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... :)
