Multimedia Machine..

Are you going overboard? Well I think only you can answer that. But Expecting this PC to be good for 6years is expecting too much. I have a 6 year old system lying around it was a good system back in the day, but I mean it's a P4 with 512mb of ram and an 80gb IDE drive.

I'd say 4years at most.

Anyways as for your system. let me just point out some improvements. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... this is much cheaper and basssically identical.

This is also cheaper but also has a better cooler http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

This is the same price and faster, quieter, cooler yet huge.

Better, larger, quieter psu that's fully modular sadly though it comes at a price http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Your cpu has hefty premium attached because it's the best out there but hey if you've got the cash then what the heck. Although sandy bridge is coming beginning next year and they are supposed to pretty fast, but they are just mainstream procs so the 980 will probably stay up top for wuite a while.

OCZ has had issues lately maybe better opt for corsair http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

That mobo is pretty old but hey it's still good and you can get an add-in sataIII usb3 card like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

As for the HDD1 definately go with SSDs. Raptors are more reliable, cooler, quieter and faster than regular hardrives. But SSDs outdo them in each of those categories many times more than raptors outdo regular HDDs. This is a pretty fast one at a good price http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

What would you suggest for a new motherboard? This things going to be running quite a lot. The current PC i'm on now, is going to become a mass storage center for all the media & windows media center.

I'm going to be buying parts over time, due to the fact that Im a college student with a budget, but that budget isn't super thin like most.


The goal of the PC is to be able to have 4 monitors;

Screen 1: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
Screen 2: Linux in a Box
Screen 3: 3DS Max / Client Testing
Screen 4: Dreamweaver CS5/Web Designing


I want to be able to load a lot onto it, without having too many problems. I'm definetely going to try and run with Liquid Cooling or Water Cooling due to the fact that i'm plagued with problems with over heating with the last 4 computers I've built. Nothing I've ever built has held up to being able to Render 3D objects.

Here are some good high end motherboards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The MSI doesn't support 3-way sli or crossfire properly though.

At the price it's at in this combo you may want to consider this mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

It's the only one in the world to support 4-way sli and 4way crossfire at full speed. Not to mention it's simply an amazing motherboard with a built-in waterblock should you decide to watercool.

If you have heat problems you can just go with high end air cooling like some of the 480s I showed you will never have heat issues. However if you get those and still go watercooling you're wasting a lot of money so It's decision you have to make now really.

Well thank you very much Sombody_007.

My last question; With triple or quad-way SLI, can I just run 2 cards instead of 3 or 4? Having the option to expand to more is always a plus. I'd love to have another projector, if you know what I mean.

Yeah you can just run 2 cards in sli and add more if you need more power, but performance boosts won't be liniear.