Don't want to bottleneck on SLI down the road

[Bladespirits]

Ok so I'm very undecided on what I want beyond that I need a rig that will last 2-3 years and then I want to go SLI down the road to hopefully get a couple more years out of it (and hope no directX 12 comes along that makes me have to upgrade before then).

The only thing I'm keeping from my old rig is my monitor. The 3007 Dell with the 2560x1600 resolution being both a gift and curse.

The only thing I've decided on getting is the Nvidia GTX 580 and down the road upgrading to a 2nd one so I need a rig that won't bottleneck when I do end up going SLI. I know there are Crossfire solutions which can be cheaper and do just as well on most games, but what most of those benchmarks don't show is the minimum framerate where Nvidia excels. And atm mutliGPU setups are still abit picky about what games they work well in so a single GPU is what I've decided on for now. But at the same time I want something that can run any game at max settings in 2560x1600 so thus the obvious choice is the 580 gtx.

That said.. I'm not looking for something extremely high end. I love my monitor for the extra workspace when working in Maya, but it also means alot beefier card needed for gaming cause running out of native resolution makes playing games rather unpleasant. I'm not very big on overclocking though if there's somewhere I can save alot of money and get nearly the same performance from overclocking for instance a CPU I wouldn't be against it. Oh and must be air cooled I don't have the will to keep up with maintenance on watercooling.

So with that in mind.. what should I get? I have no real budget in mind but there's no way I'll be getting anything extreme like the i7 980 unless there is some sort of super deal over Black Friday/Cyber Monday. If I had to give a number.. under $2k.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions. I'm a blank canvas for the most part.

 

[Twoboxer]

First off, I think your logic is sound - if only because its pretty much the same course I've set for myself to replace my 4 year old gaming rig 1Q next year lol.

Only difference is I'm going to wait for the new Intel cpus, specifically the 2600k. I'd recommend you do some google work, and think seriously about waiting until then before making this significant investment.

If you want to move forward today, you really should go with an i7 9xx cpu for the 1366 socket and higher PCIe bandwidth. But before giving you a configuration, I'm going to ask you to look at a case. The second problem with 2x580 is heat generation. In a standard PC case, it would be ideal to have an extra slot separating the two cards (ie, two x16 slots 3 slots apart). Boards like that are expensive . . . but if you would consider using this case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163154&Tpk=silverstone%20raven%202

then I'd recommend using a less expensive mobo. With that case, a 1366 socket mobo, and a quality psu you'd be all set to add a second 580 if/when needed.

 

[Bladespirits]

I'm loving that case even if it seems abit gimmicky with the heat convection I'm sure the 180mm fans across the bottom of the entire case will do the job. I'm liking it more for the hopefully lower maintenance on it hard to find a case built around positive airflow with a decent dust trap on em.

And yeh I suppose I really should wait for Sand Bridge to come out.. waited half a year for a 512core Nvidia card guess I can wait a couple more months for the Sand Bridge, but there's always something around the bend and need to buy at some point. The question I have now though is while they clock extremely high how well do they actually perform when 25% of the die is being used for graphic purposes?

 

[Twoboxer]

Re Sandy Bridge: That's what we're waiting to see for sure lol. Intel has been very vocal about the performance, and since they already have the high end locked up I'm guessing its close to true, since there's little reason to lie

Re Waiting for Vid Cards: In most cases one doesn't have to wait for vid cards, unless you're running 2560 resolution lol. I've been using a 5870 because of nVidia heat and at 1920 (on my 27" Dell) there's no complaint. Right now the 580 looks right for you, but in waiting for SB you should also get a shot at AMD's next high end cards. So two for the price of one wait.

Re The case: Glad you found it worth considering. Silverstone has another version of the case, more expensive, FT02. Google will find you reviews of both cases - some show Raven cooler, some show FT02 cooler.

Here's what sold me on the case btw:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/09/30/my_quiet_galaxy_geforce_gtx_480_sli_build

These guys don't usually play softball re nVidia stuff, and this opportunistic review of the case seemed very real - not paid for - to me.