Advice for $5,000+ first system for triple screen (5760x1080) gaming

Been thinking about putting this together for a while (since last summer!) but ended up waiting for the new NVIDIA cards to come out.

Now, I might still wait a little longer for the 4GB cards to come out. Hopefully those'll be available soon-ish.

I'm not in a huge rush to build this, but would like to have it in place by the end of summer. Also, I'm considering getting it built for me. I know, I know, I'll save money doing it myself, but in all honesty money's not really an object for this build. I have more valuable uses for my time than putting a system together and then configuring everything. Furthermore, whoever builds it for me will be able to OC the CPU much better than I could, and perform pretty exhaustive stress tests. That appeals to me. That said, I wouldn't shy away from doing incremental updates on the system down the line if need be (upgrade the video cards in a year or two or something like that).

Anyway, it's for a 5760x1080 monitor setup. With that much screen space, I think waiting for the 4GB 680's makes sense.

The only thing I want to do on it is game without worrying about bottlenecks or incompatible high end settings. I know that at 5760x1080, I'm bound to get some performance issues here and there on the highest settings, so my real goal is to be able to run anything out there on the highest settings on a dual screen display (3840x1080). Anything that I get out of the 5760x1080 display will be a bonus.

Here's what I have so far:

Case:

Antec P193 V3​

Power:

Antec HCP-1200, 1200W​

CPU Cooling:

Some kind of sealed liquid cooling, corsair liquid cooling maybe? Can take suggestions for this.​

Extra cooling:

Also thinking about putting in an extra fan on the side of the case​

Motherboard:

ASUS P9X89 Deluxe​

CPU:

Intel i7 3930K 3.2GHz 6-core 12MB​

RAM:

Kingston 16GB DDR3-1333 (4x4GB)​

GPUs:

Three NVIDIA 680s 2GB in SLI. Might wait for 4GB depending on how soon it'll come out​

Storage1:

Intel 520 120GB SSD​

Storage2:

WD Caviar Black 3.0TB. Although, I've heard anecdotally that drives lose performance/speed past 1.0TB. How true is this? Would I be better off doing three 1.0TB drives?​

misc:

random DVD drive and media card reader, OS, whatever else​

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Total Price: ~$4,000 to 5,000, I think.

I'm happy spending that much, but would not mind spending more if it gives me noticeably better gaming performance. Is there anything that I missed? Should I hold out for the 4GB cards? Or is this a pretty solid build?

Basically, I just posted this up here to see what you guys think. This'll be my first gaming computer since I was 13 back in 2004. Suffice to say, the tech has changed

Wanted to add as an addendum, as a separate post in this thread: I looked into water cooling my GPUs, but decided it's not worth it for the hassle and maintenance. The case is large enough for good air intake, and the 680s are pretty good at maintaining their own temps by air.

Palit JetStream GeForce GTX 680 these are 4gb cards BUT i have no idea where to buy them lol. Also if you do do 3 X 1tb drives you can do raid 0 and have increased speed that way.


Here are some case choices btw:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129087
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163154
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146089
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146088

For fans this is a thread of mine:http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=706460. Some good fans/advice over there.

If your just going to game you would be good with a i7-2600k or the IB counterpart. But you are going with 3 680s the fastest single card on the planet you will be bottle necking no matter what. Also you might be good with just 2 680's though some other person will give you the best advice on that.

Winter is coming as well, by the way.

Yamitoko said:

Winter is coming as well, by the way.

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What?

Horrerblade said:

What?

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His Avatar is the Dire Wolf, the sigil of house Stark from "Game of Thrones" it was just a little joke. >_>

lol thats what i thought HA HA HA

Horrerblade said:

Palit JetStream GeForce GTX 680 these are 4gb cards BUT i have no idea where to buy them lol. Also if you do do 3 X 1tb drives you can do raid 0 and have increased speed that way.


Here are some case choices btw:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129087
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163154
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146089
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146088

For fans this is a thread of mine:http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=706460. Some good fans/advice over there.

If your just going to game you would be good with a i7-2600k or the IB counterpart. But you are going with 3 680s the fastest single card on the planet you will be bottle necking no matter what. Also you might be good with just 2 680's though some other person will give you the best advice on that.

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Good thinking on the RAID 0. I overlooked that for some reason. But, thinking about it now, it would mean that if one of the drives fails then the data on all of them is lost. So then, wouldn't it be better to have a single, larger drive (one drive = one chance of failure, three drives = three chances of failure)? Or is my understanding of statistics off?

yea thats what you give up its either stability or speed i mean you could just do it where your ssd has your OS and you get a 300 gb vilocoraptor drive and put all you games on that and then you can get a large 2 tb drive for just your media and other things.

I was unaware that WD came out with 3TB black drives.

Cerberus2k7 said:

I was unaware that WD came out with 3TB black drives.

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Whoops, you're right. I had a 2.0TB card in there at first and just bumped it up to 3.0TB when I was making the post without checking.

Same thing, though. Doesn't really affect the rest of the system

The Coolermaster Trooper full tower case is sweet, has plenty of room.
Also why not go with 1600 mem and not 1333. go with Corsair vengance, be about same price.

Looks like a good build. I like the looks of that case too, for what it's worth. My only suggestion is get a larger SSD. You don't seem to be worried about cost, and 120G fills up quickly if you're playing a lot of games. [Edit: Like Horrerblade said, you can definitely do stuff you regularly use on the SSD and everything else on the HDD, but again, you don't seem worried about the cost and that is one area where you can definitely improve]

HardOCP did a 3x680 SLI review and it looks like they only had issues with memory in Skyrim. Worth a read regardless, but to tldr it's great in Mass Effect 3, Arkham City, Battlefield 3, and Deus Ex: HR.

I think you would be pretty happy with something like the Corsair H100. You can find it for a reasonable price if you look for a bit, and it's basically the equivalent of the highest end air cooler you can find, if you didn't already know. If you decide to go with it, I'd make sure it will fit. I assume it will since it has enough room for 2x140mm fans in the top, but it may be too thick or something.

Also, have you considered something like RAID 5? It has fault tolerance and speed at the cost of a bit of space. I don't know how important speed or data safety is to you, but it's a good system. Only downside is it requires (I think) at least 4 drives and you may need a RAID card. I wouldn't do it unless you need the speed (which, since you already have an SSD for OS and such, you probably don't), but it's something worth considering.

What i am doing with my current rig is taking some old 320 drives that i have installing the os on my ssd + my most played games then installing all my other less played games in those 320 hdd in raid 0 for better performance but not comparable to an ssd but still better then a regular HDD then i have a 2 tb HDD for everything else

Phelix08 said:

Looks like a good build. I like the looks of that case too, for what it's worth. My only suggestion is get a larger SSD. You don't seem to be worried about cost, and 120G fills up quickly if you're playing a lot of games. [Edit: Like Horrerblade said, you can definitely do stuff you regularly use on the SSD and everything else on the HDD, but again, you don't seem worried about the cost and that is one area where you can definitely improve]

HardOCP did a 3x680 SLI review and it looks like they only had issues with memory in Skyrim. Worth a read regardless, but to tldr it's great in Mass Effect 3, Arkham City, Battlefield 3, and Deus Ex: HR.

I think you would be pretty happy with something like the Corsair H100. You can find it for a reasonable price if you look for a bit, and it's basically the equivalent of the highest end air cooler you can find, if you didn't already know. If you decide to go with it, I'd make sure it will fit. I assume it will since it has enough room for 2x140mm fans in the top, but it may be too thick or something.

Also, have you considered something like RAID 5? It has fault tolerance and speed at the cost of a bit of space. I don't know how important speed or data safety is to you, but it's a good system. Only downside is it requires (I think) at least 4 drives and you may need a RAID card. I wouldn't do it unless you need the speed (which, since you already have an SSD for OS and such, you probably don't), but it's something worth considering.

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The HardOCP article is actually what I read just before posting this, and why I said I might wait for the 4gb cards (I want to play skyrim across three screens first!). Thanks for the cooler suggestions, it's probably what I'll pick up. And past the OS/some games, I don't really need the highest speeds on my HDD. And I'm not that worried about data loss or speed to consider a RAID 5 setup. The way I see it, it just over complicates things for me.

What I'll probably do then is get both a 2TB and 1TB WD HDD in addition to the Intel drive. And I'll bump the Intel 520 to 240GB.

As for RAM 1600 vs 1333... there's not really any performance gain to be had with the 1600 (in terms of what I'll be using the system for), and the kingstons are more reliable from what I've heard.

Also, I just did the calculations (out of mere curiosity).. to build the system myself I'd pay $5,315 for all the parts (including taxes and shipping). To have Puget Systems build exactly the same thing, it'd cost me $5,380. That's a measly $65 more, and they would OC the CPU for me + perform extensive stress tests + save me time + give extra 1yr warranty.

Why is the price difference so small? Because I live near Seattle, I'd be able to pick up my computer from Puget Systems, and they don't charge tax. So no shipping and no taxes makes it essentially the same price as doing it myself. No contest. I'm getting this built for me.

eztwister said:

The HardOCP article is actually what I read just before posting this, and why I said I might wait for the 4gb cards (I want to play skyrim across three screens first!). Thanks for the cooler suggestions, it's probably what I'll pick up. And past the OS/some games, I don't really need the highest speeds on my HDD. And I'm not that worried about data loss or speed to consider a RAID 5 setup. The way I see it, it just over complicates things for me.

What I'll probably do then is get both a 2TB and 1TB WD HDD in addition to the Intel drive. And I'll bump the Intel 520 to 240GB.

As for RAM 1600 vs 1333... there's not really any performance gain to be had with the 1600 (in terms of what I'll be using the system for), and the kingstons are more reliable from what I've heard.

Also, I just did the calculations (out of mere curiosity).. to build the system myself I'd pay $5,315 for all the parts (including taxes and shipping). To have Puget Systems build exactly the same thing, it'd cost me $5,380. That's a mere $65 more, and they would OC the CPU for me + perform extensive stress tests + save me time by not building it.

Why is the price difference so small? Because I live near Seattle, so I'd be able to pick up the Puget Systems comp, and they don't charge tax. So no shipping and no taxes makes it essentially the same price. No contest. I'm getting this built for me.

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I think that's a good decision with the HDD and SSD. I was just trying to give you options you may not have considered. Sounds like you're gonna have quite the system on your hands soon, have fun lol

Phelix08 said:

I think that's a good decision with the HDD and SSD. I was just trying to give you options you may not have considered. Sounds like you're gonna have quite the system on your hands soon, have fun lol

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Yea, I'm definitely looking forward to using it soon