TyePhoid_PAL said: @brendude I see the ssd as a luxury for the time being. Something down the road for sure. I hear you can put them in a ps3! Casewise mine has 4 fans and the others I looked at did'nt. Going to have a look after work tonight. @zarx The 7770 is the one I was eyeing up my man. Do I have to get a particular one or are they all compatible? I'm a noob Gonna take a look at that cpu you recommended at brew time. Damn work!!

I have the i5 3450.

Anyway, I wouldn't really see an SSD as a luxury, SSDs are pretty cheap now and they improve boot up and program speeds a lot. It's really handy to have a separate drive for storage, so if you ever get a problem or a nasty virus, all your big and important files will still be safe and organised on a separate drive. It would be wasted in a PS3 though.

Picking up my parts at weekend /

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.

Will post some picks.

How difficult can they be putting together? I have a pal who can do it but depends on free time.

Can't wait to get some steam bargains!!

Wowza. The graphics on that thing will be CGI-Quality.

Seriously? Wait for the next gen consoles to arrive and then the computer hardware will be way faster and way cheaper.

The gpus etc made smaller steps because there was no real demand for super fast GPUs because of the gaming industry just porting current gen console games to the PC.

Im not sure about the years and pricing but it was like
(lets say all cards cost 150 dollars)
2006 GPU to same priced 2007 GPU +100% boost
2007 GPU to same priced 2008 GPU +100% boost

but then
2008 GPU to 2011 GPU +100% (this is like a annualy +100% before 2008 and then +33% speed bost for 3 years in a row)

They artificially slowed down the gpu "evolution" becaue they knew that they could sell "slow" cards as long as this gen is going on.

When the new consoles come out the average joe's PC hardware will be totally slow and then consumers see what is possible on consoles so AMD and NVIDIA will start the next real GPU race because the demand will be there and whoever is the first one to have the supply will have alot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

(I am obviously not talking about the 500-1000 euro GPUs here but compared to what they should offer they are slow and expensive)

Yep. Consoles are starting to rape us now. I'm kinda done with them for the reasons I stated on page one.

@cgi Did you win the lottery or what!!!! Looks awesome. Yeah I will add you on steam when I'm up and running. Whats you're handle?

I forget...are you going to game on 1 screen or 3?

Nvidia can't do 2. It's 1, 3 or nothing...

For 1 screen, I can't stress how much of a waste a GTX 690 is. Overclocked GTX 670 will max out Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 in a sense they will never dip under 50 fps. 

So yeah, just take the plunge and get 3 thin bezel screens...you have the hardware to support it :)

Game that spans 2 screens can not be done using Nvidia cards. You can span 3 screens or 1 only. You can have 2 independent displays and game on one or the other but not both at same time...

Yeah it is...but unless you have 2 projectors to eliminate the bezel, its completely useless...big black monitor bezel bar in the middle ruins everything.

They thing is, and I learned this myself the hard way... When the future comes, it also comes with cool new technology. You may have futureproofed yourself now, but tomorrow the cards will be faster, with new features like native tripple 4K support through HDMI 1.5 or something.  It won't make sense to buy another 690 and miss out on these features.  Technology changes too fast to think more than a year or two down the road.

However I think a single GTX 690 is a solid buy if you utilize what it can offer. Like this site loves to proclaim...youve "maxed out" this gen of graphics cards. :)