jasonc783

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2009
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0
18,510
im putting together a new gaming pc im looking to spend upto $3200 and i am having issues staying within budget

the mobo im pretty much set on is
Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME ATX LGA1366 X58 DDR3 3PCI-E SATA Sound 2GLAN 3-WAY CrossFireX SLI Motherboard

im not sure which i7 processor to go with
Intel Core i7 920 Quad Core Processor LGA1366 2.66GHZ Bloomfield 8MB LGA1366 4.8GT/S
Later i will be upgrading to the or somthing better
Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 Quad Core Processor LGA1366 3.2GHZ Bloomfield 8MB LGA1366 6.4GT/S

the PSU i am going to get is the
Corsair TX750W 750W ATX 12V 60A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 140MM Fan

RAM
G.SKILL F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1333 CL 9-9-9-24 Triple Channel Memory Kit
i will also be adding another 6 gig later

Heatsink
Scythe Mugen 2 Heatpipe CPU Heatsink LGA1366 LGA775 Socket AM2 120MM

Case
Coolermaster ATCS840 ATX Tower Case Black 6X5.25 6X3.5INT 1X3.5EXT Front USB Firewire eSATA Audio

as for the video cards i am stuck and not sure which direction i want to go i do want duel monitor (triple at a later date) and at least 512mb/card combined vid mem

as for the ethernet card im going to try the onboard High Velocity 2X Bandwidth Boost for now anyways

evrything else will get canabalized from my old pc
any sugestions for vid cards are welcome and any tweaks anyone can think of would be apreciated
or if you spot any conflicts let me know im farly new to building computers
 
For a gaming pc, start with the best vga card/s that you feel comfortable paying for.
Today, the best single card seems to be the GTX295. It will run anything out there well. My suggestion is to get just one card, and see how you do. If you find it lacking, then eithar add another one(three is crazy IMO) or wait until the next round of cards launches later this year. Your selected psu will support two.

I do not think the 965 or 940 is worth it at all compared to the 920 if you have any sort of a budget at all. The 920 will run at 3.33 with only a mild overclock. At that speed, it can drive two GTX295 cards. It is 1/3 the price.

Even the most basic onboard lan is plenty.

It is not clear to me how good the new dual screen support will be for the ati and nvidia cards. Games may be designed to use only one display, particularly in sli/crossfire mode. For the best experience, consider a 30" 2560x1600 monitor.

Gigabyte makes good mobo's, but I do not see the value in some of the high priced models.
The UD4P or the Asus P6T would perform just as well.

I do not know what hard drives you have, but the velociraptor or the 1tb wd caviar black are very fast and can make a difference.