Dream Computer

[Arc-Angel]

If money was no object, what parts would buy individually for your view of a perfect gaming computer and what would the ending price be?

[Shadowmeph]

to be honest I am not sure hehe now that I have the folding bug I would probably build a very deadly Server which would cost probably 10s of thousands lol

[Arc-Angel]

yea im hoping i could get an idea from linus on what he would do and what kindo of cooling system he would put in it and how to put it in. im just now starting to get into computers so i dont know that much yet.

[Shadowmeph]

Well like most things you need to figure out what you need the build for, is it for mostly gaming mostly watching videos on utube or video editing all of those builds would cost differently because of what you need and don't need which also has to do with what kind of case or cooling system ( water or air ) the more information you have the better like a gaming PC what also depend on what types of game you would be playing online fps or mmorphs

[Luay79]

As a gamer, not a bench-marker, this would be my concept:

Water VS. Air: Air-cooling because the hardware today is efficient as well as powerful and there are superior air-cooling products that are on par with water-cooling, as long as bench-marking is not a priority.

CPU: i7 2600k $315 ; in reality the gains over the i5 2500k $220 would be minimal. Still it is a good luxury item if you like to multi-task or edit videos or whatever six-core utilizing program you use.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z $335 ; I really don't need the Z68 options, I have a dedicatd SSD and don't care for integrated graphics. That's why I would get the P67 WS Revolution $235 in a heart beat. Both are NF200 Equipped and support up to 4 cards, and both overclock beautifully. If I had Maximus I would use its awesome futures, but once in the case you won't tell the difference.

Fan: Poor or rich, I would only get the NH-D14 $86

Mem: Anything lower latency than CL9, and higher bandwidth than 1600 won't make a difference in real world gaming. 16 GB RAM instead of 8GB? Maybe but I wouldn't. Get them low profile to fit with the heatsink. Kingston Hyperx, G.Skill Sniper, Corsair Vengeance. $60

Video card: Two Mars II in SLI $3,000+. Scrap that! Three EVGA GTX580 Classified 3GB in Tri-SLI$1,800 but it's not out yet. Three MSI Lightning Extreme Edition in TRI-SLI $1,785 but they would require a superb air-cooling case because of the dissipated heat.

And when I wake up I would buy three Sapphire HD6950 2GB Toxics $810 for Tri-Fire for five reasons:
1) Less than half the price for more than two thirds of the performance
2) two thirds the wattage required
3) AMD's scales better in multi-gpu configs.
4) Performs as good or better than stock 6970 when flashed and manually overclocked
5)More RAM will always pay off in triple monitor resolution, which is why I wouldn't reccomend any 1.5GB GTX 580

I would stay away from quad GPU because it doesn't add to performance as much as three do, and because connections on the motherboard will be sacrificed. Don't get me started on the HD6990/GTX590.

SSD: Vertex3 240GB $540, but in the end I'd get 120GB $268. perhaps when X79 comes out and some bad ass motherboards with unlimited lanes come out as well, I would start looking into the Revodrivex3

HD: WD Caviar Black (1TB $85) or as big as you want either way

PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1000W $240.

Case: Silverstone FTB02-W $280, but I would save money and get RV02B-EW $215 for the same performance but not as good looking.

Monitor: Three Asus PA246Q IPS 24" 1920x1200 $1620. In reality, the lower the resolution, the more frames I get for my games, the more space I have on my desk, and the cheaper it gets. Three Asus PA238Q IPS 23" 1920x1080 $867

Mouse: Steelseries Sensei with a nice mousepad $90 + $15/ Keyboard: Das S Professional Silent $120/
Best in class

Speakers: Since I invested in acoustically quite air-cooling hardware, I wouldn't need a high-end bacteria collecting headset for gaming but only for other activities. I would get the Logitech Z906 $348 and maybe an Asus Vulcan headset.

So $6,000 for a dream machine, but if invested cleverly, you can have the same performance for $3,700

[groundwire123]

if money was no subject? Well, were do I begin.
EVGA sr2 mobo
2x 990 extreme cores cpu's
48 GB of Corsair Dominator gt ram
1200 watt corsair power supply
3x evga gtx 590 hydro copper video cards
blue ray combo drives optical
2x WD black drives for storage
2x in raid 0 corsair force series gt ssd's boot disk
the case is preference

and for the cooling:

Koolance 375 watterblocks for the cpu
3/4 OD hosing
Hosing fittings
Koolance erm-3k3uc water cooling system External

Some of these things are customizable. For example the case is totally up to you. I recommend a corsair 800d. Very nice.
your question is a difficult one, and to answer it best you'll need to familiarize your self with computer hardware and the latest and greatest coming out.
This above system is my dream machine, and I assure you its a beast!!! It will cost you around 15 grand. Thats not including monitors, peripherals, accessories and all that. Thats going to be another 5 grand at least for the latest and greatest. I just finished building a system half this caliber and it ran me 10 grand. I'm happy with it though. so are you really planning on building a rig, if so, please stay in contact with me. I'll help you as much as I can. And keep on this form Linus will help you out a lot. We all will.

[Pabz0r545]

I just built my dream computer a couple weeks ago!... Well almost. I would have to say I kind of skimped on the GPU's and would rather have had an i7 2600k then the i5 2500k. Also a Gigabyte G1 board would be very cool for aesthetic purposes.

i5 2500k
Corsair H60
ASRock P67 Extreme 4 Gen 3
Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB 1600
ASUS HD 6870 x2
Crucial m4 128GB SSD
Corsair AX 750
Corsair Obsidian 650D

[Liu Kang]

Originally Posted by groundwire123

EVGA sr2 mobo
2x 990 extreme cores cpu's

990s won't work, you need Xeons in that bad boy... besides, SR-2s are a waste for gaming. You can get better framerates with an OC'd 2600

Intel 2600 Sandy + mobo = ~$700
SR-2 w/ Intel x5690s = ~$4200

That $3500 difference means you have enough cheddar leftover for quad-sli, PSU, case and watercooling...

Just saying ;)

[groundwire123]

You are correct. The sr-2 does not support i7's. It takes those outrageously expensive xeon's.
I would never settle for anything less then an x58.
As arc-angel said, "If money was no object" Why wouldn't you spend the extra $3500 and get an sr-2 with xeon's and still set up the quad sli which the sr-2 does support? Sure it's overkill, but if you had the income of a basketball all-star, why wouldn't you?
That's my dream build. But yes, the 2600k is a good little processor, but the frame rate gain is minimal. You get the great majority of your frames from your video card. Plus, I think the fact that they integrated a graphics processor inside a cpu is just for those who don't have a lot of money. Now, I had all the money in the world to throw into my build last year but ended up going with only a AR3E and a 980x (latest at the time, besides thesr-2 and xeon bundle). The build you mentioned is good, but if money is no concern.......sorry for the long post, I write long ones.

[blinkdagger]

Originally Posted by Luay79

As a gamer, not a bench-marker, this would be my concept:

Water VS. Air: Air-cooling because the hardware today is efficient as well as powerful and there are superior air-cooling products that are on par with water-cooling, as long as bench-marking is not a priority.

CPU: i7 2600k $315 ; in reality the gains over the i5 2500k $220 would be minimal. Still it is a good luxury item if you like to multi-task or edit videos or whatever six-core utilizing program you use.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z $335 ; I really don't need the Z68 options, I have a dedicatd SSD and don't care for integrated graphics. That's why I would get the P67 WS Revolution $235 in a heart beat. Both are NF200 Equipped and support up to 4 cards, and both overclock beautifully. If I had Maximus I would use its awesome futures, but once in the case you won't tell the difference.

Fan: Poor or rich, I would only get the NH-D14 $86

Mem: Anything lower latency than CL9, and higher bandwidth than 1600 won't make a difference in real world gaming. 16 GB RAM instead of 8GB? Maybe but I wouldn't. Get them low profile to fit with the heatsink. Kingston Hyperx, G.Skill Sniper, Corsair Vengeance. $60

Video card: Two Mars II in SLI $3,000+. Scrap that! Three EVGA GTX580 Classified 3GB in Tri-SLI$1,800 but it's not out yet. Three MSI Lightning Extreme Edition in TRI-SLI $1,785 but they would require a superb air-cooling case because of the dissipated heat.

And when I wake up I would buy three Sapphire HD6950 2GB Toxics $810 for Tri-Fire for five reasons:
1) Less than half the price for more than two thirds of the performance
2) two thirds the wattage required
3) AMD's scales better in multi-gpu configs.
4) Performs as good or better than stock 6970 when flashed and manually overclocked
5)More RAM will always pay off in triple monitor resolution, which is why I wouldn't reccomend any 1.5GB GTX 580

I would stay away from quad GPU because it doesn't add to performance as much as three do, and because connections on the motherboard will be sacrificed. Don't get me started on the HD6990/GTX590.

SSD: Vertex3 240GB $540, but in the end I'd get 120GB $268. perhaps when X79 comes out and some bad ass motherboards with unlimited lanes come out as well, I would start looking into the Revodrivex3

HD: WD Caviar Black (1TB $85) or as big as you want either way

PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1000W $240.

Case: Silverstone FTB02-W $280, but I would save money and get RV02B-EW $215 for the same performance but not as good looking.

Monitor: Three Asus PA246Q IPS 24" 1920x1200 $1620. In reality, the lower the resolution, the more frames I get for my games, the more space I have on my desk, and the cheaper it gets. Three Asus PA238Q IPS 23" 1920x1080 $867

Mouse: Steelseries Sensei with a nice mousepad $90 + $15/ Keyboard: Das S Professional Silent $120/
Best in class

Speakers: Since I invested in acoustically quite air-cooling hardware, I wouldn't need a high-end bacteria collecting headset for gaming but only for other activities. I would get the Logitech Z906 $348 and maybe an Asus Vulcan headset.

So $6,000 for a dream machine, but if invested cleverly, you can have the same performance for $3,700

Wow, This is the exact same dream build I had in mind where I read the thread title... minus the speakers, monitor, and mouse... I personally prefer 3x Dell U3011s... if money wasn't an issue..