First Build and Questions about CrossFireX

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Bianchi789

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Dec 19, 2013
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Hi everyone, I want a new gaming desktop and this is my first time building one, so if you have some very descriptive how-to videos that would be very helpful too.

Approximate Purchase Date: Hopefully shortly after new years

Budget Range: 800-850 Before Rebates / After Shipping. Prefer to buy instore though

System Usage from Most to Least Important: High Intensity/Graphic Gaming-Movies-Homework

Are you buying a monitor: No - I currently have an ASUS VS247 - will soon have two more

Do you need to buy OS: Yes -Windows 7

Preferred Website(s) for Parts:Tigerdirect/Canada Computers

Location: Woodbridge, Ontario

Parts Preferences: No preference, have always heard intel was better but i am open minded

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Yes - I would like to have 3 monitors side by side and play games on them, I am not sure if this requires two GPUs or not though

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments:Need to have a window and lots of blue LEDs - though that is optional since I can always buy it later, I would like a quiet PC - not required, but nice.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Laptop cannot keep up with some games I am starting to play.

I really appreciate the help, I would love to have an idea of what I want so you can have a starting point, but I am really not 100%

Thanks in advance - sorry for the long post, sticky said I should do it this way :p
 
Solution
Rammy
You can run three monitors from a single graphics card, that isn't a problem as long as they have enough suitable outputs. Most AMD cards tend to come with 1 DVI, 1 HDMI and at least one mini display port (often two or three). Most Nvidia tend to be 2 DVI, 1 HDMI and 1 display port. Lower end cards will often substitute one of those digital connectors with a VGA one. Whatever you chose, there is almost always a way to run three monitors from the vast majority of cards on the market.

Now, gaming on three 1080P monitors - 5760*1080 resolution, requires pretty huge investment (not just in the monitors). It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you triple the amount of pixels you have to fill, your graphics budget is going to multiply...
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Rammy

Rammy

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Sep 3, 2012
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You can run three monitors from a single graphics card, that isn't a problem as long as they have enough suitable outputs. Most AMD cards tend to come with 1 DVI, 1 HDMI and at least one mini display port (often two or three). Most Nvidia tend to be 2 DVI, 1 HDMI and 1 display port. Lower end cards will often substitute one of those digital connectors with a VGA one. Whatever you chose, there is almost always a way to run three monitors from the vast majority of cards on the market.

Now, gaming on three 1080P monitors - 5760*1080 resolution, requires pretty huge investment (not just in the monitors). It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you triple the amount of pixels you have to fill, your graphics budget is going to multiply too (though not necessarily by the same amount). Your current budget of 800-850 is absolutely fine for 1080P gaming, but for playing games at high detail levels with three of them, you'd probably be looking to double (or more) your budget.

Pcpartpicker Canada seems a total mess tbh, a worrying amount of stuff seems to be out of stock or incorrectly listed, so I'm not going to spam links as they are probably full of mistakes.

I reckon that a decent Intel overclocking build is out of the question at your price range. When you factor in an OS, suitable motherboard, cooler etc, you can hit $800 before even looking at a graphics card.
Processor - $250
Cooler - $30+
Motherboard -$150+
Memory - $75
HDD - $60
Case - $50 minimum
PSU - $65
Optical - $20
OS - $90
Total - $790, and no money to spend on graphics. You can cut a bit of money in a few places, but it really wouldn't be enough, I feel like this is a bit of a non starter.

You could definitely work an Intel non-overclocking build if you really want to go down the Intel path though.

Sticking with your interest to overclock, here's roughly what I reckon might work best for you. As I said, PCpartpicker is a bit useless here, but it gives you links to the parts. I haven't included a case because your main two requirements -window and blue LEDs don't interest me at all, so I'm probably not the guy to be picking out cases for you.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($149.75 @ Vuugo)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.79 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($99.99 @ Memory Express)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($62.44 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card ($223.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($65.47 @ DirectCanada)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($17.82 @ DirectCanada)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($93.87 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $819.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-20 01:40 EST-0500)
Hopefully the pricing is broadly accurate, though I know it's not your preferred sites (again, choice is a bit limited).
Most of the parts are pretty self explanatory really, and there isn't a huge amount of cash to be saved anywhere.
 
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Bianchi789

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Dec 19, 2013
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Will that GPU be strong enough to supports three monitors - hd gaming?
The rest of the stuff looks pretty accurate, i might throw in some extra cash and get a small SSD for my OS to go on, ive heard good things about that.
Thanks for the build!
 
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Rammy

Rammy

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Sep 3, 2012
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At ~$250 you can basically have a HD7950 or a GTX760. Both are pretty similar in performance, and for a single 1080P display they are plenty. At 5760*1080, neither will really be much good though. They are perfectly capable of running three monitors, but attempting to play modern games at that kind of resolution really requires two higher end cards. Even two HD7950 or GTX760 would really struggle if you cranked up the settings on demanding games. Now I'm not saying you won't get games to run, but having to run lower detail settings kinda removes the point to me.
Triple monitor gaming really isn't a cheap habit to support.

If I were building a machine for 5760*1080 gaming, I'd be looking to spend somewhere in the region of $700-1000 on graphics cards alone.
 
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manofchalk

manofchalk

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May 11, 2012
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I'm running three monitors off of a single (overclocked) 7970, cant vouch for what FPS I'm getting since I usually monitor that on one of the side displays, but I get decent performance in even intensive games at the higher settings. Non-intensive games (Mass Effect 3) you can max out just fine at 5760x1080.
The 7950 is pretty similar to a 7970, so you should get roughly the same performance.

One thing you have missed is that you need a Displayport monitor for Eyefinity to run on the HD7000 (and all but the 290's) series. You will need to use an Active Displayport adapter (preferably to DVI) for Eyefinity to work.

SSD boot drives are pretty amazing, once you get used to their speed, going back to a HDD based system is just agonizing.
 
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