config, couple of questions...

I'll be using this system for a whole bunch of everything, from word processing, photo editing and gaming. I want decent processing for the photos and good game speed at 2560X1600

just a quick throw together here

questions:

1 it is the best case dso offers for lc, it is a sealed case (not as much dust) so it does not have great airflow, most people who choose this case also add the gpu cooling. if you go with a dual card the ati 5970 or nvidia 295 you need to select dual gpu cooling since it is 2 cards put together and is already in sli/cf.

2 dso lc is not as quiet as you may imagine especially with all the rads, but then quiet is a relative term. having 2 single cards performs better then a 295/5970 the reason being it is true sli/cf instead of fake internal.also a 5970 performs like to 5850's it is two downlocked 5870's. the 295 is 2 downclocked 275 which peform liek 2x 260. at that resolution 2x 480 would be your best bet performance wise.

3 it all depends on what you think it is worth it. first off you don't need to waste money on a 960 when it is the same as a 930 with a higher factory oc. with the dso oc you can't tell the difference between the two. secondly the hex core si something you may want down the road and if you keep the a long time.  gettign the hex now or later? so it all depends on if you think buying the 930 now waiting a few years getting it discounted by 30% paying tax on both cpu shipping both ways on the upgrade and losing the computer for a month is worth losing roughly a 100 or so long run is worth it to you. most apps and games can only use 2.5 cores and fewer yet can fully utilize 4 and only a handful can actually use 6. so it it worth it only you can say, but that  thousand bucks can be used for somethign you will see a greater gain from.

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we know your use and res but we need your budget

avoid the sata 3 mobos, they are horrible they all find one way or another to gimp performance to get it. worst of all the speed is divided into 2 sata3 ports and then cut in half to each port. so in effect you will get better speeds with sata2. also not to mention sata3 has problems with trim support effectively neutering all ssd. if you really want sata3 wait 6 months to a year from now thats when it will be out for real.

i would suggest a evga x58 classi you will have 2 16x lanes which is great since the only cards that can be gimped by a 8x lane are the 480/5970. if you want usb3 then you can add on the card and it is $25.

the ssd you chose is a indelix drive and will suffer performance issues when it starts to get filled up minor at 50% and major at 75%. the 160, 80, 40 ssd by intel can reach 98% full with virtually no performance drop

if your concerned about noise then the extreme cooling fans for the case may be a issue to you. noise is individual to the person. also it will causea  bonus of a few c which you wont notice with the lc. you can drop the controller too

the uv will give off a purple effect it will just not be the standard color you chose. if you want a similar effect to uv you can choose white tubes and a color light.

drop the vid card oc you wont really be able to tell the difference with a 7%-10% bonus plus the heat.you will also decrease the life of the gpu. gpus don't overclock like cpus you don't the the 70-90% bonus.

take off os tweak, somethings you  may want can be disabled the best bet is to do it your self. if you do go with it you need to know how to enable it again or call ds.

i would add the ram cooling kit to help cool your ram it is under the memory oc options.


Edited by Raif - 11 Aug 2010 at 5:15pm

ouch, tough crowd! Dragoon, a little bit of leeway, or even advice would have been appreciated. I don't put together a huge number of systems and if I did, I wouldn't be here asking what people thought.  Theres tons of reviews of all the components, many of which read like advertisements so relying on other more experienced users has always served me well in the past (even on these boards). Raif, thanks for your points, ender, thanks for your suggested rig.