I need help picking parts for my $3000 new PC.

So funny...you want 980ti SLI and a cheap 1080p. That's like a oxy moron. Right? Even if you want to add 2 of the same you should be thinking about starting with 3x1080p.

I honestly wouldn't do that because X99 is just not meant for gaming. Period. The only reason to use it over Z97 / Z170 is that the support is there for multiple graphics cards beyond the typical 2-lane SLI setup. If that's the primary use for this system. I will also say that with new Intel hardware due out in less than a week that this is the worst time to be throwing down that kind of money on a system. In a little over a week, new Z170 motherboards and the Intel i5-6600K and i7-6700K will be hitting store shelves, making Haswell and even Haswell-E obsolete. Add in new operating systems and 4K and 5K monitors becoming more widely available that this is not the right time to be spending that kind of money on a new PC.

I agree with him, doing a single 1080p monitor is ridiculous when you've got SLI 980ti's
With that much power I'd recommend triple 1440p or get a 4k monitor. Go big or go home, hahaha. Anyways, for the budget, a 5960x is not something you should be using, as that plus your GPUs pushes you over 2200, and 800 left for the rest of the rig, plus monitors and keyboard is not enough.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fsnRt6
Here, I threw something together and you still have a little money left over for whatever mouse and keyboard you wanna grab.

I'm not saying I personally would go that way, but it sounded like he was intent on a 2011-3 build and the 5820 and 1620v3 are the most reasonable way to do it. I do agree that waiting for Skylake is a wise way to go as well, especially if you're not in dire need of a machine right now. I do not believe Skylake will make HW-E obsolete unless you can get 6- and 8-core CPUs and a lot more PCIe lanes, though.

That depends on the primary use for the machine. Gaming will never make use of an 8 core Intel CPU, at least for the time being. 5 years down the line? Who knows. If it's video editing or rendering then having the extra PCI lanes, DDR4, and the extra cores will make sense.

Partially correct, but you didn't qualify anything before. You simply said Skylake would make Haswell-E obsolete. Haswell-E will still offer advantages when PCIe lanes and CPU core count are main considerations. Also, some games already can use eight threads. Do they max out all eight threads? No, but they will utilize them if available. BF4 is one such example.

Simon, if I were to build a gaming first machine right now and had about $3000 available, I'd go with something like this. Yes, this is $3500 total, but it also includes a helluva monitor.

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($242.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($128.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung SM951 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($215.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($121.49 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($649.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($649.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 1050W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($156.20 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Acer Predator XR341CK 75Hz 34.0" Monitor ($1049.99 @ Directron)
Total: $3410.50

Overclocking an i7 CPU yields such marginal benefit to games that I don't think it's worth the extra money for the chip or for the cooling. The Xeon gives you eight threads with decent speed and a whole lot less heat. You still have your twin 980 Ti for maximum pixel-pushing. These are also exhaust style coolers, which is important because underneath one sits an M.2 SSD. It works over PCIe 2.0x2 so it's even faster than the best 2.5" SATA SSDs right now. The case is a Define series, which is designed to be quiet. The monitor is a 34" 3440x1440 IPS display with built-in USB3 hub. The downside is that the G-Sync version of this monitor won't ship for a few months. You can opt to swap the 980 Ti for two Fury X to take advantage of its Freesync feature, though.

This config can of course be trimmed down to save money. You can save $100 by getting a regular SATA SSD. Twin 980 Ti cards is also a LOT of money and you can get great gaming performance, even at this resolution, with cheaper cards. You could also drop the RAM to 8GB and save about $40.

OK you're right that I should not have said that Haswell-E will be obsolete with Skylake. Just like Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E. Instead I should have said that Haswell-E will still have its' purposes after Z170 / Skylake is released, but without the primary use known, the practicality of which platform to purchase remains an X factor. But Z97 will be obsolete when Z170 is released. So with that in mind I would not make recommendations for a system until that information is known. If it's Adobe CS5, Autodesk, etc then I would get Haswell-E. Everything else I would go Z170.

Hmm, after reading that OP again, it's not specifically saying gaming. Huh. Kinda thought it did since they were talking dual GPUs.

So yes, Simon, it'd help to know exactly what you're planning to do with this system.

That CPU is nto a good choice for games. Games rely on a smaller number of high powered cores, meaning the 17 will perform better in that aspect, and looking at a few benchmarking numbers show the i7 as beating out the Xeon in multicore tasks, which is quite suprising. Paying the extra 60 for the CPU is not a big issue, especially since one can just cut down on the RAM and motherboard a bit. 4x4 is an expensive way to go about it, 2x8 is cheaper, and allows for a cheaper upgrade, as 16 is starting to get to a point where it's entry-level.... The black series WD drive is way overpriced, a Seagate barracuda is just as good for a lot less.
The EVGA 980ti uses the stock cooler. The only time I would recommend that is if the OP planned to watercool, which would push the budget higher. Better to go with an aftermarket cooler, as the stock 980ti, just like the Titan X thermal throttles and is quite loud at stock.
That monitor seems quite excessive, and expensive. At that price point, why not dual 4k, or triple 1440p? The dual 980tis should be plenty to drive them just fine. Plus you'd get WAAAAYYY more screen real estate.
I do love the speed of M.2, but is 256gb necessary? 120gb seems just fine as a boot drive.
To me it seems you can save a lot of money by cutting back on the excessiveness of some of these parts.

Z97 won't be obsolete, as the z170 and skylake should be just a minor bump in performance. Nothing to completely freak out about, and would be up to the OP if he wants to wait for the 5-10% bump. Maybe this would also give him some time to make some more money to really improve the build. 3000 seems like a sore middle spot between good but compromising, and sexy as f***.

That only applies to single-threaded games that are CPU bound, which doesn't include most of today's games, particularly the bigger, fancier titles. You can take my word for it, or you can look at some benchmarks, particularly the sections where they clock the CPU to different speed. Slowing the CPU doesn't result in losing more than a couple frames on Intel CPUs. Considering it will be paired with two 980 Tis, it will already be fast enough that 3 fps won't matter.

It's not surprising at all. Both i7 and Xeon E3 are 4C/8T CPUs. However the Xeon tops out at 3.8 GHz on turbo boost. Every i7 will boost up to 3.9 GHz at least, with a 4790K going up to 4.4 GHz. That's without overclocking. So when you can saturate the threads of a CPU, yes, overclocking makes a big difference, but only when the application is CPU bound. For most games, it doesn't make a big difference.

So you're saying you want an i7 for overclocking, but you want to barrel-bottom Z97 board? That makes zero sense.

16GB is nowhere near getting to entry level for anything except heavy Premiere Pro and After Effects work. Four-way modules also boost bandwidth. Price differential between 4x4GB and 2x8GB just as often favors the four-way setup. If $60 extra for a CPU isn't a big issue to you, then why is $10 on RAM?

Says you. I've had fantastic experience with WD. The Black also has a warranty more than twice as long as the Barracuda.

Which makes me think you haven't tried a recent NVidia reference cooler. Every review I've read about them say they're extremely quiet compared to other blowers. The blowers are also important for the M.2 drive. The M.2 is directly beneath the second GPU. Putting an axial GPU cooler there heats up the M.2, which slows it down and wears it out much faster. If you don't get the second GPU, or if you opt for a slower 2.5" SSD, then this isn't so much of an issue. In any case, the Define R5 is a very quiet case, so if the only thing you're hearing is the exhaust out the back, which isn't even facing you, that's just fine with me.

Yeah, supposing you've got a desk big enough to fit them all. The monitor is very much about preference, I never said otherwise. I don't like 16:9 monitors for working and general use. I like the extra height from 16:10 monitors for working. However, finding a good 16:10 panel now is difficult. 21:9 is extra wide and with Windows 8 and beyond, you can snap apps to the screen sides to have extra windows open for productivity. For games it gives you an expanded field of view without seams between monitors. No, the overall resolution isn't as much as triple displays.

Spoken like someone who doesn't know the joy of owning a large SSD. Larger drivers also saturate the bus better, yielding better speed.

Well, yeah, you can cut back in a lot of places. There's no need to spend $3000 on a computer either. I can make a machine that can max out details on a regular 1440 display for half as much. However if someone wants to spend the cash, that's their decision.

Not everyone plays the brand new big name games, so it would still be beneficial to go with the more core heavy CPU, IMO, plus it would be a benefit where you will be doing multicore tasks, as the i7 still has more umpf.
The Gigabye gaming-SLI board is 100 and works great, yeah sure you wont have that last GHz that an Asus might squeeze, but it's a damn good board. Certainly isn't skimping
I've seen and heard from quite a few places where going for 4 channels puts more strain on the memory controller, making it slower, and use more voltage, whereas the 2 channels don't really have that issue. And again, I said GETTING to the point where 16 can be entry. Many office, and entry level computers are having 6-8, with others having more. Besides, wouldn't it be better to think a few years down the line? Why spend this money now, when you can save $10 and another $80 a few years down the road?
So? A warranty just means they're worried had multiple drives of different brands abused to rain, freezing temps, and summer heat, still worked jsut fine (a pool of ~130 drives) and these drives were already 10 years old (surplus PCs I bought). To me, spening 70 on a drive beats spending 130 or 140 for a drive that's essentially the same with more warranty. If it's going to fail, it will be immediate, or way after the warranty.

I love the Define series, I'm using the Midi right now. But when the Titan X first came out, it was pushed hard by reviewers, and they all said that the coller limited it, as it couldnt move the heat well enough, and that if nVidia would open it up to other people, the aftermarket coolers, or watercooling it, would be the best. The 980ti is essentially a Titan X and will suffer the same issues.

Mate, I use a 256 seagate s600 SSD. Bought it for my laptop a while back, but pulled it when I built my PC. And I do love it, and 256 is a good size if it is the primary, [strike]but when you have a HDD as bulk storage, you don't really need that big of a drive. Though it CAN be handy.[/strike] Scratch that, I actually only have 93gb free of my SSD atm.....
Spending cash isn't the issue, if cash is unlimited, but to me I see ways to cut 10 here, 30 there, 5 here, 60 there and this adds up. Fix enough of this and your PC can be WAAAYYY better for the same money. My rig cost me around 1200 on black friday, and easily saturates what i throw at it (i7-4790k, 970, 16gb, yada yada) buying on black friday, and having storage pretty much saved me 500 bucks... Not something to snub your nose at

I have two desktops that both run Z97. There is some truth to that it won't be obsolete. Hell, people still game on i7-920s and Core2Quads. But what I am saying is that if you want a "future proof" (and I really hate to use that term) build then I would wait for Z170 because not only will you get the new Intel platform but you'll also get all the new stuff that comes with it, like USB Type C and dual gigabit Ethernet.