New Parts... When to take the plunge?

For the products DS stocks, you will have to go with the Asus Maximus VI Extreme for Devil's Canyon CPU with 4-card SLI. They have ordering available now for the Devil's Canyon CPUs, they are expected on June 25th. The motherboard will need a BIOS update that is now available from Asus to work with the CPU. The motherboard is capable of taking a BIOS update without any components being installed on the motherboard. It only needs to be plugged into power.

As far as I have heard X99 will be released in the 2nd half of this year. Other then that, I just don't know. DDR4 will bring faster memory with higher latency, I have seen quotes CAS of 15. How the performance of the platform compares the desktop Haswell systems for gaming, no one not under NDA can tell you. ;-)

As far as upgradeability, they use mostly standard components. The Aventum II is a custom case designed by and built for DS. It supports standard components. So, fitting new products in the case shouldn't be a problem. The issue is the exchanging of components if you opt for a water cooled system, which I assume you will with your budget. One option is to go with self-sealing quick disconnects which would ease the replacement of components. DS does offer the ability to return the system for them to swap out/in components, if you don't feel up to the task. The quick disconnects would also ease system maintenance, like flushing the system. For refilling the reservoir it would be useful to have a syringe.

Edited by danjw1 - 06 Jun 2014 at 3:02pm

Thanks for the responses guys.

Originally posted by danjw1 For the products DS stocks, you will have to go with the Asus Maximus VI Extreme for Devil's Canyon CPU with 4-card SLI. They have ordering available now for the Devil's Canyon CPUs, they are expected on June 25th. The motherboard will need a BIOS update that is now available from Asus to work with the CPU. The motherboard is capable of taking a BIOS update without any components being installed on the motherboard. It only needs to be plugged into power. As far as I have heard X99 will be released in the 2nd half of this year. Other then that, I just don't know. DDR4 will bring faster memory with higher latency, I have seen quotes CAS of 15. How the performance of the platform compares the desktop Haswell systems for gaming, no one not under NDA can tell you. ;-)

Ah that is good to know. How would I order that motherboard? I don't see it in the configurator for the Aventum II.

Originally posted by Theokritos Welcome to the forums.If you don't mind, please share with us some of the games that you are playing or intend to play on your new rig. I'm a big believer in software driving the hardware specifications so it will help tremendously if we have some idea of the exact programs you intend to run on your future monster machine.Other, more experienced hardware enthusiasts, should be able to speak directly to your hardware questions.

Thanks. I guess I should be a bit more specific. Just as a standard example I would like to be able to run Crisis with max settings in 4K at 60 FPS or as close as possible to it. That is just an extreme example of course. Other examples are Metro: Last Light, Watch_Dogs, heavily modded Skyrim, etc. I play many different games, but the goal for this machine is to be able to run the most demanding games out there in 4K resolution at solid frame rates. For the display, right now I am planning to get the recently announced Acer 4K monitor with G-Sync.

Originally posted by danjw1 For the products DS stocks, you will have to go with the Asus Maximus VI Extreme for Devil's Canyon CPU with 4-card SLI. They have ordering available now for the Devil's Canyon CPUs, they are expected on June 25th. The motherboard will need a BIOS update that is now available from Asus to work with the CPU. The motherboard is capable of taking a BIOS update without any components being installed on the motherboard. It only needs to be plugged into power.

By the way, is this something that Digital Storm would do on site? I would assume so because they would need to test the machine is working before they ship it out to me.

We can definitely install any BIOS update before shipping out, especially if it involves compatibility.

A couple of things...  The H2O tubing wouldn't be compatable with the copper piping.   

Also, with 4x Titan, all the Pcie slots are covered with the double wide cards, so no room for the added sound card.  

I can't answer the RAID question.  

Looks awesome.

Ah ok great. Good to know on the sound card. This is exactly why I am asking these questions! Great answers.

Now I just hope that Acer releases their 4K G-Sync monitor sooner rather than later.