My proposed build

That's a good build but could use a bit of tweaking:

1. Drop the RAM to 8GB - put that difference into the GPU. And do not get 2 x 8GB - Sandy Bridge does not mix well with 8GB RAM sticks. You need 2 x 4GB, get this instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

2. With the money you'd be paying for 2 x 560TI - go with a single Radeon 7950: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...\

3. Do not get the Agility 3 for your primary SSD - OCZ does not have the best reputation on the market and especially around here. Go with a Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 instead. Try these:
- Crucial M4: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
- Samsung 830: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

4. Also add an aftermarket cooler if you're going with the 2500K, this would be a good choice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Otherwise every thing looks good.

Yeah looks good, as said already the 2x560 doesnt really make much sense. Start with one powerful card and then buy one more when you want to upgrade. That way you can upgrade by buying one card as opposed to selling 2 and deciding again.

+1 for the aftermarket cooler, my 25k ran at 86 degrees at stock speeds with stock cooler, now with a 30 euro Sycthe Mugen 2 it runs at 50 somthing...

G-unit, why dont you recommend OCZ products? A friend of mine just bought the 60gb agility and its great...

I personally did not have the best experience with their technical support - they were rather rude when I was trying to get a defective RAM module replaced and it was the biggest pain to do so.

And when I was doing research into getting my SSD, all I found were nothing but complaints about the Agility 3 (bad drivers, defective drives, things like that), the Crucial M4 was the way to go - that was the first drive I got and it's been completely problem free since I got it.

One thing I should have mentioned is that I like to run 4 monitors, so I was considering using the 2x cards to run 4 monitors when I needed, and doing SLI when I didn't.

I do think the aftermarket cooling seems like a good idea, I had been running one on my current computer but was hoping intel got their cooling down by now.....86C...apparently not.

If it's true that sandy doesnt like 8 GB sticks I guess I will go with 4x 4 gigs then. I do have a need for higher ram amounts every once in a blue moon (simulations and such), but if 8 GB sticks are going to give me an issue ill go down.

Finally, ill look into the SSD. Usually newegg reviews are pretty good and newegg didn't seem to hate them.

I appreciate all the suggestions.

The Radeon 7950 will run 3 x monitors off a single card instead (as opposed to NVIDIA cards will only run 2 x monitors per card) of a dual if that's what you're concerned about. If you get two it will run up to 6 monitors.



Man I'm surprised that a PC will function on 86'C - the breaking point for most modern motherboards is 60'C. You might want to read this about setting up a good air cooling system: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cooling-airflow-hea...



Yes - Sandy Bridge will not support 8GB RAM chips or you'll run into BIOS issues, BSODs, things like that. What's the primary use of this system going to be? If it's gaming you don't need 8GB RAM - if it's video editing / rendering / CS5, then 16GB is fine.



I don't always trust those - if you look at the non 5-star reviews you'll see the real issues people are having with a particular product, I check several different sources before I click the "buy" button. I've used a lot of bad hardware and thus I'm really skeptical about what I buy from now on - I look at Tom's, Newegg, Anandtech, PC Magazine, Maximum PC, and so on.

Primary focus of the computer is gaming. But I also run computer simulations (finite element, heat transfer modelling etc., very ram intensive) and use the computer to write reports (which is why i like the extra monitors). I can go up in a price a bit if needed like to buy extra ram or something.

Well if you are planning on gaming on four monitors you will not only need 4 outputs but alot of VRAM and gpu power.

The 7950 runs 4 monitors.... its got mini display port outputs instead of DVI, but it still has the capability...

If you run things that are very RAM intensive keep in mind that SB can really support only 16GB despite that most motherboards will claim to support up to 32. Ivy will do away with the 1 x 8GB allotment and will work fine. SB-E (i7-3930K) will support up to 64GB, but Windows 7 Home Premium will only allow for 16GB, where 7 Pro does away with that limitation..



I would think it should - AMD claims that it will only support up to 3 per card but I could be wrong on that.