Mad Cow, wondered if I could get your opinion. Just lost the hard drive on my desktop and I'm looking at replacing the system with a new desktop.
Main uses will be working from home and gaming. Need a pretty decent cpu for some of the stuff I do for work, and a lot of RAM. I'm aiming for that spot just before prices start to really climb without much bang for the buck. Dual monitor a must. Want great framerates for gaming and also would like to eventually go from 2 to 3 monitors for gaming and regular use both.
I'm currently considering something along the lines of the following.
i7 950 or 960 3Ghz, overclocked
Dual Radeon 5850 graphics cards
12 GB DDR3 1600Mhz tri-channel RAM
128 GB Crucial SSD harddrive
1 TB Western SATA3 harddrive
BR/CD/DVD read/writer
Asetek 570LC Liquid Cooling
I was originally going to go with an i5 750 cpu to save money, but found out if I did it would limit my options in going to three graphics cards somewhere down the road, so went with the i7 950.
I'm probably going to just have a company build it as I hate dealing with hardware, even if it costs me a little bit extra. Motherboard may be limited by which company I end up going with. I was going with the ASUS Rampage III Extreme for the time being as I compare prices on different sites.
Anything in that build that just screams to you of waste of money without gain, or that I might not be aware of how one of those choices is going to limit me in the future? I had considered going with nVidia so I could later add a third graphics card, but I think the dual 5850s will last long enough that when I'm ready to go to three graphics cards I'll probably want to upgrade them and can switch to nVidia then.
Edit to add: Also, any kind of feel for how much of a difference a dedicated PhysX card makes for gaming? The sites I was looking at that did graphics cards comparisons didn't go into it at least in the articles I read. Obviously if I go with the ATI card I couldn't have one, but do the ATI cards make up for the lack of one?
My two cents:CPU: If you're going with a more expensive CPU to give you a tri-SLI options in the future, but then say that tri-SLI is likely not going to be a cost efffective upgrade down the road (true), then you're not really aligning your CPU goals with your vidcard goals. I'd go with the i5 760 and overclock it. Save the cash for when you do a full rig upgrade down the road (rarely is adding another vidcard the best upgrade answer when the newest generation of vidcards are out). Which brings me to my next point:
Vidcard:
AMD is releasing its refreshed line of vidcards on Friday. Not sure if they'll be at retail then, but at your price point, I really would wait to see how good they are and when retail availability will hit before pulling the trigger on this rig. It's true that there is always something better in the future, but in this case the "better" is right around the corner, and you can afford to wait a week to see what it is and how much of a performance bump you'll get. Also, you don't necessarily need to go SLI to get multi-monitor support. ATI/AMD have some great eyefiniti cards these days that can handle up to six monitors.
RAM: What specifically do you need 12GB for? I have 8GB right now and seriously I never see more than 4GB in use. Even when gaming. If you're doing some serious photo editing then the RAM could be useful, but otherwise I'd just drop down to 8GB and get a bigger SSD.
SSD: I have the Crucial RealSSD you reference above, and while it screams on sequential reads at 6Gb/sec, the Sandforce drives are generally faster on IOPS. OCZ's Vertex2 uses this controller. Also, we are a month or two away from the new NAND modules hitting the market, which will see prices drop quite noticeably.
Optical: BD burners are really overrated right now. The media is expensive and reliability is very suspect using burned discs in standalone players. FYI.
General: If you save a bit of cash on the CPU, RAM, and optical drive, you could put yourself into 30" monitor territory. I run a 30" Dell and love it. Something to consider.
PhysX: It's more of an afterthought now.
Old code,
compatibility issues, and not every game is going to support it. I'd pass, but I would love to hear Mad Cow's thoughts on it too.
I'm pretty envious. At the price point you're working with, it's clear you're going to get a sweet rig. Keep us in the loop!