Royal PC Gaming Master Race meeting hall

[lestatdark]

Pemalite said:

lestatdark said:
So instead of going for that Clevo laptop, I decided I'd try my hand on a custom desktop instead. I'm trying to make it the top of the line so far, but i'm having doubts as to certain components, mainly the processor and the GPU.

For the processor i'm going for either the i7-3930K or the i7-3960X, i'm reading mixed OC reviews by both so i'm undecided as to where I should put my money.

For the GPU, I was thinking to go for a Triple-SLI GTX Titan setup (since i'm also going to go for a triple monitor setup (3 2550x1440 monitors). Are the GTX Titan worth it because of the 6 GB Vram, or is it a SLI GTX 690 setup good enough?.

Go with the Core i7 3930K. It can overclock just as good as the 3960X, but with a couple of megabytes less of cache, the 3960X is certainly NOT worth the price premium over the 3930K.
Which brings me to the next point... At that resolution, you will always be GPU limited, so feel free to skimp a little on the CPU if it means better GPU's, the return you get for price/performance will be much larger.

Also, Ivy-Bridge-E should be announced fairly soon, the current chips are based on the older Sandy-Bridge architecture, so it should bring with it some small gains and better energy efficiency (Maybe overclocking?), but Intel may ditch the fluxless solder under the heatspreader, it's a gamble if you wish to wait it out.

As for Triple SLI and Crossfire. I say go for it, if you can afford 3x Titans, do it, heck just a single Titan is worth more than some gaming rigs. :P
Going triple cards also brings up your minimum frames and essentially eliminates micro stutter, even if the price/performance isn't as attractive is just a dual-gpu set-up. - Keep in mind though, nVidia and AMD will have you by the family jewels cometh new game release time and they don't get updated drivers out.

My major constrain about the CPU is because i've been reading that some games are heavily CPU-bottlenecked, even at Dual/Triple GTX Titan setup (especially Crysis 3). How high can either the 3930K and the 3930X go in OC? (I'm also adding a liquid cooler, been looking into the one you have, the Corsair H100i).

As for the drivers it isn't really an issue for me. I'm used to shitty drivers because it takes ages for laptop manufacturers to get proper drivers up to speed (can take months, and in some cases years). Even using not-so-legit drivers such as Leshcat unified drivers, it can take you a few months to have a decent driver running. If that period is shorter on a Desktop (mind you, my last desktop was on 2001, which had a Geforce 2 ), it's a win-win for me.