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$5000, and want the best for gaming.

Post Date: 2011-09-10
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Tom View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote Tom Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: $5000, and want the best for gaming.
    Posted: 10 Sep 2011 at 4:31pm
Budget:
$5000

Expectations:
The best?

Usage:
Purely entertainment. Gaming, internet surfing/streaming movies, videos, and music.

Special Needs:
-I have a 50' Panasonic 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 res.) TV that I am pondering to utilize as my display (HDMI port). Are there any repercussions to using such a display?
-I am also planning to hook up the system to my Onkyo 7.1 Home Theatre System.
-I am looking to play games such as Skyrim, SW:TOR, and currently play Starcraft 2.
-My current system is an iMac (27" i7-870, 8gb RAM, HD 5780, etc.)
Yeah, not the best gaming machine. Bought last year, since the wife is a big Apple fan. I am not such a happy camper with this rig now. Passing it along to her (you wanted it, you take it!).

Saved Ticket #: 595623

Specifications:

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Black OPS HailStorm Edition
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z (Intel Z68 Chipset) (Features Intel Quick Sync Technology)
System Memory: 8GB DDR3 2400Mhz Corsair Dominator GT (Model: CMT8GX3M2A2133C9)
Power Supply: 1200W Corsair Pro Gold Series (CMPSU-1200AX) (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 2x (120GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Force GT Series CSSD-F120GBGT-BK) (SATA 6Gbps)
Set 1 Raid Options: Configure HDD Set 1 to a Raid 0 Config - Stripe Performance (Requires Two HDDs)
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 3GB (PhysX) (EVGA 03G-P3-1584-AR)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 4: Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System: CPU Only
H20 Tube Color:Black Tubing with High-Performance Fluid (UV Lighting Reactive)
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV) (Creates Glowing Effect for H20 Tubes)
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 3: Overclock CPU 4.9GHz to 5.2GHz (Requires Extreme Series Motherboard)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system

Total cost: $4,774.00

Continuing Questions/Comments with this build:
-Is the 2400MHz memory overkill and not fully utilized with the MOBO?
-I am not looking for this system to last forever, maybe 2-3 years, then buy again most likely. I like to have the best in technology and am willing to spend money for it.
-I live in the midwest, temperatures in my house will be between 70 and 75 degrees at all times.
-Is it worth spending more on the Corsair PSU and memory (RAM)?
-8gb (faster memory - 2000-24000MHz) vs 16gb (1600MHz)?
-I would like all games to be played at maximum resolution.
-Will this system be cool enough and hopefully not overkill on the noise?
-Can you shut off the internal lighting with a switch or not? And does the lighting increase heat by several degrees or negligible?
-Benefits to getting a Z68 vs the P67 MOBO?
-I am utilizing only 240gb of SSD, since I do not use much space on my systems. I only have like 3 games at most on my system. I do not like clutter. No movies or music.
-No Blu-Ray player since I don't watch Blu-Ray movies. Would there be any other benefit to getting a Blu-Ray player?
-Would I have any issues with overheating the video cards? Can anyone also explain bottlenecking? Should I over-clock the cards if only want them for 2 years or so?
-I read that DS might have a new cooling system coming out soon, maybe more efficient and worth waiting for also?
-The Hailstorm (Corsair 800D) was chosen for it's looks and size that would nicely match my decor.
-Will this UV lighting be too distracting at night? Or just cool?

Also, I am planning on possibly ordering a system around Black Friday, DS appeared to have had a solid sale of ~15% off last year. Or maybe if there are any sales with DS that you guys may recall just before Christmas?

With that in mind, I know that SB-E processors are coming around that time, worth waiting for? Also new GPUs will be coming out Q1 2012 also I guess, but I don't want to wait that long.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated in any aspect here. Even areas where you may believe are overkill, but remember, I am willing to spend quite a bit.

Reasoning For This Purchase:
I have been reading and comparing many of these boutiques, and reviews of tons of components. I even contemplated building my own. But, Digital Storm is definitely an obvious choice for quality and value from having read the professional reviews and real-life advice from folks on this forum. So thank you for steering me this way. I appreciate the help in advance.

Finally, this system and gaming in general will be a great de-stressor. Little background of myself, I work as SWAT Police and used to be a professional athlete, so gaming is an way for me to continue to be competitive and have fun. I want a system that I can be truly proud of.

(Long post, I know, I apologize, as you can probably tell, this is important to me.)

Thank you for your time.
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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 10 Sep 2011 at 10:08pm
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z : This motherboard's maximum supported RAM speed is 1600 without overclock and 2200 with maximum overclock. You'd be better served with 16Gb of 1600.

In my opinion 2 GTX 580's is overkill as none of the games you listed will come close to maxing those cards. I'd put just one in but this is your machine. That being said you will generate some noticeable noise with those cards under load so take that into account.

As for heat, I'm not certain but I think your cooling should be sufficient, and if it does become an issue you can always down-clock your CPU a bit and not hurt your performance noticeably.

You should not overclock those video cards as you already have more power then you will need for several years.

Personally I feel you are way overbuilding, but this would be basically the best you can buy atm. That being said the best is more power then anything can use right now, but again this is your build. Hopeful I was marginally helpful and please enjoy your ridiculous beast of a PC.
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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 10 Sep 2011 at 10:21pm
Oh I forgot to mention that if you want the best picture get a 2560x1600 monitor, they come quite large and will look much better
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DST4ME View Drop Down
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 10 Sep 2011 at 11:10pm
TVs don't make the best monitors.

so lets figure out what the res is gonna be first so that we can figure out what kinda gpu power you need to run it.

Most of the stuff in there are pure waste, as in I could take them out and you would never notice.

for that budget I would wait for the sb-e 3960X.

also with kinda budget you should be behind a kickass monitor like this:

Dell UltraSharp U3011 30"

to run that bad boy you gonna want tri sli, and for that you have to wait for sb-e x79 or go with the old platform of x58.

-Is the 2400MHz memory overkill and not fully utilized with the MOBO?


the 2400MHz ram is overkill period, don't worry about if mobo is fully utilized or not, worry about the fact that in gaming you see zro gains from it vs 1600MHz ram, and also with everything else the difference if anym, is needle in a haystack.

-I am not looking for this system to last forever, maybe 2-3 years, then buy again most likely. I like to have the best in technology and am willing to spend money for it.


you are like me but just so you know, all you need in 2 or 3 years is a gpu upgrade and your pc in gaming will feel brand new.

-I live in the midwest, temperatures in my house will be between 70 and 75 degrees at all times.


thats a good room temp to have, above 75f - 80f is when you get into the hot zone in pc temps.

-Is it worth spending more on the Corsair PSU and memory (RAM)?


psu on the this platform for dual sli is 1050HX, ram is DS brand 1600MHz, anything over that, I can take it out and you will never notice it, no matter what you do pretty much.

so psu yes, ram no.

-8gb (faster memory - 2000-24000MHz) vs 16gb (1600MHz)?


ram speed = just that speed. this makes very little difference above 1600MHz with this platform and at this time.

ram amount = more multi tasking, for your use 8GB is more then enough.

-I would like all games to be played at maximum resolution.


as I mentioned we need to narrow down your monitor and res then we can figure out what it needs to run things at max, there is always gonna be a few games that no matter what you get at certain res you can't max them.

-Will this system be cool enough and hopefully not overkill on the noise?


99% of noise in a good system comes from gpu's fan, there is nothing to do about that other then putting them on lc.

-Can you shut off the internal lighting with a switch or not? And does the lighting increase heat by several degrees or negligible?


again in a good case the heat from light is a non issue, and depending on the case, some cases have led fans that have switch and some don't, the lighting that they add has a switch, again in a good case, non of this is an issue, most of your heat comes from gpus and cpu when under load.

-Benefits to getting a Z68 vs the P67 MOBO?

if the p67 is the deluxe or an sli mobo, then the difference is really nothing for gaming.

-I am utilizing only 240gb of SSD, since I do not use much space on my systems. I only have like 3 games at most on my system. I do not like clutter. No movies or music.


well I'm not sure why need 240GB of space is all you have is os nad 3 games, unless those 3 games are like 60GB each.

rule for hdd setup is:

HDD1 = fast small drive: os/apps/games

HDD2 = regular large drive: media/personal/work file storage

-No Blu-Ray player since I don't watch Blu-Ray movies. Would there be any other benefit to getting a Blu-Ray player?


if you have no use for it then no, you can always easily add media drives.

-Would I have any issues with overheating the video cards? Can anyone also explain bottlenecking? Should I over-clock the cards if only want them for 2 years or so?


if room temps is good and case has good airflow and room to breath there should be no issue with anything overheating.

with gpu power you have to be careful more is not always better, oc will give you few fps, and most likely you are not gonna need those to begin with, what I mean is that sometimes when all you one liter of water, 2 liters of water won't make any difference, one lite will get used while the second just goes to waste and never gets used, aka overkill/pure waste, like puring 2 liters of water in a 1 liter bottle.

bottlenecking in general in pc world means when you have a certain amount of performance flowing toward you, along the line to you this amount of performance goes thru certain parts, imagine a highway that has 4 lanes and a car in each lane, all cars are going 60mph, they go thru different cities, city A, city B, and so aon and so forth, now lets say when they get close to city G, the 4 lanes of the hwy merge into 2 lanes ( the hwy narrows to 2 lanes), this causes the cars to have to slow down and get into 2 lanes, this slow down is because they got bottle necked at city G, so back to that performance that was coming to you, if it gets to a part that can't handle its amount of flow, the flow will have to slow down to whatever that part's limits are, and thus causing a bottle neck for that flow.

-I read that DS might have a new cooling system coming out soon, maybe more efficient and worth waiting for also?


its only for cpu and with the sb 2600k chip the a70 will give you great temps, temp-wise the a70 can keep the pc alive over 10 years, or even longer assuming other parts would live that long.

so in short better cooling then a70/noctua is not needed and just luxury.

-The Hailstorm (Corsair 800D) was chosen for it's looks and size that would nicely match my decor.


thats great, but too bad for the gpus since that case is not best for air cooled system (cpu and/or gpu).

don't get me wrong its a great case, it my case, but I have full lc, we recommend that case to people that want full lc, cause it has plenty of room for rads and lc part, air flow is not an issue sine the lc has its own fans on rads.

-Will this UV lighting be too distracting at night? Or just cool?


depends on you, I like all lighting here and think they all look cool.

Edited by DST4ME - 10 Sep 2011 at 11:37pm

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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 10 Sep 2011 at 11:45pm
Dell UltraSharp U3011 30"you can run that fine on a powerful single card you know...

on that budget I'd strait up get an i7-990x personally because you can easily afford it. If you do choose to wait toy could look at both AMD's bulldozer (looks promising) and intel;s new core as linked by DST4ME. Again all of those CPU's are overkill but whatever you want to spend money on is fine.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 10 Sep 2011 at 11:58pm
for gaming the 2600K is king,nothing beats it right now, the new amd 8 core cpu will match the 2600k at best, the 3960X will put bulldozer to shame.

We are not talking running 2560 x 1600 (the 30" dell monitor mentioned) for moives, we are talking about gaming at 2560 x 1600 for that you need at least sli to max out the games he wants to play.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Sep 2011 at 12:03am

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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 12:08am
I refuse to pass judgments on unreleased hardware, though intel will likely be Superior AMD will likely have better price performance (if history stands)

a single Gtx 580 at stock speed will get 90+ FPS in SC2
The Old Republic is an MMo and is thus designed to be run on older hardware so expect above 60 FPS no problem
Skyrim is a console port so assuming it isn't optimized horribly you should have no issues getting above 60 FPS with it either

As all monitors that I have seen that are 2560x1600 are at 60Hz that is perfectly fine.

But by all means SLI if you'd like, again it is your system.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 12:29am
LOL I don't know what settings you are using but if the settings are maxed out and aa is on, there is no way a 580 will get 90+ fps on sc2 at 2560 x 1600

DX11: Battlefield Bad Company 2

DirectX 11 enabled
8x Multi-sample Anti aliasing
16 Anisotropic filtering
All image quality settings enabled at maximum



as we can see above at 2560 x 1600 single 570 is getting like 30fps.

thats bf2,, bf3 from everything we see and read, is suppose to be much harder to run then bf2.

the other games I hear are gonna need more gpu power then a single.

bulldozer is gonna have less performance thus cost less, but so what, for less performance one can go lower intel and get lower prices from intel also.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Sep 2011 at 12:32am

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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 12:33am
http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/OPS/Starcraft-2-GeForce-GTX-580-OPS

Also those are benchmarks for 570's not 580's and there is a difference

From what I have read, system requirements for BF3 will be extremely similar as BFBC2.

I have no interest in a hardware brand battle so that is all.




Edited by Vek17 - 11 Sep 2011 at 12:36am
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 12:42am
Are you joking, nobody that has a 580 or 570 can duplicate any of those results.

You got some bad info unfortunately.

all creditable sites have the single 580 at around 60fps with bf2, that site you linked says it can do 75fps, which wrong and again nobody can duplicate.

but again that site is nvidia's site, are you surprised that nvidia is claiming their products can perform better then what they can really do?

we are not hear to battle anybody, we are here to make sure new people get correct and creditable info, not what nvidia claims its cards can do.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Sep 2011 at 12:48am

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Tom View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote Tom Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 4:02pm
Thank you for the quick, detailed responses. Here's what I am thinking now, making some serious alterations.

I am liking the monitor recommendation. I found the Dell U3011 for $1,176.00.
So, we are now looking at the resolution of 2560 x 1600 at 30 inches. Let's work with this and here is what I came up with from a lot of the advice you gentlemen gave me:


Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67 Chipset) (New & Improved B3 Revision Without SATA 3G Issue)
System Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair Dominator DHX (High-Performance)
Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 2x (120GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Force GT Series CSSD-F120GBGT-BK) (SATA 6Gbps)
Set 1 Raid Options: Configure HDD Set 1 to a Raid 0 Config - Stripe Performance (Requires Two HDDs)
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 3GB (PhysX) (EVGA 03G-P3-1584-AR)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 Extreme Performance (Does NOT fit on the regular EVGA X58 3X SLI)
H20 Tube Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro or Deluxe Series Motherboard)
Graphics Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Memory Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
OS Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)


Since I am going for a expensive, but definitely high-quality monitor, I went for a more economical air-cooled build with the HAF-X.

Please let me know what you guys think of this new configuration. Is their anywhere else that I should upgrade or take away from? I am now looking for the "most bang for the buck" because of the expensive monitor.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 4:11pm
I was wondering why you need 240GB of space on ssd.

for that res we recommend dual sli with option to to tri si, this platform doesnot support tri sli, you gonna want to wait for the x79 to do that.

there are lot of things I would change about your config.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Sep 2011 at 4:12pm

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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 4:13pm
The HAF X (if it anything like the HAF 912 which seems to be the case) is a great case and should serve you well.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 4:19pm
haf x is much much much better than the 912, its not even a comparison, the 932 is the one behind x and 922 is behind 932.

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Vek17 View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Vek17 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 4:23pm
Well you are comparing a full tower to a mid, and bigger = better for cases. They both seem to be based on the same design with different fan layouts and for a mid tower the HAF 912 air cools extremely well and is roomy enough for powerful cards. Since the HAF x is bigger you should have all of that but better.

Edited by Vek17 - 11 Sep 2011 at 4:23pm
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 11 Sep 2011 at 4:33pm
Vek17 its best we don't clutter up this users thread with me pointing out stuff to anther user.

the 912 has the least cooling and I would not call 2 x 120mm fans great cooling at all.

haf x can do 4 x 200mm fans, full tower

the 932 has 3 x 230mm fans. full tower

the 922 has 3 x 200mm fans. mid tower

the 912 has 2 x 120mm fans. mid tower

not counting rear fans here them.

long story short between all of those the 912 comes last and is never recommended there are other midtowers here from cm that have better cooling.

the design between 912 and haf x are not the same at all. sure the drives are lined up but haf x has stuff that 912 does not, starting with how you install hdds nad media drives.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Sep 2011 at 4:43pm

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