Widescreen Gaming Forum

First post here. I'm looking to get into surround gaming but need to build a new box.

I'm going to spend about 1k on 3 22" screens and a th2go, but I need to pick out the CPU/Mobo/RAM/Video

So, if you had 900 dollars, which combo of those 4 would you get?

* Gaming rig only, not very concerned with heat and noise.
* Comfortable overclocking
* Ideally I want a Crossfire or SLI upgrade path. So if next years games need more horsepower I can drop one more card into the box.


One configuration I'm looking at is: phenom X3 720, AM2+ board, 4GB 1066hz DDR2, GTX 295 (upgrade path is buying another 295 later)

i7 looks good, but I think I'd need more GPU to really begin to tap its potential. From the guru3d article, it looks like i7 really shines with 4x 4870 GPUs or two 285 GPUs. Then again, that's my upgrade path, isn't it?

So I could probably get a i7 920 + 4870X2 for just over 900, that might be an option I look at.

One of the hidden questions is if crossfire supports 5040x1050 well, I've seen some people say it doesn't, but those were all really old posts.

Thanks for any help!

AMD/ATi doesn't support 5040 so don't buy that.

Maximise your money in the graphics card area. For gaming that is what you want. A decent dual or quad core Core 2, 4GB RAM and the rest on your GPU. Gaming at high res is totally GPU bound, you need a decent CPU but a i7 is just too much money IMO.

Looking here even WiC (which is very CPU heavy) shows that GPU is the most important.

Ah okay - so no on ATI, then.

I guess I'll look at 285/295 and buy the most cpu/ram/mobo I can otherwise.

I'm still liking the phenom's more than the c2d. The chips and boards are way cheaper too, so I can move a bit more money into the GPU(s).

I just picked up a phenom II 940. Haven't been able to play my games yet, but it bumped my 3dmark score by 2400+ easily. OC capabilities are nice as well, and it has garnered excellent marks for gaming in multiple reviews.