New Gaming PC

[Terodius]

Hey. Up until recently I had an ASUS G73Jh because I wanted portability and power, but now that I've started doing more intense gaming and 4k video editing, it's just not powerful enough anymore. So I'm looking to build a new desktop for around 2 grand, possibly up to 2,5k.

The only things I've decided on are an i7-2600k, dual AMD Radeon 6990s for Quad-way Crossfire, and a 240GB Corsair Force series 3 SSD.
I'm thinking about getting a Corsair HX 1050W PSU, a Corsair Graphite 600T Midtower, 24GB 1866MHz OCZ DDR3 and I need to decide between an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 and a ASRock Z68 Extreme7 GEN3.

Now, I've been keeping up with how the market has evolved but the truth is the last time I build a system myself was 10 years ago with a Pentium III, so the truth is this will be like starting fresh. My doubts are if the 2600k will be a bottleneck for the 6990s, if the PSU will put out enough juice for the system, if anybody has experience with quad-crossfire on these mobos and if I should go with a midtower or a fulltower build.

Thanks

[ilya]

How important is 4k video editing performance to you? It's not exactly the best time to be spending a large amount of money on a new high end rig. There's new high end CPU's and GPU's coming out in the next few months and current prices aren't very low due to lack of competition. I would look into getting a used CPU/MB and buying a single dual GPU card with the intention to sell it when new cards are released. Stuff like RAM, PSU, case, HDD, SSD can all be reused.

[keto]

Yup, the high end Intel socket 2011 launches on (expected) 11/14, faster cpus + 4 channel memory (with up to 8 dimms, so 8x4 = 32GB won't be hugely expensive I think), which might be right up your alley...and with your budget, it's going to be in reach to do that (EDIT thought about that, might be wrong, you're going to have $1800+ just in 2 vid cards + SSD). For your budget, you could get a nice current Z68 chipset board (recommended: ASUS, Z68-Pro or -Deluxe, make sure to get a Gen3, which are just now hitting shelves - the WS Revolution is a bit more expensive but apparently has a great layout for quad GPU). Good choice on the 2600K cpu, which has more cores and hyperthreading, will be usefull in your editing...and can be VERY EASILY overclocked to give you big performance gains.

BUT I *think* the Z68/P67 only have 4 dimms, and 8GB RAM sticks are very expensive, you might be limited to 4X4GB.

I have a 600T, it's VERY roomy inside, though I don't run dual/quad GPUs...pic That's an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 in there.


**EDIT** I rambled all over the place and edited numerous times, I hope this post is reasonably coherent lol***

[GT7R]

If you're do not plan to watercool these 6990's, buy some earplugs with them.... or take a couple of 590's instead.
That's being said, ppl here(including myself) have experienced lots of issues with the 6xxx radeons Crossfire, so I don't even want to imagine a quad-fire setup...