Crossfire 4870 @ 144x900

I think crossfire is a bit overkill for that resolution, at least 2x 4870. Either 1 4870 or 2x 4850 would make more sense to me.

And for the rest of the setup, you should check the p45 chipset, alot of them got crossfire and are great overclocker for less $. And a 1kW power supply is overkill.

You should be fine with one card short term, it's longer term you'd want to concern yourself with Crossfire.

Right now CF would allow you to raise the AA level without a major hit, and also would keep your minimum FPS pretty solid and high.

I don't think it's worth it to do Crossfire, but there are still benefits.

I personally think that you are spending a lot of money you do not need to spend. Here is what I would change if I were you:

GPU:
Buy a single 4870 for now. Crossfire at 1440x900 is not needed. Some day if you buy a bigger monitor with a higher resolution you can always buy another 4870.

Mobo:
As an owner of an Asus board I can say that I am not fond of them. You seem like the type that may enjoy overclocking and tweaking your computer to get every last ounce of performance. Because of this here is my recommendation for a mobo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813136046

Case:
Nothing against your Thermaltake, but that is one expensive case. Consider this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811133154

PSU:
As previously stated 1000 watts is overkill. Consider this Antec TPQ-850. I use it and I have not run into trouble yet. Corsair is also good and they have lots of flavors to suit your needs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811133154

CPU:
Here is where I would actually spend more money. I would buy a Q9450 if I were in your boat. I just have a soft spot in my heart for 45nm quads.

http://microcenter.com/single_prod [...] id=0287628

HDD1:
I do not think a Velociraptor is necessary. They are just too pricey at $1/GB. Heck for less coin you could buy three of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148288

and put them in a RAID 5 array for a performance boost with redundancy.

HDD2: If you need that much space right now then buy the drive otherwise wait. The only direction hard drive prices can go is down.

Well Charz those are my suggestions. Do with them as you please. Either way you will be happy with your computer.

Good Luck,

William

I would say 4870..200$ price diffrence

Well then for my resolution would i be better off with the 9800GX2 or the 4870 in crossfire. And is the 4870 overkill for my resolution or is the 9800Gx2 better for my monitor.

Charz,

I said it before and I will say it again...go for the 4870. One day you may find yourself wanting a bigger monitor. I am on a 19 inch right now and I would love to have the extra real estate of a 28" monitor. You never know what you may want in the future.

A single 4870 is not overkill in my opinion. Think of it this way: You can turn up post-processing like anti-aliasing and get an even cleaner image without a huge drop in FPS that users at a higher resolution would experience with a single card. If some day you want a larger monitor you can always add another 4870. I think the 4870 is just more future-resistant compared to a 4850.

Agreed

Agreed

The P182 is a very nice case. I was trying to keep it similar to the OP's full-tower case otherwise you can bet I would have recommended the P182. That gun metal exterior is sexy...never thought I would say that about a computer case. I must be easy.

William

That P182 looks so dull, I just cant do it. I really want a Full Tower and the Armor Plus I really like, the whole removable motherboard tray is what drew me into it.

And I really dont have any internal components to improve on really as far as I can see aside from switching around the GPU, and I may get a Q9450 instead of the Q6600.

Major overkill. I'm content on a 8800gs @ that resolution which is far inferior in speeds of just ONE 4870. I haven't yet found a game that isn't complete smoothness except crysis @ very high which would even choke 280gtx.

Buy a better monitor instead and just get a single 4870 if you have money you want to use on your computer. A good monitor can do wonders for image quality and the way you work.

1000W is way way way way way overkill btw. look at this power consumption chart from anandtech.

This is why my high quality Corsair 550 watt is going to last me a very long time, with or without SLI. Stick to a quality 600-watt model (i.e. Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, etc.)

Yes there is amperage and railing details, but it just goes to show you.

Sure I don't want to be running my system at 500-watts all the time, so I'm not going to be SLI'ing GTX 280's under this thing, but anything under even 470-watts should be fine.

This chart actually surprised me, and other charts are similar. Is there something I'm missing?

The chart does say.... Total System Power Consumption under Load
I don't know how you figured it was 12v wattage only.

I've made alot of changes to my build since the time of my original posting, I'll post it when I'm done making changes.

Trust? Not verify? Sorry, I don't think I can do that.
Although I don't know where you pulled the 400W figure from it's never been just about the wattage or just about the graphics card.
If I was running a modest budget gaming rig (maybe an overclocked E2180 and not that Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 rig Anandtech tested) I'd rather run that 4870 with a good 380W PSU with an honest 30Amps of +12v than an iffy 500W PSU with just 24Amps of 12v power.

So you would choose to power up your computer with a cheap 500watt power supply with low 12volt amps? What about efficiency?

I would over some cheap no name 500watt that has efficiency of 30%.

Good luck with cheap power supplies that blow up your motherboard.

Enermax isn't cheap. they are decent brand. I'm talking about the 9.99 special at best buy.