Enthusiast/Gaming build for 3 dell u3011s.

[jshags]

Approximate Purchase Date: As soon as possible.

Budget Range: Budget free

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Showing off, gaming, stock market data compilation(not very demanding)

Parts Not Required: Don't need any peripherals, do need case and all case internals.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg and amazon I've used, not opposed to anywhere else though.

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: No real preference here, I've built and used AMD and Intel as well as Nvidia and AMD for cards.

Overclocking: If necessary.

SLI or Crossfire: If necessary.

Monitor Resolution: 7680x1600

Additional Comments: Well, I'm giving away my old box sad to see it go but I'm making the most of it. I've been looking at parts for a while now but I'm a bit overwhelmed on how to max out that resolution

Additionally, I own a store we're working with a LAN group for some promotion and I thought it would be cool to bring down a blow your mind sorta PC for cool factor at their annual LAN tournament. That's in 2 months.

Thanks in advance guys, anything else I can add lemme know.

 

[dragonfire321123]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/312826-31-bestconfigs-high-intel-gaming

 

[dragonfire321123]

I'll take your old computer if you want lol =) jk(but seriously if your giving it away I'll take it)

 

[jshags]

Those seem a little light on GPU power for that sort of resolution(I could be wrong). Also, I'm a big fan of the 2600k but the moment you start adding more GPUs to max out 3 screens I get concerned with a CPU bottleneck overclocking might be able to handle that though.

 

[jshags]

Sorry, going to my cousin. I'll keep you in mind for next time though.

 

[rvilkman]

Basically to do that resolution you are looking at GTX580 3GB Quad SLI. You will need the 3GB memory at those resolutions.
Probably a i7 2600k overclocked to the max. Small difference to i5 2500k, but might be helpful in this case with quad sli.

But even with that setup I don't think you will be maxing out crysis 2. But some games should look and run great.
Also quad sli is very dependent on the drivers and the game supporting it so hopefully you will be lucky and the games/drivers actually support the setup.

Basically you are looking for a full tower, something like Corsair Obsidian 800D or HAF X. So you will have space and ventilation.

Then you pretty much should be watercooling the whole thing to get it to run cool.

You will also need one hefty PSU to run all that, 1500W minimum I would say and even those might not cut it fully.

Motherboard selection is tricky too, but there is like one Asus board that uses NF200's that will let you run 4x GTX580 the ASUS P8P67 WS REVOLUTION.
Possibly a couple of more if you have single slot watercooled cards, but generally the WS lets you even do it with 2 slot air coolers.

 

[jshags]

I thought there was a 3 card max on SLI? Or were you talking about the GTX 590s? Also, any knowledge of the Hydro Copper liquid cooled cards? They're way thinner but I've never used one and the GTX590 looks like it still uses 2 slots because of the extra DVI port. I've also heard the 590 has some problems atm?

Also, if it takes a 2600k to the max would a dual xeon CPU system alleviate that at all? I have no experience with xeon processors or really what the benefit of 2 CPUs or Xeon in particular might be(though from what I've read a xeon CPU would end up having limits in the memory and overclocking).

 

[rvilkman]

You can run Quad SLI with 4 580 cards or 2 590's of course.

You would think that would be the case with the CPU's, and it would be if the game can utilize all the cores of the Xeon's. That is however rarely the case so that going up from 4 rarely brings significant gains. Thus 4 and hyperthreading should get you to the peek values.

Obviously there is an option to use SR-2 and 2 Xeons, but most likely the 5Ghz or so i7 2600k will perform on par in the games, unless the game can use the extra cores to get some benefit. I think with watercooling people have been taking the xeons to like 4.0 to 4.5GHz on SR-2 so they can be taken quite high.

 

[jshags]

Best answer selected by jshags.