

Imo, take the 2000 you have now and put half of it in a bank account and tap into it 2 years from now. You'll be better off that way.

[Skelly]

sorry for no links but i cant post any yet

a really good case that i actually built a system with recently is the SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV01-BW. the system cooling on it is pretty amazing.

the cpu cooler is a great choice, but a great alternative is the Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System.

I thought you could post links at 10 posts *shrugs*

I'm a big fan of the Raven cases. I have an RV-02 right now and absolutely love it. The only reason I'm switching out is because it doesn't have the capability for water cooling. The RV-02 was kind of a streamlined, cheaper version of the expensive RV-01, and I'm not sure what the difference with the RV-03 is. Cases are something you can research for ages before making a good decision. Don't be too quick on this one.

All the self-contained liquid cooling systems out there right now are pretty *meh*. The NH-D14 still out cools them all. The Corsair H100 should be out soon, I saw a review of it a few days ago. It might be finally something worth considering (although it has about a $120 price tag).

[Thmsbkr3]

He's not home yet... Alright, so I'm finally wavering... Should I just buy 2 570s? I'm sure you're all going to say yes... But it never hurts to ask

EDIT: And Samsung doesn't look like they even make an IPS panel monitor, they have a few LCD's but nothing that's 1080p for a reasonable price that I can find. And everyone is complaining about the dell monitors, everything from tinting issues to low response time to you name it... Probably just going to end up going with my first choice

EDIT2: Looking over that board it looks pretty good, but there's no E-Sata which I'm a huge fan of... I'm pretty sold on the MOBO, that thing I probably did more research on than anything else in my list. I mean, unless you can find one where they're paying me and has all the features I need that's one thing I really doubt I can be swayed on.

EDIT3: Finally found a decent one LCD monitor... http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-XL2370...011626&sr=8-16

[Dysko]

to be honest i didnt try to post links because i didnt know how many i had to have. lol.

and thmsbkr. the 570's are a better choice by far. you can even get away with doing 1 580 not and say a couple months from now do another.

and you if you really want i will build you a system that i would choose with $2500.

[dreggman238]

Now idk what your wanting to do on your computer the parts I mention below cost 155$ more than the case, mobo, audio card and CPU you have on your list.

This case is pretty cool - Corsair Obsidian 800D Full Tower Case - Steel, ATX, 4x 120mm Fan Ports, 3x 140mm Fans. Tons of videos about it on youtube if you need more info. It's about 70-80$ more than the case you selected but hey check it out (it has some really cool features check it out and you'll see why I want one if I ever build a computer).

What's your budget ? This ASUS Mobo has great features and onboard audio (and comes with an audio card as well I believe) - ASUS Rampage III Black Edition ROG Motherboard - ATX, Socket B (LGA1366), Intel X58 Express, DDR3 2200MHz (O.C.), SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, Killer Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 3.0, SLI/CrossFireX Ready, and here's a CPU that is compatible with this mobo Intel Core i7-960 Processor 3.20 GHz 8 MB Cache Socket LGA1366.

NVIDIA SLI/ATI CrossFire On-Demand
SLI or CrossFireX? Why choose when you can have both? Fret no longer because with the ROG Rampage III Black Edition you’ll be able to run both multi-GPU setups. The board features SLI/CrossFire on Demand technology, supporting up to four graphics cards in a 3-Way SLI or CrossFireX configuration. Whichever path you take, you can be assured of jaw-dropping graphics at a level previously unseen.

[Thmsbkr3]

Sure you can since you keep hinting that you want to lol, just stick with that MOBO, and as long as the case is proven to have magnificent air flow (even if I have to purchase a few fans) I'm ok with that. But it can't be any cube type because they make me sick... Literately....

Just remember I'm after peripherals too, monitor/keyboard/mouse. I do a lot of heavy gaming, and am going to be purchasing the new turtle beach professional series headset. So I need a card to bring the headset to it's full potential, or at least would really fancy one. I really do think I'm just about all set but I wouldn't mind looking at someone else's opinion with my budget.

Also it'd be worth noting that I'm pretty deadset on getting a mechanical keyboard, and the Cherry MX black switches seem the way to go.

[Skelly]

I'm not going to say one choice for graphics cards is better than the other, because each one has its merits.

Dual 570s: Best performance per dollar right now, but limited upgradability. Has the downsides of SLI

one 580: Least performance per dollar, but probably more than you need right now. None of the downsides of SLI. Allows easy upgrades as 580s get cheaper.

one 590: Close to the dual 570s in terms of performance per dollar, but will run hotter. Only option for upgrading is to buy another, which will not give a great boost per dollar, and might be hard to find when the time comes.

If I were building a rig right now, I would personally go for one 580. I think you'll find it to be more than enough. If its not enough, buy another 580 down the road. If you hold out long enough, you can sell your 580 and buy a 680, which will give you a great performance boost in terms of performance gain to price difference.

Oh.. Side note on graphics cards.. IMO, reference coolers are for people that: Have low budgets, or are planning on ripping it off to water cool it anyway.

[naadra]

heya! I would also agree on one single 580, going SLI with the 570s will give you very nice performance but when you go to upgrade you would need to replace both 570 cards at that point. Where as with the 580 you have the ability to add another 580 or upgrade again to the most powerful single GPU at that point in time. So in my personal opinion you would be better off going with one 580 in the long run. ( secretly if I could afford the 590 no problem... I would buy it!!! heh )

[dreggman238]

Asus is normally good right ? Here's a 27inch HD Display for 300$ -Asus VE276Q 27" Widescreen HD LCD Monitor - 1080p, 1920x1080, 100000:1 Dynamic, 2ms, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Display Port.

[Thmsbkr3]

Alright, so should I up the PSU again to match dual SLI 580s? What's a good PSU for that? 850W should cover it right? I don't know much about the 580s...

And dregg I don't know, but from the earlier conversation the main reason I'm a fan of Samsung is because of their glossy picture... I absolutely love it, and I don't really want to spend more than 270ish on a monitor unless it's a must. I'm already over budget lol...

[dreggman238]

This stuff would cost a bit more than a few of the items in your list (about 155$ more).

This case is pretty cool - Corsair Obsidian 800D Full Tower Case - Steel, ATX, 4x 120mm Fan Ports, 3x 140mm Fans. Tons of videos about it on youtube if you need more info. It's about 70-80$ more than the case you selected but hey check it out (it has some really cool features check it out and you'll see why I want one if I ever build a computer).

What's your budget ? This ASUS Mobo has great features and onboard audio (and comes with an audio card as well I believe) - ASUS Rampage III Black Edition ROG Motherboard - ATX, Socket B (LGA1366), Intel X58 Express, DDR3 2200MHz (O.C.), SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, Killer Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 3.0, SLI/CrossFireX Ready, and here's a CPU that is compatible with this mobo Intel Core i7-960 Processor 3.20 GHz 8 MB Cache Socket LGA1366.

[Skelly]

TDP for a GTX 580 is 244W. Two bring you to about 500W, you should be fine with a 750W psu I think.. Depends if you plan to overclock at all.

---------- Post added 2011-07-30 at 04:59 AM ----------

This stuff would cost a bit more than a few of the items in your list (about 155$ more).

This case is pretty cool - Corsair Obsidian 800D Full Tower Case - Steel, ATX, 4x 120mm Fan Ports, 3x 140mm Fans. Tons of videos about it on youtube if you need more info. It's about 70-80$ more than the case you selected but hey check it out (it has some really cool features check it out and you'll see why I want one if I ever build a computer).

What's your budget ? This ASUS Mobo has great features and onboard audio (and comes with an audio card as well I believe) - ASUS Rampage III Black Edition ROG Motherboard - ATX, Socket B (LGA1366), Intel X58 Express, DDR3 2200MHz (O.C.), SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, Killer Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 3.0, SLI/CrossFireX Ready, and here's a CPU that is compatible with this mobo Intel Core i7-960 Processor 3.20 GHz 8 MB Cache Socket LGA1366.

O.o The Obsidian 800D is mostly a water cooling case, as it has great functionality but pretty bad air flow. And the motherboard supports last-gen cpus, which is the last thing the OP wants.

[Thmsbkr3]

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-D...2012598&sr=8-2

vs

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Supercloc...2012598&sr=8-1

Speeds seem the same so is it the cooling that gives the DoubleShot an extra 30$ price? Don't get a whole lot of information from there and I'm just now starting to look but since I keep tabbing back to this figured I'd ask.

EDIT: @ Skelly 850 it is lol...

EDIT2: @Dregg, again I've reviewed all of the ASUS motherboards and most of the z68 boards that are out... The only alternative I'd probably be willing to consider is.http://www.amazon.com/MAXIMUS-EXTREM...2012979&sr=8-6 but that's forking out quite a bit more money for... Well that's just it, I mean sure it's a little better but only very slightly. And I'm sticking with the 2600k just for personal preference, going to OC it to at least 4.6 if all goes well... And again my budget is about 2500$ with a little bit of play either way.