The Best Money Can Buy (Excess Included) - Please Advise...

Hello all,

I am in the process of designing my new system and now believe it is time to get some advice from people that are really in the know, hence forth this post. I am very fortunate to say that money isn't an issue when it comes to building this system, I want something that is incredibly powerful with a nice twist of excess. As a user I am pretty compentent and experienced, but on the design and build side of things I am very much a novice. Please take a look at what I have come up with so far and I will list my questions/queries at the end of this post. I apologise for any technical inadequacy in advance. Here's what I have come up with:

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Product [...] A-X58A-UD7

Corsair CMPSU-1000HX 1000-Watt Power Supply - ATX 140mm Fan SATA-Ready SLI Ready
http://www.corsair.com/products/hx1000/default.aspx

Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition (975) 3.33GHz Processor 8192KB L3 Cache 6.4 GT/S
http://www.intel.com/cd/products/s [...] 405905.htm

Corsair Dominator GT 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 2000MHz 240pin DIMM Memory Module Kit (CMG6GX3M3A2000C8)
https://shop.corsair.com/store/item_view.aspx?id=766411

Seagate BARRACUDA XT 7200.12 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM 64MB SATA 6GB/S x2
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/p [...] racuda_xt/

nVidia GeForce GTX 295 Graphics Card 1792MB x2
http://www.nvidia.com/object/produ [...] 95_us.html

Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 Low Profile PCI Express Sound Card with Integrated Headphone Amp and Professional Mic Pre-Amp
http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_forte.php

X-Fi I/O Drive Upgrade
http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/xfi_iodrive.php

LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray Disc Rewriter + HD DVD ROM Drive Internal SATA / Retail
http://www.lge.com/uk/it-products/ [...] GWH20L.jsp

The queries I have are:

Will all of these components work in conjunction with eachother? In particular the RAM speeds and the board.

Will the dual GTX 295s work with the board, or will I have to go for dual GTX 285s?

As far as power/cooling/casing goes I have absolutely no idea, all recommendations will be welcome, although it must look either very stealth-like or uber-flashy (i.e. lots of pretty lights), I'm very big on aesthetic, although I am not stupid and will happily sacrifice some degree of aesthetic for technical practicality.

Could you suggest the best casing/cooling/power solution for this setup?

In regards to cabling, do all cables come provided with the various components, or are they to be separate purchases?

Finally, if there are any components that you would exchange for something more powerful please feel free to say, in particular the motherboard. However I would like them to equal or exceed the parts I have listed already.

Is there anything I have overlooked? (Of this I'm sure )

Additional Info: I do plan to overclock this machine in the future.

Thankyou for your time in advance, all feedback is welcomed, although please try and refrain from thinking cost-effectively as this will to some degree hinder what I am trying to achieve.

Resmash

For he motherboard I personally like ASUS more, so I like this motherboard better.
I really like the antec 1200 case
as for the gpu crossfire the 5970 getting a total of 4 gpus.
For that powerful system prbably you will want a 1200w like this one

Similar to a build I'm doing in December for a friend, we're using the Antec 1200 case and the Ati 5970 in crossfire on an evga E758 tri sli MB. Also using the Corsair 1000 HX psu. Good luck with your new build.

Case Antec 1200 - http://www.silentpcreview.com/antec-1200

PSU Antec SG-850 / CP-850 http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs

CPU - 975 is nice but you can OC a 920 to 975 speeds...of course 975 will OC higher still but not as much %

Memory - Dominators are ridiculously overpriced .... since CAS 6 chips are no longer being made, CAS 6 modules are history. best bet is CAS 7 and OCZ platinums give same performance for about 1/3 the price on your link. Go to newegg and drill down from computer hardware / memory / desktop memory / DDR1600 / 3 x 2GB / CAS 7 and then sort by price.

Prolimatech Megahalems - http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_Heatsinks

HS fans - Twin Enermax Cluster PWM fans 120mm x 25 mm

thermal paste - IC Diamond Karat

HD - 7200.12's are amazingy quiet and cool w/ great read performance....not so hot for workstation I/O if that's your application.

GFX - Well if you want no holds barred best performance, hard to argue w/ twin 5970's ... well assuming you wanna spend $1250......next down is twin 295GTX but I'd only go there if you gonna upgrade GFX cards before 2012. Single cards is an option....just finished Crysis Warhead and 2nd from top settings on 295 @ 1920 x 1200. The 295 gets you PhysX tho if ya into that kinda thing.

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 65-11.html

BTW, can do twin 5870's in XFire and add a dedicated PhysX (say a 260) card in WIn7

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/n [...] ,8786.html

Optical Drive - http://www.plextoramericas.com/ind [...] /px-b940sa

I'd get one of these 3 boards:

for up to four GFX cards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131390 (would get bigger PSI+U for this)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 1681313135
combo expired w/ this (last week)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131409

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131365

The Rampage comes with a Supreme Xi-Fi daughter card

yes

My son has the 295 in the Rampage II Extreme and it fits in the Antec 1200 case ...as would 2 w/ any of the MoBos I listed.

If ya don't like the 1200, the HAF 932 is an excellent alternate.
Antec 1200 w/ SG-850 or CP-850 or HAF 932 w/ Corsair HX-850

Yes, suggest ya buy the two optional fans for the Antec 1200. Might wanna buy some flexible SATA cables from frozencpu.com if ya anal (like me) about cable routing

Well I added the OC Station link above in case you wanna bling it up. The OC features are kinda cool I guess but it is an excellent fan controller. May want to sleeve ya fans if ya wanna bling it up more. Also might wanna add a UV light. Going with the blue theme....

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] =g6c75s133

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] 35c177s363

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] 35c181s374

That's the 1/4 size (I grabbed 18'...may wanna grab some (12') in 1/2 and 3/8 sizes also.

some tools

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] 12c133s257

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] 12c133s257

for PSU go for The Enermax Revolution 85+ series
This power supply is overkill for all but the most extreme of systems

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/p [...] u-review/7
on newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817194039
and for the board
Asus P6T6 WS Revolution
or you can take
World’s 1st 4-way SLI Board, 10 Phase Digital PWM, XL-ATX
EVGA 170-BL-E762-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 4-WAY SLI Classified
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813188059

obsidian86's build is very solid!! of course for $6,000 is should be

My question is, why spend over $2,200 on a PC, which will be obsolete in terms on performance standards in 6 months time (GTX3xx, i9 CPU's, USB 3.0 / SATA 6GB... etc coming out (or already out) very soon. My recommendation would be keep your PC cost to within $2,200 or so (1 - SSD, 1 - 5970, 1 - 1TB HDD, Corsair 850TX/HX PSU... etc), purchase a nice 30" Dell monitor and call it a day! Your PC will still be one of the best on the market and your wallet will still be heavy (which doesn't seem to be an issue for you like most... ) This is the problem with these types of opened threads where money is no object... we, as responders, lose sight of reality in terms of value to performance and recommend the "MAX" we can seem to fit within a system, were it isn't needed to get the performance the OP wants.

Just my two cents!

You have to love spending someone else money to build / purchase a PC for work!! I've always enjoyed saying, I need this $700 SixSigma software to help with this project or I need a $2,000 scanner to verify this information... Things, I would never purchase with my own money

LOL...now that's funny.

I agree with Tecmo. As nice as Obsidian's build is, the bang/buck just isn't there when spending so much. I couldn't do it, even when spending OPM, without a clear business case for it.

They don't draw anywhere near 500W each. The whole system with complete with a 5970 under heavy stress doesn't even manage that.

Why not eat every meal at McDonalds and never go to a good restaurant and pay 5 times as much for food.
Why buy a Porsche over a Yugo ?
Why not go to a uper* for your Honeynoom
Why not buy your suits at Walmart ?
What's wrong with a $10 hooker ?

1) The OP asked for [b]advice[/] on the build. I was giving the OP my advice that it isn't worth spending over $2,200 on a PC. I never said not to spend/buy the PC. It just isn't worth the extra money for little performance gain... IMO
2) The concept of "disposable money" means one has money to waste. IMO... One who has "disposable money" doesn't seek advice. They just buy and if it doesn't meet their expectations no big deal, they'll buy another one later. Since the OP asked for advice, the OP has concern that they are getting the best deal for the money, hence me stating not worth the money.

In the end, it is the OP's money and choice to spend it how they like! I just wanted to help them spend it wiser

"So in short, what I am saying is, we are all just building these things to make us "happy" and people have different thresholds of what it takes to make them happy. "

Funny part is...a person's threshold of happiness is never the same. A guy used to driving a Ferrari is not gonna like driving a Toyota Prius when he loses most of his money. Once a person who used to drive a Toyota Prius drives a Ferrari for a while, he won't wanna go back to the Prius as long as he has the income to maintain the Ferrari. In other words, people that have money can enjoy "higher luxuries" like buying a $6,000 computer and upgrading every 6 months to make as fast and powerful as possible but to regular people like me, they're just wasting their money because they have disposable income. It all depends on how much money you got and how much money you need to spend to make yourself as happy as possible.

theres no such thing as wasting money if its going to a self believed good cause , screw what everyone else thinks . point blank