Wanted: Multimonitor Workstation Build Input

Kudos to the vision of having a great interface for your mind to operate on/in. I have a PLP (portrait/ landscape/ portrait) set up recommended by a now disappeared blog (1200x1600, 2560x1600, 1200x1600).

In this case two older Dell 2007's (20") and a U3011 (30"). Love it but have run short on desk space. What size and make are your spec'd monitors? Your link doesn't work for me.

Things I've come to know since my workstation build:

Good PSU, gold rating, quiet, modular. Seasonic comes recommended.

Cooling for CPU, I'm a water fan, against my heat piped air tower, 10 degrees cooler on my dual CPU system, yes a kludge.

Graphics card, 780 seems to stack better, 660 is older now, I'm up to 660 from 460 2Win, thinking I should have made the leap, learning from 460 - 460 dual - 660. You are just using it for displays as opposed to a rendering engine.

For your needs, yes, you are at overkill. BUT, why not be happy? A 400$ difference now will see you and your modest needs through five years when the technology will have leaped forward again but will be mostly unnoticed with a quality build now. Keyboard, mouse, sound and monitors are your connection to the computer. Having an adequate sized SSD and enough spinner storage which is always dropping in price is a good start. If you are only wading through compiles then 16GB and a fast processor are heaven. I do batch photographic process and 3D and such while entertaining 20 or 30 tabs in my browser's windows, yes "s's" as I like to research complete thoughts, with 3 screens I can stay in the zone with this real estate.

Next up, graphics, I was thinking to double up at a later time but when I went to look the price was prohibitive, the availability sucked and better cards had appeared in just a year. Getting into the high mid band now lets you slide for far longer. Fastest card biggest memory now in price range.

What I need now, USB 3.0 and SATA even though I have dumped my main drives off on the SAS controller built into the MB I didn't get then but that's where the 7 8x MB slots came in. Nice amount but head butted on the glass ceiling for the graphics by it.

The other aspect when you build your own by choosing quality parts over store margin packages is the availability of the sweet spot for all your components normally called bang for the buck. When choosing on your own you might become price biased or spec blinded. By wandering through the process here with all the helpful suggestions you can start evaluating why a Samsung 840 is chosen time and again over a SanDisk which seems oodles faster.

I've got no recommendation as to the store to purchase from, I got all my stuff off E-Bay, New Egg, Tiger Direct, Amazon and benefited from the reliability and quality available to an amateur that took a dedicated professional back in the day. If you have a local shop you can assemble your list and its prices from the net and see if they will match it. I have both NCIX and Memory Express locally plus my pals to accompany me and talk out of stupid 'because I can' stuff.