Is 1200 watts enough?

Yes it will be enough. The way I worked that out is by the way that I've never seen a PSU more than 1200W, and there are computers out there as powerful as the one you're going to build so it must be enough  

i figured as much. i worked out about ~1150 watt peak, but with this sort of insanity warrents some second and third opinions, you know?

i'm using it as a second sorce of income from a friend of mine who does a *!&% ton of video editing. and i want the thing to last me for at least 8 years.
as for the 9800, i didn't know if i was going to go all out with liquid cooling, and when i got it the 480's hadn't come out yet, so i wanted a single slot card.

out of curiosity, what would you sugjest for a ded. PhysX in that setup?
cause at this point, i'm kinda at the "why the f**k not?" stage of building.

If you are going all the "F" out, plus you already have it than go ahead and use it. I was just saying running it as a dedicated Physics card will provide little or no help. With Tri-SLI there is no need to use it, since the setup will be more than powerful enough!!

Never more than 1200w? How about Silverstone's 1500w unit? Ridiculous, of course, but that's the point with this kind of build!

Silverstone is one of the best PSU out... Period. If you are going for "over the top", you cannot go wrong with it  

Not to rain on your parade, but no computer is really going to be viable for 8 years. It may still run at that point, but it's likely to be very low end by then.

Good point  

If anything might last that long and still perform at some level, the i7-980X is currently such a CPU.

i know it wont run well after 8 years. i still have an old P4 back from 2000 that proves that point. i just want it to run for that long. the longer i can keep it running the more i can get out of it right?

i kinda figured that the 9800 wouldn't do that much, but every bit counts, and there's always the "hey! look what i got!" factor.

...that factor has a decidedly large role in this particular build.

as for the siverstone, i saw it after i bought the antec. it does look rediculously...awesome. that's really all there is to say. i wish i new of it before i bought the TPQ. would make cable management a breeze. but i didn't, and i do like my antec 1200.
...and the 902 that it's in right now -don't judge-

No judging on my part!!! I love my Antec 1200  

I think my next case might be the Silverstone RV02, unless RV03 is out and looks better. I really like that case. However, the new Antec Dark Fleet has grown on me some  

I'd love to see what your electrical bill will look like.

Enermax are better PSU's above 1KW

Holy crap.... 3x480s?! That seems a bit excessive even for your purposes... By the time you will need the second and third 480 I think there will be GeForce 6xx or higher out... I feel like a 480 will be good until the next full release of DX comes out... Im still using a GTX 280 Superclocked and I max Metro 2033, BFBC2 (minus DX11 of course) I would say skip the 2nd and 3rd (and 9800) GPUs and go buy a car or something lol

@linuxhero27: i wont. =[ but that's not the point.

@Griffolion: what're the specs on 'em? i might use them in my next build

@speter800: considering i'm overclocking the 480's to about 900 core clock and the processor clock to ~2000, (maybe even more if i get EVGA's lifetime warrenty)
it's going to be quite a while before these things will become useless, considering at that point one would beat out a reference 5970 at almost everything.
and i don't need to get a car because i already have one.

What I meant was that the 480 more than likely won't support DX12. it will probably support DX11 point releases. If you're going to overclock that much I definately don't think you need 3 480s lol. I guess I'm just jealous. I made a beast a few years ago with a top Core 2 Quad, 4 GB of 1066 DDR2 and a GTX280 and it's already WAY outdated (but not obsolete, I still run Metro 2033 maxxed minus DX11)

i understand. although, considering that nvidia used the G92 core for the last 2 generations of cards and they supported DX9 and DX10, i'm guessing that this core will be around for a while.

that, and it'll take a little time before i get the cards due to bills and such that the "unlocked" fermi might come out before i manage to buy anything.

if that's the case, i'll just get those instead.

Best answer selected by kio54.