Seeking Help with a Gaming Computer Design

Hi! I am trying to design a new computer and upgrade from a GTX 9800, Q6600 quad corp processor, 3 gigs of ram gaming rig. It is about 4.5 years old and I am trying to determine the best choice for a new system. After looking here and on newegg and some other sites I thought this set up would work best. I had a couple questions though:
1) To SLI or Not to SLI. From what I have read SLI doesn't grant all that great of an increase in gpu power, approximately 20-30%? If that is the case would it make more sense to spend the money on a single graphic cards that is more powerful?
2) I chose the Noctua NH-D14 over the water coolers, is this a good option with a more powerful gpu?
3) I was wondering if I could get green led in the case rather than red or blue?

I would appreciate any guidance here in helping me create this gaming rig. I want to get this right and have something that will last the way my former rig has, which has been capable of playing most games up until the last few months. Thanks!

Budget: $2,500.00-$3,000.00

Expectations: A primarily gaming computer with capability of running Skyrim, Star Wars the Old Republic, BF3, while not breaking the bank account that will last, with minimal upgrades, for up to 4-5 years (minimal upgrades including potential video card upgrade or implementing SLI)

Usage:75% gaming, 10% video/picture/amv creation, 15% general use/microsoft office


Special Needs:
All Green Led lighting
LCD fan control and monitor

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: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad 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 Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32 MB Cashe 2.5’ SATA 6.0G/s Internal Enterprise Hard Drive OR 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache) (Model: Black Edition)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: SAMSUNG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-/+R 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Combo Model SH-B123L/RSBP Lightscribe Support
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card(s): Either 1x EVGA 03G-P3-1584-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 3072MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x 16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card OR 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1.2GB (Includes PhysX Tech) (EVGA Edition)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Noctua NH-D14
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: - Green led
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - Scythe Kaze Master Temperature Display & Fan Controller (Requires Chassis Airflow Upgrade) (KM01-BK)
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro or Deluxe Series Motherboard)
Graphics Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Memory Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
OS Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - Officer 2010 Home and Student
Pre-Install Game: FREE: Batman: Arkham City (Available only with NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphic cards)
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 (Extra 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

Thank you again!
-Edaar

1. there is no single card that is more powerful, if you pic your sli correctly.

in some games sli will have no effect, in some games it will double your performance.

2. cpu cooler has nothing to do with gpu cooling/choice. both a70 and noctua are king till you get to stage 4.



fans don't come in green the haf x has a 230mm red led fan upfront which will not get changed, and if you do change it, they will change it with a smaller louder fan.

fan controller will not control any fans and its temps are not accurate.

sli 570 will eat a single 580 for snack in games like bf3.

your build looks good, hdd2 should be 1TB black caviar, the gpus should be sli 570, but to be sure I need to know your res. drop the fan controller.

What is the native resolution of the monitor you gonna be gaming at?

fyi:

1. response time is a bs number, its there to fool you and does not represent the true response time of the monitor, there is no real way of truly finding what response time is, the closest to it is white to white but you don't see that, you see grey to grey or black to black cause they give small numbers to fool users but they don't mean anything, there are different methods to get these numbers also, and each will give a different number as results, therefore you can even compare one to the other, cause we don't know what method was used for which, and even if we did, still GTG or BTB don't mean anything.

2. contrast ratio is also bs number.

Most important thing about a monitor is its panel, right now there are 2 major ones, TN and IPS, IPS has superior picture quality/clarity.

do you already have that monitor? if yes then you gonna want sli 570 for it.

Ya an IPS panel and I have and lot of people here have and love:

Dell UltraSharp u2312

Dell UltraSharp U2410M

they are pretty much the same you can get the 23" for $260 on sale or with a coupon.

go here and see if this coupon still works

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Oct 2011 at 4:40pm

LOL you fix one thing but them messup the other one

but seriously, the upgraded fans are smaller and louder, the hailstrom is not a case you want for air cooled system, we recommend that case for systems with lc on cpu/gpu, so change that back to hafx, it has great airflow and we highly recommend it for air cooled system.

so go back to haf x and drop fan upgrade. there is no way to make haf green without losing airflow and keeping the same noise level.

if you want red or blue then I can show you the 200mm fans in those colors.

one more option is to get teh haf x nvidia edition, which comes with front 230mm led fan as green, but cm does not offer the 200mm fans in green. so the three 200mm fan spots can't have 200mm green fans in them.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Oct 2011 at 5:28pm

No the only difference between blackops and special ops is price, just go to the other side and pick the same components and the haf x case.

here:

Ticket Number: 604732

pic green lighting.

Edited by DST4ME - 11 Oct 2011 at 6:10pm

My pleasure and good luck Don't forget to post review and pics of it when you get it