http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kvRCNG



SLi / Crossfire are supported less and less every year.
Many issues on many different soft/hard ware configurations.

However: The 970s/980s although high end, when SLi'd apparently infrequently incur issues (tearing, artifacts, etc).

My potential rig I am contemplating on is based on a ~$2,000 budget.

The PSU is excessively high, with intent for future upgrades (IE: SLi dual Titan's or possibly 3-way for PhysX, 3D, and game, or simply surrounding monitors in the future).

The CPU fan cooler I randomly picked; Not much research. I am fixing to look at water cooling (noise is NOT a variable) for maximum overclocking (i5-6600K apparently tops around 4.5GHz stable & safe, ~60C temp).

The game(s) I plan on primarily playing (this is not an all inclusive list):

• Civilization III - V
  
• Battlefield
  
• League of Legends
  
• StarCraft II
  
• Diablo III (mid 2016 likely)
  

I also have a tendency to program as a hobby; Nothing too intense my laptoo cannot handle. The i7 from Intel might give a 10% boost to performance in that regard alone, but I cannot foresee that being valuable in my eyes.

Any comments, questions or suggestions are heavily encouraged.

PSU / Water cooling / Case specifically.

Thanks!!

that ram is blue. sure you want that?
i wouldn't spend 2k and have it look like ass tbh

why full tower with a pci-e ssd?
gpu is 100% fine with the games you listed

This post was edited by Penguins0690 on Dec 30 2015 06:13pm

Full tower case is just a random selection. I was debating on trying a vacuum theory for maximum air cooling using a custom built hydrogen based generator... It was just a funny idea my friend and I went in depth about; However, I believe water/liquid cooling would still be superior.

SSD is no longer as volatile as it (allegedly) was. It's cheap (on par with a typical 7,200RPM IMO). I do not pack rat 5TB of anything. I still have 75%+ unused from my 256MB HDD from 2005. That's WITH Windows XP SP3 and everything I primarily use (including 200mb game programming projects). The random access is profoundly superior in every aspect.

I am aware the GPU is perfectly adequate as a single card.

After much more in-depth research, and catching up on technology (DSP, G-Sync, PhysX, 1-2-3 way SLi & dedicated PhysX combinations from mid-to-high tier nVidia GPUs, etc): I have re-assessed my desires, and objectives.

I have decided that a single EVGA GTX 980 Ti is right for me (possibly with a dedicated EVGA GTX 980 PhysX / 2-way SLi for non-native-PhysX programs).

My next biggest question pertains to the perfect case, in tandem with keeping unit temperatures < 100° C (the "safe" temperature) while overclocking all the components.

This may be the entirely incorrect forum (d2jsp) / sub-forum, but I am hoping someone much more experienced / knowledgeable could assist me.

I cannot find much information on calculating ratio for CFM : air temperature over a distance (EG: 4,500 RPM 90mm x 20mm fan with X distance to Y heating element (FSB, RAM, HDD, etc)).

I am attempting to solve these problems specifically:

• The case (placement of fans)
  
• The case-fan(s) (sizes, speeds)
  

I understand the GPUs themselves have fans, but I am under the impression they will exceed 100° C if overclocked heavily, and will require additional cooling to stay at, or under that target.

I would like a case that will ideally blow (exhaust) the hot air up, and out of the case. Preferably sucking air in from both under the case, and from a side.

I am doing my calculation based on 600W of energy (PSU, GPU, RAM, etc). If I calculated it correctly: It is ~2,000 BTUs of heat being generated (not much).

Does anyone know of a formula to calcuate CFM : air temperature over X distance?

Thanks.

Anybody?

Will do some more research in a few days to check for potential bottlenecks.

Definitely get a good psu

2000$ pc to play games that run on a 400$ pc

Motherboard... there something specific you need that board has? Honestly I have never come across a situation where I needed a mobo over $200
SSD not familiar with that brand.. I get that PCIE has better performance than sata but not sure if it is worth it..also if you sli I am not to familiar on how you would position the cards but it looks like you would have to use one of the pciex16 slots because that board doesn't have any pciex2
power supply.. again with the offbrand. get evga or something like that instead.

if you make those changes you will save probably $400 and have better parts. which in turn will give you more money to get a 980ti or i7

also for overclocking. generally 100C is the point where you could potentially start damaging components and the computer will shut itself down.. if it is the cpu at least
when stress testing your overclock the highest I would be comfortable seeing the temp would be around 80C
idle and under normal load it should be a fair bit lower than that

I appreciate the post, but, I can see you didn't read the full thread.

I intend on using the 980 Ti.

I don't buy names, only good valued products; But that is moot.

SATA vs. PCI-E is a no-brainer! Good read for you.
- http://www.overclock.net/t/1489684/ssd-interface-comparison-pci-express-vs-sata

ASUS.. Offbrand..? I am very befuddled by your replies.
- http://www.asus.com/Microsite/mb/ASUSMB1st/index.aspx

ASUS has been making motherboards before you were born. Intel dates to 1992 (official release).

However: EVGA is off brand. First release 2008??

An i7 will offer nothing to me. It cost magnitudes more.

Thank you, though.

Honestly, you don't need a PCI-e SSD, you can get a SATA SSD with double the size and half the price which is more than enough. With 450mb/s SATA SSD, You can load a 5GB file in 11sec which I highly doubt you will ever have to especially since your whole hard drive you plan to have is 128gb. If you had that completely full you can actually copy the whole hard drive in 4-5min which is the longest thing you could possibly do.
Your motherboard is way too expensive, you could hack off $200-250 off that and spend it on something better like a better CPU/RAM (since it's only at 2400Mhz)/GPU/Monitor. You are wasting money on totally useless things in your case which could be spent better.

For Hard Drive you can spend the same amount and get 2x 250GB SATA SSD's and set it up in Raid 0.

You showed a link of SATA vs PCI-E SSD's, well look up on youtube if it is worth it to get PCI-E SSD and reasons why you should, look it up on google. Your research is not done well.

Edit: Also just checked out the PCI-E SSD and the speeds are 770MB/S Read & 335MB/S Write.
If you get a Samsung 850 EVO SATA3 SSD ($110USD), the speeds are 540MB/S Read & 520MB/S Write. If you get 2 and set it up in RAID 0, it will be faster then the PCI-E card and 4 times the size for $20 more.
But honestly you don't need to even set them up in RAID 0, you can just get 1 and you won't even notice a difference of speed.

This post was edited by DaPokerLife87 on Jan 4 2016 07:55pm