1st Home Build Gaming Rig

Well, if ya want a critique, I will tell ya what might have been considered. Not saying your choices were wrong for your situation, just raising points to ponder. For Sandy Bridge, there's simply no need for water cooling. You can still do it if ya enjoy building it, but a good air cooler is still way more than Sandy Bridge needs. The H80 btw, will make ya think ya moved next to an airport if ya set fans on high....however this shouldn't be needed..

Other thing I will mention up front is what do you expect outta the three 580s ? I gotta assume there will be three monitors involved or there's no advantage to having them. At 1920 x 1200, here's how some of the more popular options stack up:

Guru3D uses the following games in their test suite, COD-MW, Bad Company 2, Dirt 2, Far Cry 2, Metro 2033, Dawn of Discovery, Crysis Warhead. Total fps (summing fps in each game @ 1920 x 1200) for the various options in parenthesis (single card / 2-way SL / 3-way SLI) are tabulated below along with their cost in dollars per frame single card - 2-way SLI - 3-way SLI:

$ 205.00 560 Ti - 900 Mhz (495/862/NA) $ 0.41 - $ 0.48
$ 320.00 570 (524/873/NA) $ 0.61 - $ 0.73
$ 480.00 580 (616/953/1030) $ 0.78 - $ 1.01 - $1.40

So ya gotta decide if getting that 3rd 580 for another $500 is worth just 77 fps.

The HAF-X is a great case, my 3rd fav as a matter of fact ..... but with what you spent on everything else, I woulda suggested looking at the new Thermaltake Level 10 GT ..... the extra features to my mind are well worth the increase in price.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_conten...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

With just two 580's I wuda suggested the Antec 1200 or DF-85 w/ CP-1000 be considered.

PSU - Can't go wrong w/ a 10.0 jonnyguru performance rating

CPU - I don't get the 2600k if this is just a gaming rig. Mighta gotten the 2500k and save $100 unless ya have video editing, CAD Rendering or something else that uses HT.

MoBo - All these dollars and everything based upon a mid range MoBo ? Since P67, we've had Z68 and Z68GEN3....However, many would advise ya to consider a NF200 board with tri-SLI.



http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=tweaktow...

$345 ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Cooler - As I said before, I don't see what is gained by the Corsair H80 ....SB doesn't need anywhere near the level of cooling that the better air coolers provide even at 5.0+ GHz. You also talked about wc for the GFX, where's the pump and radiator for that gonna go ?

When ya upgrade the HD's / SSD, Id suggest the 3 TB Seagate Bararcuda XT's and a 500 MBps 120 GB SSD