I decided to build a new PC for gaming as my 2+ year old Phenom II 940 I had and its DDR2/AM2+ architecture glory really wasn't cutting it anymore for 3 screen gaming. Battlefield 3 deserves to be welcomed with top of the line gear. 

So I ended up with:

Cpu: Intel i7 950
CPU Heatsink: Noctua NH-C14 - best air cooler you can get to my knowledge
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Formula - 3 way SLI is key
Case: Silverstone Raven RV01
Ram: Corsair Dominator GT (2000 Mhz edition) 8gb@ 1866 Mhz (4x 2gb sticks)
Gpu: 2x Evga Gtx 580 SuperClocked in SLI
HDD: OCZ Agility 3 60GB SSD (Boot Drive), 2 X OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD (games, file storage)
Psu: Rosewill 1000 Watt Xtreme something (taken from my old machine)

I learned my lesson with SLI and heat so I decided to get some GPU water cooling action.

WaterCooling Componients: 2x Black EK Gtx 580 Waterblocks with EK Sli Bridge, 1x Hardware Labs Black Ice Gtx Gen2 360 rad,  6X Scythe Ap15s, EnzoTec Compression Fittings, Dual drive bay resovoir with pump, 6fan fan controller.

I got the CPU overclocked and currently sitting @ 4.0ghz. Can go higher easily. I decided to go with an older i7 and not Sandy Bridge as I couldn't find any decent 3 way SLI sandy bridge mobos that do X16,X8,X8  PCIE. You can if you spend 500 bucks...but yeah.

Dual GTX580s are stock speeds (why bother overclocking yet) and sit at 30 degrees idle and 50 under heavy load. Water cooling makes a HUGE difference when it comes to high end graphics cards. I'm looking forward to the day I decide to add the 3rd one...

Some pics of setup below. Cable management for this PC wasn't easy for me to be honest...but considering this is my first watercooled PC setup, its bound to get better. :)

3D Mark Vantage Performance Score - https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-2TAlDiN4Fcs/TgKNMsjxXcI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/2MUv9Q_yBnI/s1152/Vantage.jpg

Now the Batlefield 3 wait begins... :)

Looks technologically better than mine lol

In all honesty, anything looks technically impressive when you slap watercooling. :)

Sony can just rebadge the ps3 as ps4 and add water cooling...id buy it for 599 :)

Lol good 'ol water cooling

Looks very cool, but why are did you decide to go for an Air cooler and not water cool the CPU? Love how the red water tubes match your motherboard

Nice. I was on a budget but I wanted to get a decent rig going so for 650 (shipping included) I decided to build mine from scratch off of newegg.

GPU= Sapphire Radeon HD 5830 256 bit, GDDR5

Proccesor= AMD Phenom II, X4 955 3.2 ghz AM3

Case= CM|CAC-T05-UB BLK/BL RT medium size tower

MOBO= ASUS|M4A78LT-M AM3 R

Monitor= a hannspree 22 inch (yea i know, it's decent for now, i'll upgrade later)

2 gskill ram sticks at 2gb each (i'll go better and at probably 8gb in the future)

corsair psu 500W

Will take any advice Dis for the future.

Oh so pretty... Congratulations on your new baby :')

Venji said: Looks very cool, but why are did you decide to go for an Air cooler and not water cool the CPU? Love how the red water tubes match your motherboard

Thanks!

I actually have a EK Supreme HF CPU waterblock and another rad sitting next to me which probably won't ever be used. (150 bucks wasted I guess)

I didn't want to use them because:

1. I realized I just wasn't skilled enough in setting this up to add another rad and watercooling to this rig and make everthing look neat and all the tubes secure.  I didn't get any extra bushings either and you really need those if you're to bend the tubes in all kinds of directions. Id just be risking possible spillage, an no one wants to see that...lol

2. Noctua C14 are really amazing air heatsinks and were on sale for 70 bucks. They were recommended to me very highly by some people and really are the shit....CPU does around 33 at idle and sub 50 when under heavy stress. This is Overclocked to 4.0 in a hot muggy room.

3. Most of the heat in setups like this comes from video cards and once that heat is gone, CPU doesn't really need that extreme cooling in place. Unless you want to hit 5.0, which I don't...

You made a good choice for the budget for sure.

I game on 3 monitors hence why I need little higher specd machine but yours will play most games on high easily.

That AM3 chip can do 4.0 ghz if its the "BE" edition(Black Edition - unlocked multiplier). If it is, get an decent aftermarket CPU cooler from Artic or Corsair (40 bucks usually) and in bios change the multiplier and front side bus to get to around 4000 mhz total(200x20 is what most people go for). Give CPU 1.65 over stock 1.2  volts and you should be good, but watch the heat as 60 degrees is most you should make the CPU heat up.

Thats a pretty damn serious rig.

Silverstone is where I am going to go for my next build but I am going for the RV02 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-073-SV&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1092 it just looks so beautiful! and it has a good design philosophy. Although I would never touch water cooling, I would be too scared :S

Hopefully the CPU cooler i bought for my current build, that I just couldn't fit no matter how hard I tried, will be easier to fit... more importantly I hope it fits the next wave of AMD CPUs if not I may just have to get rid of it. http://www.tuniq.com.tw/Cooler_Info/Tower-120-Extreme.htm