Yay! new system time!

[kiemi]

I have some extra cash and I need to upgrade my system - currently i am using (2) GTX 260s in SLi, with a Q9550 and 8gb ram - basically this was nice back in the day but now its just a slow pig when gaming with skyrim, BF3, COD, and yeah Eve online and wow... don't mock i know i know, kid games. But hey I enjoy them.. I play other games but these i mention are the most graphic intense.

So please - give me your ideas - I want to build a M-ATX this go around-
I looked at the As rock extreme 4-m but never used there boards before. So Im kinda scared about it.

My budget is around 2000 - to 2500 for the mobo, CPU, GPUs, memory, and PSU. i have case.

ASUS Maximus V Gene Micro ATX Intel Motherboard <--- sub out a Asrock Extream 4-M?????
Item #:N82E16813131830

Corsair Neutron Series CSSD-N120GB3-BK 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Item #:N82E16820233340

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820231562

CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850 (CMPSU-850AX) 850W Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817139015

CORSAIR H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Item #:N82E16835181017

Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit
Item #:N82E16832116997

Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 Quad-Core Desktop Processor <-- go Ivy bridge?
Item #:N82E16819116501

(2) EVGA SuperClocked+ GeForce GTX 660 Ti 03G-P4-3663-KR Video Card <-- Sub out for 2 670, or 680s?
Item #:N82E16814130812

Now the Question I have is - will this set up be bottle necked at the Cpu because of the SLi Gpus? or memory, I haven' t been around much last 2 to 3 years.
I want a system that will be great for playing these games my moniter supports 2560 x 1440 -

so if any of this makes complete non - sense please help a fellow enthusiast with my new build.

[zanzabar]

go with 1x 680 if you want to go NV instead of 2 slower cards, but at that resolution amd would be better for the gpu. and do not get 32GB of ram using all 4 slots will make it clock lower, be less stable, and be slower. 16GB is still overkill but go for that if you want to have a load of ram.

[kiemi]

Thank you for the input. I will scale back the Ram and get 16gb , any speed i should stick with? 1600, or 2100?

Reason I was asking about the cards was - this video he shows some cool graphs - and I saw more FPS = so I was like hell yeah lets get 2 660 Ti's because i have a bench for a case, and i don't care about power consumption.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJI8f81a9IA

[zanzabar]

Thank you for the input. I will scale back the Ram and get 16gb , any speed i should stick with? 1600, or 2100?

Reason I was asking about the cards was - this video he shows some cool graphs - and I saw more FPS = so I was like hell yeah lets get 2 660 Ti's because i have a bench for a case, and i don't care about power consumption.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJI8f81a9IA

that is at 1080p and with older games in the video. newer games do not work well with sli right away and the 660 is much slower at high rez (li9ke you want) but likes low rez like 1080p. i would also look to amd or atleast get a 4GB card if you want to use high rez as 2GB is starting to not be enough.

[kiemi]

well now you have me looking at 1000 buck video cards!! LOL

So this person that posted on newegg works @ evga - said this to the comment -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130790

Pros: I replaced two 590's in SLI for 3 monitor surround setup. The room was very hot with very loud fan noise. Went to this single 690 hoping to solve that issue which it did, and did very well. My power consumption is a lot lower now and this thing is VERY quiet. My 1200w battery backup now can handle the load when the power flickers, before it would just turn off.

Cons: The thing studders in Diablo 3 at 5860x1080 and I have to run reduced settings. Every once in a while it gets me killed because it goes down to 1 frame a second. I did not have this problem with two 590's and I assume it's not because the card lacks power but some driver issue. The beta drivers do help but they seem to be in beta for over a month now. Driver issues are common, but at this price, should be a lot more stable, especially with such a widely played game.

Manufacturer Response:
Hello,

Two 590's in SLI will outperform a single 690 in all aspects. You may consider adding another 690 in SLI for increased performance.

Regards,
Matthew Hurwitz
Assistant Product Manager
Matth@evga.com

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/art...-650-launch/#1

This article has some great info too

So I don't want to drop another 1000 bucks for another gTX690,
would you recommend going with (2) EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW Standard,4GB 256-bit GDDR5 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130798

[zanzabar]

i was not suggesting a 690, i was suggesting the 680 4GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130799 , but i think that the 7970 would be your best option http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161399 .

i do not see why you want to have 2 cards, it is not needed and alot of money.

[Chickenfeed]

i do not see why you want to have 2 cards, it is not needed and alot of money.

2560x1440 is considerably more demanding than 1920x1080/1200. For balance I'd look at something like 2 7950s on sale. Currently they will give you the greatest return for money spent at that resolution. I wouldn't run 1 680 or 7970 at that resolution personally. 2GB is still plenty in most cases but the extra vram and bandwidth on the 7900 series definately won't hurt. When games scale and drivers cooperate, you'd be hard pressed to notice a difference between 2 7950s and 2 680 4GBs other that extra $400 more in your pocket!

Now if you are using a bench I'd seriously stay away from mATX if you want to go multi gpu. Card spacing will be far from ideal and the 7900 series are loud enough as is. I'd *really* recommend sticking with standard ATX when going multi gpu.

As far as ram goes, PC3 12800 is just fine ( DDR3 - 1600 ) It won't limit your overclocking with a H100 on a 3770K. As zanabar said, 16GB would be plenty. You won't find a use for more than that outside of virtual machines and some serious rendering and workstation applications.

I'd look at just getting 7 Home Premium as that saves you a good $100 pocket or put elsewhere assuming you don't need its features, at most I'd get Professional.

On the cpu front, with a minor overclock it will be plenty sufficient for a multigpu setup. You *could* even step down to a 3570K instead as hyperthreading won't benifit the machines gaming abilities and will only cause the machine to run hotter and clock lower.
That said if you think you'll be using any highly threaded software with some frequency, hyperthreading can have gains around 20-25% which can be worth the time reduction.

With those savings you could get a bigger / better SSD ( I have a good chunk of my steam library on a 256GB drive) or whatever else you want to burn money on

[zanzabar]

you can not go home premium you need pro or better with 16GB or more of cashe (ram+graphics+random crap.) you should get the OEM version though, it is cheaper and dose the same thing as retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116992 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116997

and i do get that 2560x1440 is much more demanding than something like 1080p but a single 7970 has shown to run fine with 1080x3 and when you compare a single high end card with lots of vram against 2x660 the single card is better for the money. the best bang for the buck should be 2x7950 but given the option of one high end or 2 mid range i would go 1 high end. you can also try a card then get a second if needed.

[Chickenfeed]

Good catch on the HP memory limit, totally spaced that.

As far as the 1/2 card things goes, I'm basing this on personal experiance as I'm running a 2560x1440 display myself. Its not to say 1 gpu won't *run* games at this resolution and they surely can but to get the most of things, it is really multi gpu territory. Hell I forgot to turn SLI back on after doing a clean driver install and started playing in a few games and was like, "These drivers suck!" Checked and noticed It was my bad. SLI was off. In the games kiemi mentioned ( all of which I've played or play save for EVE ) there is a nice difference adding a second gpu. As you said theres no harm in getting one and adding a second after if its not up to par.

[kikicoco1334]

i am not a fan of the 660 tbh, one 580 or one 680 would be wonderful but if you can't afford those, i'd say go with the 570 or something like that