Configuration Advice

Thanks in advance for any advice/help.  I am replacing a 5 year old Alienware desktop.  I play RPG and some action games, and do quite a bit of photoshop etc.  I don't have a really strong opinion about NVidia vs ATI.  I don't really want water cooling if air cooling will do the job. 

I am also debating about the trim accents - I like the black and red in the example but I don't see any picture with the Syndicate case and then I'd have to get red lighting I guess.  I also would like to see a pic of a Syndicate case with lighting but no tubes - wondering if I should check on more lighting in place of cooling tubes.

Also hope someone will let me know if I got something wrong or I'm wasting cash somewhere (might do it anyway but then I'd KNOW I was doing it.)

Direct Load URL: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=519367

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Black OPS Syndicate
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 970 3.2GHz (Six-Core Gulftown)
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme (Intel X58 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)
System Memory: 12GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Digital Storm Certified (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition Highly Recommended)
Expansion Bay: Hard Drive Hot Swap Bay (EZ-Rack)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache) (Model: Black Edition WD1002FAEX)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (2TB Western Digital (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache) (Model: Black Edition WD2002FAEX) (SATA 6Gbps)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer (Play Blu-Ray and Burn DVDs)
Optical Drive 2: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Noctua NH-U12P SE Dual 120mm Fans High Performance Cooler
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 (Green)
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
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
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Large)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

If you're going Syndicate, I highly recommend waiting for LGA 2011 to come out. Giving a Syndicate a i7 9xx does it no justice compared to the current mainstream SB potential, and giving it a mainstream SB processor does it no justice as well.

On other notes.
- You seriously need 12GB of RAM?
- Whaddup with the HDD swap bay...?
- Get one solid state drive and data drives. Makes no sense with your budget not to go with that.
- Dual 560s...wtf...what?! Single GTX 570, heck, single GTX 580. If you have the dough, double 570s. Get a good monitor too, just pairing up a system of this caliber with a bad monitor without at least 1920x1080 is just...wasting its potential.
- You forgot your free game.

Go for SSD. Makes huge difference in everything you put on it. When I was playing homefront level was loaded before they finished speaking the cut scene sentences. Also usually first in games waiting on everyone LOL. Not to mention 12 sec boot. That's from time hit button until on desktop. Had to fix boot priortity first but simple enough.

Just go bigger than I did. LOL

Still not one issue with my machine.

Fr3shm3at

The 2600K will do much better in photoshop and other apps, than the 970.

change psu to corsair it has a five year warranty, the one you picked has a 2 year warranty.

Here you go Ticket# 521949 --- $2766 (To see this build click here)

Copy of Specifications:
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: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Corsair (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (120GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 320 Series SSDSA2CW120G3K5)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (2TB Western Digital (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache) (Model: Black Edition WD2002FAEX) (SATA 6Gbps)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer (Play Blu-Ray and Burn DVDs)
Optical Drive 2: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition)
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1.2GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Noctua NH-U12P SE Dual 120mm Fans High Performance Cooler
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 (Red)
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 4.0GHz to 4.5GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
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
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

Ask DS specifically for this fan to be added to the top, so you endup with 4 x 200mm fans:

haf 200mm non led fan

As far as I understand, teh hafx has one hot swap bay.

I gave you 16GB ram with the assumption that your photoshop use needs that much ram, if you know it does not,then go with 8GB of ram.

Our pleasure and good luck