First Build RTG! Want advice before I drop the cash

what resolution are you willing to use ??

I'm assuming you already have these items, correct?

You don't necessarily need the 2600K for a gaming PC - you can get by perfectly fine with an i5-2500K.

The 590 is massive amounts of overkill. With the ridiculous cost - it exists mainly for people with serious money to blow who want nothing more than bragging rights. Especially for the price you could go with a quality 6970 or 570 SLI/Crossfire setup.

I don't know what your max budget is but I'm guessing around $2K. Try this build out:

Case: Corsair Carbide 500R - $129.99
PSU: Seasonic X850 Gold - $210.99
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68 Deluxe Gen 3 - $269.99
CPU: 3.30 GHz Intel Core i5-2500K - $219.99
Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B - $59.99
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaw 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz 1.5V - $43.99
SSD: 128GB Crucial M4 - $219.99
Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 580 - $499.99

Total: $1644

Thanks for he advice G. I've taken a look at the build you sent and like what you're recommending. The reason I had decided to go with the i7 and the 590 was because I'm trying to build a high end gaming system that will last for many years with as few upgrades as possible.

When it comes to gpus, what is more important for gaming performance, memory size or clock speed? Is it better to have one beast of a card or two lesser performIng cards in SLI? Oh and yes, I do have hard drive, OS and cables already picked out.

in my opinion one beast card instead of sli. i wish i would have got one 590 instead. it actually would have been cheaper. and memory size depends on your resolution you plan to play with.

As far as resolution goes, I plan on running max resolution on up to a 30". Haven't decided if I'm gonna be running with two 23" monitors or one 30".

Well the thing is the i5 will do exactly the same functions as the i7 but if you're not going to be doing any high-end video or Photoshop editing you don't need it.

As far as GPUs go my thing is that it's the one part of a computer that's always changing. The mid range models of next year's cards are going to far outperform the higher-end models of this year's cards. I would not put the money into a 590 when a single card runs some $800. That's insane. And it's not going to be a dramatic improvement of frame rates spending that much on a card when the 580 will give you the same frame rates. Honestly - save the money and when the newer cards come out in a year - year and a half, upgrade then.



As long as you're not running that overpriced 30" super-high res Apple or NEC monitors you should be good with full 1080p. I'm running a single 42" monitor and it's sweet.

I have to admit that I was a little hesitant to drop the cash on the 590. I normally don't spring for the top end models for the exact reason you mentioned...BUT the Gaming PC Build Fever came over me and I was tempted. That leaves me with about a million and a half other choices for the 580 model. Any suggestions to help me narrow it down a bit? Definitely still want 3gb memory and I'm thinking around a 700-800MHz clock.

Your set up with the 42" sounds awesome. I thought about going out to my 37" HDTV, but I want the better resolution that comes with an actual monitor. Would be very difficult to find the proper setup for that with the space I have, but worth it...Lol now you got me thinking.

I have to disagree. It is good if you can't or don't want to run two cards. Its performance is needed at higher resolutions and settings, and there will be games coming later where that will be even more true. It simplifies quad SLI, if you want that, too.

Who is supposed to be bragging to whom? It's about fps and graphics quality.

for 1920X1080 the 590 is a overkill...

This card will give you the best price / performance setup between the mid-range 580s and the 590:

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

And EVGA is an excellent brand - they're probably the best NVIDIA maker on the market.



It is quite awesome (only thing is it's a pain playing games that make use of mouse/keyboard instead of controller). I can understand running better resolution but most monitors now run full 1080p, which is what my monitor runs. It's fine for me but may not be fine for everybody.  



That it may be but I honestly don't think it's worth the extra money when it's not going to be that much of a performance increase. The other thing to consider about the 590 is that it's an extremely power hungry card. Minimum requirements are ~360 watts vs. ~250 for the 580. You'll need at minimum an 850W power supply - maybe a 1200W for SLI if you're going to be using SLI.

In some games, sure. It laughs at BF3 Ultra at that res. But more is better without limit for the fanatical gamer. It's worth $750 to enjoy years of hiccup-free gaming with never a min below 40. But he never did answer your question, did he? Max resolution could be anything, but one could interpret that as the maximum a game allows, which might be 2560X1600. Not trying to be in an argument here, mind you, I just want the OP to get a good picture, pun intended.

Understandable. The thing is most monitors now it's standard to run them at 1080p, if you want a monitor that runs better than that, there's not a whole lot of displays on the market that take advantage of higher resolutions yet. The only one I really know of is that ~$1000 Apple high gloss LED display that runs at 2550 x 1600, but you only need that if you're doing some super-high end professional Photoshop or CS5 video editing work.

Although is there any card on the market that can play BF3 at ultra right now?  

Here's four monitors at newegg with 2560X1600 resolution. No gamer "needs" that, but I know one who wants it.

Wow, those are insanely expensive... too rich for my blood.  

i agree if you can afford 590, get it, you wont regret it. in two or three years if you need to sli it, it will be like $250. and the performance is like two slightly underclocked 580's... sounds like two 570 in sli like i got... but i no longer can upgrade because my pci slots are full. so go big now or lose money later