Designer - about ready to pull the trigger

HUGE HUGE thanks to DST4ME for all his help with my original configuration. You really turned me around on a useless SLI and an unnecessary water cooling system. I batted around your recommendations with Lars @ DS, and he completely supported your ideas.

I don't do any gaming, unfortunately (since I can no longer afford my all-nighters playing COD, TF2 and all the other games I used to play obsessively). What I DO do is about 15 hours a day of high-end graphic design (I own my own business). Mostly Photoshop, Fireworks, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Powerpoint, sometimes all at once. It's websites, ads, brochures, presentations, illustrations, photo retouching, browser testing, emailing, writing, spitting out press-quality PDFs, video conferencing, etc. etc. all day long. There's some light video editing and dabbling in 3DMax on rare occasion. I work on three monitors (24", 22", 19") covered in open windows and applications since I'm often working on 3 or 4 things at once, including keeping Outlook open all day and watching a little Hulu or Netflix on one of the screens.

Here's what I'm getting ready to order, pretty close to what you (DST4ME) configured for me originally (your config# was 624627):

My configuration# 632624 - ~$2,900

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 3930K 3.2GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Six-Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested) <b></b>
Power Supply: 750W Corsair HX (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (120GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 320 Series)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (Model: Black Edition)
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: !PROMOTION: 1x ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB
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: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro or Deluxe 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

(...plus a HAF 200mm non-led fan added to the top of the case, on your recommendation.)


Not sure how all this stuff about the HAF X being out of production affects any of this, but we'll see how it goes.

Thanks in advance for any last feedback before I purchase this puppy.

looks good to me, just remember to Ask for vcore lower then 1.4 for your oc.

the haf is back in stock at ds so you are good to go.

with your graphic design and the software you named, is the 5850 good for what you need?

As someone who also works with every program you mentioned, the only one that really concerns me is 3DMax, but you said that that was a rare occasion. So, if you could get a substantial deal on the 5850 I think on the basis of the programs you said you use most often, that you would be ok. That being said, for me personally, I'd probably go over to Nvidia for the type of work you do, but again, that's a personal preference (This is assuming you are using 2 or less monitors).

Worse comes to worse, I still have my existing Dell with dual GTX8800s (with SLI I always had disabled) that I can use for distributed rendering if I want to do anything with 3DMax.

If you had to upgrade anything in this configuration, what would it be? 

Or is it a perfect powerhouse as is, with ample room to upgrade components along the way?  (This is a little new to me, since I've been on a cycle of buying $4000 Dells every 4 years or so, with no real ability to upgrade anything in between.)