MADMAX IS BACK!

Ok boys and girls....I'm back after having squared away with the IRS...hey I gave it a shot...and now ready to make that move...below is the config that I am looking at...will be using a 28 inch flat screen LCD resolution 1920x1200...
LAY YOUR WISDOM ON ME!

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Cooler Master HAF 932
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports SLI or CrossFire)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1866MHz Corsair Dominator DHX (High-Performance)
Power Supply: 1250W Enermax Galaxy EVO (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Recommended)
Card Reader: Internal Digital Media Card Reader (Black)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (150GB Western Digital VelociRaptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / 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 285 1GB) (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion (Includes Front I/O) (PCI-Express Slot Based)
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: High-Performance Liquid Chilled FrostBite System For CPU
Liquid Color:Red: Non-conductive High-Performance Fluid (Requires H20: Stage 3 Cooling Package)
Chassis Airflow: Upgrade Chassis With Zalman Performance Fans (Up to 6 Fans)
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)
Enhancements: LCD Temperature Display & Fan Controller (Requires Chassis Airflow Upgrade)
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Requires Air Cooling Upgrade)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) With Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
LCD 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 5-10 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

What Lock52 said. 1000watt PSU is plenty for dual cards and the price difference for performance on the Video cards isn't worth it, go with 2x275 cards. Also, if you plan on future upgrades such as 3x video cards and such then you might want to hang on to that 1250w. On board sound these days is far superior than it was just a few years ago and so unless you are a music enthusiast I would ditch the sound card and save yourself a grundle load of money. My thoughts of course.

Rock on!

Here you go Ticket# 327963 --- Price: $3032 (To see this build click here) Price after current promotion $2782

Copy of Specifications:
Chassis Model: Cooler Master HAF 932
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports SLI or CrossFire)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified by mushkin enhanced (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Corsair HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition)
Card Reader: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
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 20x / 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 275 896MB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion (Includes Front I/O) (PCI-Express Slot Based)
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: High-Performance Liquid Chilled FrostBite System For CPU
Liquid Color:UV Redish Pink: Medium Glowing Non-conductive Fluid (Requires H20: Stage 3 & UV Lighting)
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV) (Creates Glowing Effect For H20: Stage 3 UV Fluid)
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Requires Air Cooling Upgrade)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: Memory Fan Kit Only (Does not include memory overclocking service)
Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) With Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
LCD 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 5-10 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

then add a ssd to my config as HDD1

you could upgrade your motherboard to the normal evga X58, since your budget allows it.

Ok thanks for the advice DST4ME...what's the difference between motherboards Absinthe?

Although I personally haven't done so, the purpose of water cooling the video cards is if you are looking to overclock them past what you could normally do with just the stock air cooler.

If you aren't looking to do extreme GPU overclocking then just air cooling them would be fine.

Oh, that and if you just want significantly lower temps than air.

Edit: One other thing, that motherboard only does PCI-E x16 in the first slot. So the second card in SLI will be running at x8. Probably not a huge difference, but going with the eVGA 3X SLI board will give you true x16 SLI. And someone else mentioned that the difference in performance between the 1792MB 275 and the 896MB 275 is very small. You could save around $100 by going with the 896MB versions and then bump up the motherboard to the 3X SLI board for true x16.

Edited by notalent - 02 Sep 2009 at 4:45am

Ok thanks for the info Notalent...DST4ME I must be really trying your patience...thanks for your advice.....how this config? Brings me in way under budget....which is a good thing....

Copy of Specifications:
Chassis Model: Cooler Master HAF 932
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 3X SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports Triple SLI or CrossFire)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified by mushkin enhanced (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Corsair HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition)
Card Reader: Internal Digital Media Card Reader (Black)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (150GB Western Digital VelociRaptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / 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 275 896MB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: High-Performance Liquid Chilled FrostBite System For CPU
Liquid Color:Red: Non-conductive High-Performance Fluid (Requires H20: Stage 3 Cooling Package)
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Requires Air Cooling Upgrade)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) With Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
LCD 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 5-10 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

that build looks good tho I would change the mobo to LE cause it has more PCI slots.

Ok I'm a little confused now...how does that impact performance with that build or does it impact it enough to change? Just curious as to how it will affect game play.

I'm gonna agree with everyone else and say it'd be a good idea to upgrade from the LE Edition to the 3x SLI edition. It's just a better mobo all around and is worth the money.

I'm not 100% sure but I would think 2x 500gb hard drives in Raid 0 will perform equally well with the 10k rpm hdd. Someone come in and correct me if I'm wrong on that please.

One other question I have for my future setup also...would it be worth it to dual loop the frostbite if you're doing two vid cards also?

Originally posted by notalent The funny thing about the LE model is that if you run dual-slot cards in SLI then you block the PCI slots.

LE is just like classified, you can run tri sli and 2 other cards.

so actually for futur upgrading the LE model is better.

@MADMAX, you last config looks great stick with that

Edited by DST4ME - 03 Sep 2009 at 7:58pm

Can't wait to get this thing rolling!

Originally posted by DST4ME My pleasure for gaming vista and win7 should be the same I doubt that there will be any big difference.

In my experience, 7 runs slow on fast systems and fast on slow systems. This might be due to how people were screaming about Vista's optimization, as it seems to be the opposite of Vista. xD

Ok once I'm ready to go...who do I contact? Do I just call the 1-800 number and go from there?

Thanks DST4ME.

Rig ordered and paid for today!!!!!!!!