Widescreen Gaming Forum

well i worked on a build. as of now it will be $4583.77 to build. so it may take me 2-3 years to build. but it will be nice when its done. i still dont know if i need 2 of these powerful cards yet so time will tell. other parts may change over time too.

ASUS MATRIX-HD7970-P-3GD5 Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support ...
ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support ...AVerMedia Live Gamer HD - Capture & Share Your PC Game Footages MTVLIVGHD PCI-Express x1 Interface
CORSAIR AX760i 760W Digital ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS PLATINUM Certified Full Modular Active PFC ...
AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX
Corsair Neutron Series GTX CSSD-N240GBGTX-BK 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
Western Digital WD Black WD4001FAEX 4TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Corsair Vengeance K90 Black/Metal USB Wired Gaming Performance, MMO Mechanical KeyboardASUS VS Series VS238H-P Black 23" 2ms HDMI LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor
Corsair Vengeance M90 Black 15 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Laser Performance, MMO/RTS Gaming Mouse
Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming headset
Corsair Vengeance MM200 CH-9000015-WW Wide Gaming Mouse Mat
ASUS Black Blu-ray Burner SATA BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS
Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 64-bit (Full Version) - OEM
CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Water Cooler

What kind of advice are you looking for, and what are you going to use this system for?

One thing that crosses my mind though is that you're spending a ton of money on a system that isnt that much faster than a system you can assemble with cheaper parts for half of what this one would cost (leaving money in your pocket for an upgrade in the nearer future).
Another thought is you mention taking 2-3 years to build it? 2-3 years is a lot of time in computer land, so by the time those years have passed this system will not be as special as you seem to be gunning for.

But again, without a little insight into your intentions it's hard to give proper advice

Oraijon wrote:What kind of advice are you looking for, and what are you going to use this system for?

One thing that crosses my mind though is that you're spending a ton of money on a system that isnt that much faster than a system you can assemble with cheaper parts for half of what this one would cost (leaving money in your pocket for an upgrade in the nearer future).
Another thought is you mention taking 2-3 years to build it? 2-3 years is a lot of time in computer land, so by the time those years have passed this system will not be as special as you seem to be gunning for.

But again, without a little insight into your intentions it's hard to give proper advice

cant believe i forgot to mention what i want to do. to start i want use it for gaming and eventually making it able to encode video with the 8 core cpu. to get the basic up and running im hoping in 6 months after i get my display setup. i wanted good color monitor but low cost enough i wouldn't have to sell my body to since. so my question is do i have a good build to start gaming and eventually hard core video encoding? i dont know if capture card will work or not and i am just going to use my copy of win7 ultimate i have siting on the shelf.

i know this card has enough ports to run 5x1 setup. my question is if it has the horsepower to power 5 1080p monitors on its own or should i invest in 2?

i forgot to ask if anyone knows a good thin monitor thats makes nice 5x1 display or is it posible to debezel the monitors in my build?

If you want to build on a platform over time, move over to an Ivy Bridge (3000 series) Intel CPU and board. The 3570K is pretty good and any Z77 board would be good.

You will get 2x PCI-e 3.0 sockets, and overclockability from the K series chip. Performance on the Intel platform will be a lot better than the AMD platform.

Go for the 860W Corsiar, or the 1200W Corsair, if you plan on a massive upgrade at a later date.

From what I have seen on SLI/ Crossfire... What happens is if you have 2 identical cards from the get-go, you end up with a monster rig. If you buy a card now, and then plan on getting another card at a later date, you have to bank on getting a used card.

Take the 6900 series AMD cards for example. If you had a 6970 now, you would need to get a 2nd hand one (or find one in stock at a reseller).

The money you plan on spending on the 2nd card is better put towards 1 monster card down the road.

All this is IMO of course

Gilly wrote:If you want to build on a platform over time, move over to an Ivy Bridge (3000 series) Intel CPU and board. The 3570K is pretty good and any Z77 board would be good.

You will get 2x PCI-e 3.0 sockets, and overclockability from the K series chip. Performance on the Intel platform will be a lot better than the AMD platform.

Go for the 860W Corsiar, or the 1200W Corsair, if you plan on a massive upgrade at a later date.

From what I have seen on SLI/ Crossfire... What happens is if you have 2 identical cards from the get-go, you end up with a monster rig. If you buy a card now, and then plan on getting another card at a later date, you have to bank on getting a used card.

Take the 6900 series AMD cards for example. If you had a 6970 now, you would need to get a 2nd hand one (or find one in stock at a reseller).

The money you plan on spending on the 2nd card is better put towards 1 monster card down the road.

All this is IMO of course

i was going amd for the cores for video encoding. and the gpu i chose is a 7970 by rog, so it 1 monster card and hoping it will run 5x 1080x1920. also amd tends to run cheeper most the time. i want upgrade it some day and was worried the ax 1200i would be too much.

I agree with Gilly, Intel should give you more performance than AMD does overall. Also agree on the PSU, though you might also like to go with a similar XFX Pro psu (which is an affordable rebranded Seasonic).

If you go for cheap, i'm wondering why you picked an ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z motherboard, which is about 200 euros where i'm from

If you grab a cheaper Z77 (80-120 euro) motherboard with an intel cpu, like Gilly said, the i5 3570 is only a few bucks more expensive than the FX8350 (could spend more and get an i7 3770 too if HyperThreading is worth it for video encoding). Couple that with a cheaper motherboard and you're still cheaper off than your original build.

Whether the eight core is faster on video encoding, i'm not entirely sure. If you've done your research and know for fact that it is faster than an i5 (and accept that gaming can be a little slower) than you have a valid argument to go with the AMD. But dont assume that just because it's an eight core (well not really, but close enough), that it would be faster.
What program are you using to do the video encoding?

I use the 2600K rig at 4.2Ghz, in Vegas 11 for my videos. I run HT on, and I can encode stuff pretty fast. I don't have any figures, or way to compare it, but safe to say I can play back 1080p50 footage in real time without any stuttering at full resolution (from AVCHD, so the CPU needs to "uncompress" it. I run offset of -0.25V, which means I have a lot of headroom on my CPU, which IMO I don't need.

My gut instinct says that 5x1080P monitors on a single 7970 will be fine for lower detail games, or for older games/ windows usage. I barely get 60FPS with my HD5850 at 2560x1440 in WoW for example. I realise how intensive stuff is, especially when you reach the higher levels of resolution.

The 4TB drives are also very expensive now, may be best to run 2x2TB drives, unless you require all eggs in 1 basket

Of course this is all IMO, but I already have the benefit of knowing how far my lightly overclocked 2600K rig gets me, which is safe to say, I never wait for it to do anything, some more FPS in WoW would be nice, but don't see it drop below 40 anyway. Video encoding/ editing is quite fluid. You always have Quicksync if you go with an Intel CPU with HD graphics and Z68/Z77 motherboard, that allows for accelerated video encoding with programs that support it

Video encoding? isnt h264 And all that common stuff done via Intel quickSync ? (or however its called... that special Hardware Part in the CPU) so doesnt matter if you have an i3-3320 or i7-3570k.

oh. And 5400x1920 on a Single 7970... lowest Details in Most new Games! No AA!
Crossfire with two cards... well i manage High Details in 5760x1080 Around 40-60 FPS!
if you want to Test it out search the Forums for the "Multi Monitor Performance Simulator" to get that Resolution running on a Single Monitor.

Haldi wrote:Video encoding? isnt h264 And all that common stuff done via Intel quickSync ? (or however its called... that special Hardware Part in the CPU) so doesnt matter if you have an i3-3320 or i7-3570k.

oh. And 5400x1920 on a Single 7970... lowest Details in Most new Games! No AA!
Crossfire with two cards... well i manage High Details in 5760x1080 Around 40-60 FPS!
if you want to Test it out search the Forums for the "Multi Monitor Performance Simulator" to get that Resolution running on a Single Monitor.

i was afraid i would need 2 cards

ha! next question. If you use GPU Video encoding (i've tried before with AMD Stream, now AMD APP... verry few Programms Support that.. -.- ) is Crossfire even supported?
dont Most Programms use the VDU 3.0 (Or was is VBO? damn... forgot the Name... the Part on the GPU that does Video de/encoding.) rather than the shaders? CUDA works otherwise that i Know. AMD APP *should* also.

But i havent read any new reviews. tha Last thing i saw was over a year ago And Intel quicksync pwnd everything!