Getting ready for a PC build, need some advice!

Nice!!

Congrats.

^seconded!

Well I would seriously like to think is going to be a kick *** computer system! I dropped some serious money, so I would like to think it's going to be a serious computer. As you may have seen on the previous page on my final revised list I ordered from, your hard drive was in there, you didn't tell me that on-line customers got a $10.00 mail in rebate on it, it made it that much nicer to buy!

Oh yeah, with some of the saving I saw with buying everything, I did treat myself to a little pre-build excitement...

Look'y Look'y
http://www.amazon.com/Crysis-Maximum-Edition-Pc/dp/B001Q96ZNU

I should have some fun with that!

And yes, I will keep this topic area updated as the action starts, pictures and possibly even some recorded on-line videos of the build and then the final product.

Thought I'd update things here a little bit!

I was just about to power off my computer, when curiosity got the best of me! I did a quick check of my Fry's customer account, where there has been no activity on anything since placing my order, my account had three shipping advisory's! My three LG monitors, the RAM and the Corsair H100 as of 4 hours ago shipped from Fry's warehouse. So that was the triple advisory, telling me that three things I order have now shipped.

Well that's all I got at this point, got three things now heading my way!

I envy your excitement Zen. I love that feeling of expecting awesome stuff in packages...

Liquid is better than air, almost always. And those big hulking air things take up a lot of room. With that much to spend why aren't you going for the best cpu? I would highly recommend a 3930 or 3820 and an H100. Microcenter just about always has better prices than frys. I am running a dual boot with a 3930, hd 6870 and an H100. I normally run ubuntu with virtual box that has a couple 2008 server instances, one for development and one that I use for production sharepoint server, plus a healthy win7 instance or two. When I want to play games I boot to win7. Buy the best processor you can afford. Once the 8 core i7s come out you will be ready to drop it in. I built a system for a friend recently with an H80 and a 3930, but if you have a big enough case, get an H100.

Personally I think I've done very well with picking the AMD FX-8120, which will be overclocked to somewhere around 4.2G's to 4.5G's! Your recommendation with running with one of the "I" series of Intel processor is fine and dandy, but if you stick around here long enough to get to know me a little, you'll learn that I never build myself personal systems with Intel processors. Everyone has their own personal preference as to what they feel and think is the "best" processor out there. Now I'm not going to start rambling about why I think the AMD processors are the best for me, pissing contests aren't my thing! But safe to say that I had some help picking out the processor that I'm going to be building my mega monster with! The "best" in what I was looking at was the AMD FX-8150, but a little bird'y whistled that the FX-8120 in some cases can be overclocked to levels at or beyond the FX-8150, so why waste the extra $50.00 on a chip that in some cases can be surpassed by the one slightly bellow it.

In regards to buying myself a "big enough" computer case, why not have a look.......

Thermaltake Chaser MK-1 Full Tower Case- VN300M1W2N ($149.99)
http://www.frys.com/product/6639144?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Big enough for you? And also designed from the factory to handle multiple water cooling solutions. It's got it's own area, separate and segregated from the regular internal area, as to mount the Corsair H100 that I'm getting! Also if there's a problem and the H100's radiator leaks, ruptures or pop's, the separate area will hold up to 30cm's of liquid above, therefore keeping the components bellow safe from liquid damage.

By your statement of "get an H100" you must not be really dialed in with everything I recently ordered, if you've got a free minute, go to page #2 inside this topic area and proceed to post #40 and you'll see what's there!

No trying to start a pissing contest or offend. You asked for recommendations, so I added one. That is all.

No worry's there Scodd, I know if you picked up the action of this topic area on page#1, post #1 you might get the impression that I'm still asking for help and or possible recommendations towards the "on paper" part of the build process. I'm thankful for the recommendation but since page#2, post #40, my need for help or suggestions is just about finished. I've already spent the $2400.00 for the stuff, to late to switch my order now, plus if given the chance, I wouldn't switch a thing. But just be aware, in a couple months I promised my Son to build him his own beast of a computer, maybe at that time I'll open up another topic area and possibly ask for the same type of advise and such as I did here. But just take note, like with mine, his to will be an AMD system!

Again thanks for trying to help, and please have yourself a nice day!

Update:

As we know, the RAM, H100 and the three LG monitors shipped out yesterday! Well I just checked my Fry's account and got one shipping advisory! The web site is showing that as of 45 minutes ago that both the motherboard and the AMD FX-8120 both shipped together in one package.

This is just racking my excitement levels, the suspense of having every item in my hands, needless to say building the sucker is killing me! Not trying to sound corny or cheese ball here, but I kind of feel like I did as a small child around Christmas time, knowing the man in red was going to bring me something, I'm feeling a lot like that!

Mate, you're not the only one who's keen on this. You have fired up my interest, and I'm sure I'm not the only one!
make sure to keep us posted!

Okay folks, we got something new to talk about here in regards to this computer build!

First off I must say that normally I'm not an impulse shopper, as within this area most know that I spend a lot of time researching things and almost always try to get feedback upon what I'm viewing! But tonight I just might have screwed the pooch! I jumped at something tonight, before having the chance to properly see if this combination would work!

Tonight my close and personal friend Mr. Raykin, who is an avid computer technician, made me an offer that I guess I couldn't refuse. Tonight I have in my possession a used Zotac Geforce 680 GTX video card! This card is a pci express 3.0, 2 GB's of GDDR5 SDRAM, 256-bit bus width and so forth! This Zotac card is almost identical in every way to the eVGA Nvidia Geforce 680 GTX video card I've already ordered through Fry's.com!

What I'm getting at here, is since these cards are virualy ideentical in every way, the only big difference is that one was made by eVGA and one was made by Zotac, that's the only big difference I see. But both are SLi ready, can the eVGA and the Zotac be used in SLi inside my new system, even if their made by two different company's?

For just in case some may need technical spec's to the Zotac card, I'm providing a link to that information...

ZOTAC ZT-60101-10P GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.frys.com/product/7037551?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Also I'm prividing the link to that already ordered eVGA card....

EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.frys.com/product/7201343?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

So if someone can chime in and let me know that I didn't spend $375.00 in hard cold cash tonight for nothing, I would sure be grateful!

You should be perfectly fine SLI-ing identical cards from two separate manufacturers. Usually it's best to have each with identical stock speeds and memory. In case any of them or both have an overclock, start with the lower value for sync and work your way up.

They'll run in SLI fine and $375 is a steal for a 680. Should be absolutely awesome running that setup in triple monitor resolutions

I know, I totally lucked out on this one! I wasn't even in the market for another video card, but while at my friends house visiting with his family, he brought up the fact that for whatever reason, he wasn't very satisfied with his Nvidia card. I asked him what he was currently using, because for decades he's been a Radeon only guy! He decided to break ranks and try out the 680 GTX, he said he kind of liked it at first, but after a couple months his excitement about it drifted lower and lower. He wanted to get back to a Radeon card in the worst way, but was complaining that he didn't have the couple extra hundred dollars that would buy it. That's when he piped up and asked if I wanted it, of course at a price! He told me he had the original box, driver CD and the misc. stuff that it came with! Thinking he wasn't being serious I threw out a Disneyland number, $250.00, he laughed! Okay then how about $300.00, that kind of got his attention! He still shot it down, and told me to keep going! Okay, I told him my final offer for the card will be $375.00, with a condition that I uninstall the card out of his computer, reactivate the on-board video adapter so he could use his monitor, and when he got his new Radeon card, I would install it for him. That way he feels like he's getting something, for a house call alone, just to install something like a video card, I charge $55.00 anyways, so I wanted him to feel like he was getting the difference via my house call fee! He agreed, I grabbed a screw driver and the rest is uninstall history!

After I finished the work, he stopped me and asked me how much did I think he bought that card for? Knowing I recently was shopping around for the same card, different company, I blurted out something around $500.00, nope, guess again. Okay, $475.00, nope! I thought he had one to many beers and was crazy! Come to find out that his computer repair shop just picked up Zotac products and is an official Zotac parts supplier, he got the bloody card with his shops affiliated discount for $425.00, he's only out $50.00! But I know darn well, that if he had to pay close to $500.00 as I did for my eVGA card, I wouldn't have got it for a steal of a deal.

I know Radeon is a very good video card company, I'm sure he will pick up something either at the same level as the 680 GTX or possibly something better! But I ain't shedding him any tears for his $50.00 loss, he'll make that up with my free house call to put in his new card, whenever that will be!

But now I'm doubly excited, I can now SLi two spec matching video cards and get 4GB's out of the two!

I'm going to shut up now, I'm about to piss my pants with this excitement!

The frame buffers aren't additive 2 x 2GB cards in SLI still utilize 2GB. You would need a 4GB card (either single or SLI'ed) to achieve a 4GB frame buffer
$375 is a good price. Good score.

Actually it's still only 2GB, VRAM is not additive when you go SLI. But from the reviews I've seen 2GB is still ok even at 5760x1080. EDIT: DBZ beat me to it...

Nice story... but you charge $55 to friends for installing cards??