Ultimate gaming PC build

[r.barn]

just got back from shopping spree at the electronics store

building THE mega gaming computer to build a 3x - 27" screen mega driving and flying simulator.

ASUS Rampage IV xtreme motherboard - best of the best
Intel i7 3960X extreme processor for overclocking
64 gigs of RAM
120 gig solid state hard drive
3x EVGA GTX 580 graphics card run in SLI-3way
(SLI ties them all together as one 3 core vid card basically) motherboard will support SLI-4 way too.
Win 7 ultimate 64 bit
1200 watt power supply
oversized Corsair 800 case to house it all
and of course water cooling for the CPU

Right at $5,000 - ooof -

with 3 screens all in portrait mode should end up at 3240 X 1980 resolution and it should handle any game at maximum settings plus work in 3D with proper glasses and game. Will be used mostly as a driving and flying sim. but some 1st person shooter too.

Will post some pics when its done.

Will probably step up 3x 30" screens at 2560 X 1600 resolution each eventually, but thats another $5k in monitors, so it will have to wait.

[BadAndy]

My Xbox360 only cost a few hundred dollars and plays games really well.

[r.barn]

Originally Posted by BadAndy

My Xbox360 only cost a few hundred dollars and plays games really well.

There is one particular online WW-II fighter sim I play a lot. With 3 screens and every resolution and texture map setting maxed out it should be incredible.

HiTech Creations - Aces High - uber fun

Going to get head tracking TrackIR running on it too.

TrackIR 5 Demonstration - YouTube

TrackIR 5 Demonstration - YouTube

[sukkoi18]

That TrackIR 5 thing looks interesting. Most annoying thing in the world trying practice approaches in FSX and having to manually look around.

[ARCANGL]

thats gonna be a beast... def post pics when done.

I run a Gigabyte Z68 MB
i5 2500K @ 4.5Ghz w/ CoolerMaster 212+
16GB RipJaws RAM
AMD 6970 OC'd to 950/1450
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
Hitachi Deckstar 1TB HHD
750W Antec PSU
Windows Professional 64


Im on a single ASUS 24" LED, but i really wanna do a trip monitor setup and CrossFire with another 6970 or even TriFire with a 6990, but if i go TriFire id have to get a bigger PSU.


Overall im really happy with my build, i did it back in Nov, and i havent played a game yet i cant run on the highest settings, but im only 1080p resolution.
Something like you are building would be so sick.

[ARCANGL]

oh, and if you havent looked lately, since this is the "ultimate gaming build" lol, you know the new Nvidia 680's are out right?
Faster than 7970 AMD's and take less current than older Nvidia's

[r.barn]

Yeah, i read about the new 680's, but wanted to buy stuff sitting on the shelf. Picked everything up with one stop at Fry's. 580's are good enough. Can always upgrade later when the 680's are cheaper

Arch, know anything about Windows 7 installs ? Running into a headache with the SSD harddrive. It is formatted in GPT, but windows will not recognize that and gives a pop up error box saying it needs to be formatted in NFTS.

I'm at a loss now on what to do. Everything powers up correctly and is running in the BIOS, but format is wrong on the SSD for windows to install. ..... What now ?!?!

[ARCANGL]

Well when you put in the Windows disk, the first thing it should ask you about is partitioning the hard drive...
Windows 7 only uses NTFS as far as i know.

I called LeRoy (skillz) and he said Windows 7 doesnt support GPT, obviously, and that Windows will automatically format the SSD for NTFS when you tell it to when you first put the Windows disk in.


Is it posting but not actually booting or No Post?

[ARCANGL]

hmm... interesting

Maybe this helps:
According to this Vista and 7 are both able to boot off of GPT if your MB has EFI BIOS and is enabled.
Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk - Windows 7 Forums


EDIT*
found this on a quick search too
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...c-7f0419cdd62b

[r.barn]

It gets to the point where you select what disk to install it on. It sees the hard drive. Reads its total memory but says 0 free space. If you click on the box that takes you to a sub page that has a "Format" icon to click on, but the icon is ghosted out and unclickable.

Ideas ? I'm stumped, been searching google for hours and cant figure out how to reformat a new drive from the BIOS or in the Win install system.

[r.barn]

Originally Posted by ARCANGL

hmm... interesting

Maybe this helps:
According to this Vista and 7 are both able to boot off of GPT if your MB has EFI BIOS and is enabled.
Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk - Windows 7 Forums


EDIT*
found this on a quick search too
Can't Install Windows 7 on GPT Hard Drive - Microsoft Answers

Let me try that MBR fix.

[ARCANGL]

hmm

[ARCANGL]

have you tried booting into msdos and using format command?

[r.barn]

It will not let me convert it to MBR. I keep getting an error message that it is a nonconvertible drive. I have tried to delete all volumes and partitions but it will not allow me to deleter the "system" partition or volume.

Ugh, I hate windows.

Hang on, it might be working ...... no idea what I "fixed" ........ stand by.

Nope, still wont work, but it is now recognizing 111gig of "free space" where before it was 0, but still complains its GPT and command prompt fix will not let me convert to MBR. Next idea ?

[ARCANGL]

MB should have UEFI... If so and its enabled it should boot from GPT.

ASUS Rampage IV Extreme review

[r.barn]

Got it.

That first link was missing a step I found on another help page on same topic
Must enter "CLE" in diskpart to "clean the hard drive"
That allowed it to convert to MBR and windows is loading.

PHUCK WINDOWS !!!!!


oh man, this computer is gonna rock. It just installed windows in less than 15 mins.

[BadAndy]

It's not Windows' fault.

[Skillz]

Originally Posted by BadAndy

My Xbox360 only cost a few hundred dollars and plays games really well.

Really? How much did the TV you play it on cost? Extra controllers? XBL? Got a sound system as well, how much did that cost you?

[87slutstang]

I pooped

[BadAndy]

Originally Posted by Skillz

Really? How much did the TV you play it on cost? Extra controllers? XBL? Got a sound system as well, how much did that cost you?

$1800 for a 56" 1080p DLP that I use for way more than just playing video games. Same with the $300 stereo system (stand speakers and sub). XBL costs $50 a year.

Do you and your friends crowd around your little computer screens to watch movies and sports?

[Skillz]

Originally Posted by BadAndy

$1800 for a 56" 1080p DLP that I use for way more than just playing video games. Same with the $300 stereo system (stand speakers and sub). XBL costs $50 a year.

Do you and your friends crowd around your little computer screens to watch movies and sports?

LOL way more? So you watch movies and TV on it? Good job.

Glad that I just turned your few hundred dollar 360 into over a two grand now. You do realize computers can connect to that same 56" DLP TV you've got, right? I also don't have friends come over for "movie" night, I'm not a teenage girl. If I wanna see a movie, we GO to the movies. Computer can do a lot more than just play games as well. I watch TV, record TV, browse forums, photoshop work, web design, etc... Can your 360 do all that? Didn't think so. However, should I do invite friends over to watch TV, then yes they can easily crowd around that $1800 DLP and stream Netflix movies off the PC and/or watch a movie recorded on the hdd.

This guys gaming computer, granted the $5k he spent on it is complete overkill, can do all of that then some. However there is no need to spend anywhere near that much money on a gaming rig that'll destroy an xbox 360's performance. You can get within' 10% of the performance he spent with 1/5th the price. Not to mention that the 360 is only 720P at best, since it up scales the games to 1080P. Try gaming in true 1080P or greater resolution.

Different strokes for different folks.

[BadAndy]

What the ####? Why the ######## attitude?

I can't believe that I'm now considered a teenage girl because my friends come over to watch movies/games and hang out LOL! I'm sorry I'm not cool enough to spend that money on JUST a computer you ####ing nerd.

I guess different strokes includes being a dick because someone doesn't want to waste $5k on a computer when an Xbox does exactly what they want.

[mmeans]

Sweet Jebus.

Nice machine r.barn.

Still chuggin on my XPS 720; but I'm not running flight sims. Had FEAR 3 fired up last night.

I like PC based games because I still need a PC for working at home. Still not sold on console machine graphics or their ability to run MS Office software...


Michael Means

[r.barn]

Originally Posted by BadAndy

What the ####? Why the ######## attitude?

I can't believe that I'm now considered a teenage girl because my friends come over to watch movies/games and hang out LOL! I'm sorry I'm not cool enough to spend that money on JUST a computer you ####ing nerd.

I guess different strokes includes being a dick because someone doesn't want to waste $5k on a computer when an Xbox does exactly what they want.

Ok Mr. Black Kettle.

First no one asked you about your X-box and what it will or wont do. An X-box will not do what I wanted, so I "wasted" $5k on a system that will. Some of us can appreciate the difference. Mostly this system was built as an uber over the top flight sim,(I'm a licensed pilot so I like to "play" ultra realistic flying games) as I originally said, and X-box cant do that at all for any price.

You opened yourself up to be razzed, because you posted in a thread with nothing but razzing worthless comments to begin with. Geez Louise.

Back on topic please. I'll post some pics of the PC tonight for yall

[BadAndy]

Originally Posted by r.barn

Ok Mr. Black Kettle.

First no one asked you about your X-box and what it will or wont do. An X-box will not do what I wanted, so I "wasted" $5k on a system that will. Some of us can appreciate the difference. Mostly this system was built as an uber over the top flight sim, as I originally said, and X-box cant do that at all for any price.

You opened yourself up to be razzed, because you posted in a thread with nothing but razzing worthless comments to begin with. Geez Louise.

Back on topic please. I'll post some pics of the PC tonight for yall

Sorry. Maybe shortstop will forgive me for trying to make a funny.

[Shortzy]

Phew... I spent $2k at amazon and my box is isnt far off this one.

Should be a killer setup though.

[BadAndy]

Originally Posted by Shortzy

Phew... I spent $2k at amazon and my box is isnt far off this one.

Should be a killer setup though.

What games do you play?

[Shortzy]

Originally Posted by BadAndy

What games do you play?

LOL. None really. I play a little SC2 from time to time but once i finished the single player, i dont really play anymore. Im waiting for the new Tiger Woods to come out for the PC though.

I was just in the mood to build a PC that could do anything i wanted it to do. haha

I also have 4TB of storage space.

[Skillz]

Originally Posted by BadAndy

What the ####? Why the ######## attitude?

I can't believe that I'm now considered a teenage girl because my friends come over to watch movies/games and hang out LOL! I'm sorry I'm not cool enough to spend that money on JUST a computer you ####ing nerd.

I guess different strokes includes being a dick because someone doesn't want to waste $5k on a computer when an Xbox does exactly what they want.

My attitude is fine. Don't mean to come across as attacking you, but I did take the bait.

Just trying to point out the apples to oranges comparison you're conceiving here.

In a lot of ways, the OP spent money in places he didn't need; but no point on criticizing him now since he already owns all the parts, unless he can return stuff.

If it were me, I'd spent an extra $1500 and got triple 30" displays with a lot more storage/space for my software & games.

In for pics.

[BadAndy]

If your computer case isn't this awesome, don't bother posting it

[r.barn]

Originally Posted by Skillz

In a lot of ways, the OP spent money in places he didn't need; but no point on criticizing him now since he already owns all the parts, unless he can return stuff.

Some of the parts were bought for tomorrows needs. Not todays. The mother board, processor and RAM in particular. All I have to do is upgrade the video cards in 3-4 years and the rest should keep up well into the next generation of DirectX 11 games.

[kd7cwg]

xbox doesn't have WASD and a mouse I cannot stand those controllers!

[r.barn]

Got finished doing the first bit of modest overclocking with the pictured cooling set-up. Now running very stable at 4.7ghz and the video cards running at 905mhz.

Thats up from 3.3ghz and 772mhz as stock.

Originally Posted by kd7cwg

xbox doesn't have WASD and a mouse I cannot stand those controllers!

Word.

[stackz88]

Originally Posted by r.barn

Some of the parts were bought for tomorrows needs. Not todays. The mother board, processor and RAM in particular. All I have to do is upgrade the video cards in 3-4 years and the rest should keep up well into the next generation of DirectX 11 games.

it'll still be outdated in a couple months

[Skillz]

Originally Posted by r.barn

Some of the parts were bought for tomorrows needs. Not todays. The mother board, processor and RAM in particular. All I have to do is upgrade the video cards in 3-4 years and the rest should keep up well into the next generation of DirectX 11 games.

I understand the idea behind it; however do note that multiple core processors aren't exactly new anymore. New games aren't really using more than ~3 cores; so it's safe to say that a quad core processor will last 3 - 4 years easily. Especially one that overclocks well. It's also proven that hyper threading doesn't really benefit games at all and HT has been around longer than multi core processors have.

Like I said though, not trying too "Kick a man when he's down, per se" but you could have defiantly spent money else where and still had a computer that'll last a good ~5 years from now with maybe a video card upgrade in 3 - 4.

Doesn't really matter though, that computer will do anything you want it to do beyond gaming so if your happy and it does what you need then who cares, right? Maybe I'm just a little jelly that I can't drop 5 Gs on a computer...

Originally Posted by stackz88

it'll still be outdated in a couple months

...lol

Outdated and not capable are two different things. That computer might be outdated at the end of this month when the new Ivy Bridge CPUs come out but lets wait until we see some benchmarks to determine if they are indeed better. Which they should be, since they are essentially the same process built around a small manufacturing processes. Also since Nvidia already released the 680 GTX and AMD/ATI has already launched the 7000 HD series cards a few months ago, means that someone can easily grab triple 680s or triple 7970s and have more GPU power, but it's not needed. Like I said; That rig will be very capable years from now. Doubt it'll even need a GPU upgrade in 5 years seeing as how it's TRI SLI of what was for a while the fastest single GPU on the planet.