Rampage IV Black Edition

SSD's in RAID just double the points of failure........it's useless these days. If you are wanting some ideas on crazy custom builds, check this guy out. Singularity Computers

essenbe said:

As far as the PSU, 1500W is probably overkill, but personally, I like overkill, to an extent. I really don't know much about Enermax, I usually recommend Corsair, Seasonic, XFX, Antec or EVGA. Most of those I listed are made by Seasonic.

Paste is a personal preference. An excellent test I saw measured the top 15 pastes as well as you could measure them. What struck me was the top 8 brands were about 2-3 deg. C between them. I have used both of the ones you mentioned and quite a few more. Personally, I use Noctua NT-H1. But any of the top brands are good. The Artic silver MX brands are good too. You sound like you are starting the build. Usually which paste is the last question you ask. LOL

I want to use a broad range of companies on purpose. I already chose a EVGA VGA so I want to use a enermax PSU. Unless there is a big reliability gap.

I think Im going too far with the whole fantasy build. Well I guess I could tell a friend about this fantasy build because I know he would. but he won't build it because he already has a pretty good gaming computer.

Just take the components of your fantacy build and whittle them down a little until you get to a price you can afford with the performance you need. Once you build that with a qualitu Motherboard and CPU and PSU, you can always add to it.

I'll play along.......without going full retard and getting dual Xeon processors, this is at the moment some of the best hardware you can put together.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4960X Ivy Bridge-E
MOBO: Asus P9X79-E WS
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB @ 2133MHz
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclocked x2
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 512 GB x2 NOT in RAID0
PSU: SeaSonic Platinum 1000
SOUNDCARD: Asus Xonar Essence ST
Cooling: This is entirely subjective, but a 360mm RAD for the CPU and a 360mm RAD for the GPU's with dual pumps and Noctua fans, external reservoir and crystal link tubing
Case: Also subjective.......whatever will hold all of the stuff above

If you didn't do any gaming, but did quite a bit of 3D rendering, I'd get a Pro grade graphics card as well.

This is of course, just my opinion, and some of those parts are from my favorite vendors....your mileage may vary.

kbrady1979 said:

I'll play along.......without going full retard and getting dual Xeon processors, this is at the moment some of the best hardware you can put together.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4960X Ivy Bridge-E
MOBO: Asus P9X79-E WS
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB @ 2133MHz
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclocked x2
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 512 GB x2 NOT in RAID0
PSU: SeaSonic Platinum 1000
SOUNDCARD: Asus Xonar Essence ST
Cooling: This is entirely subjective, but a 360mm RAD for the CPU and a 360mm RAD for the GPU's with dual pumps and Noctua fans, external reservoir and crystal link tubing
Case: Also subjective.......whatever will hold all of the stuff above

If you didn't do any gaming, but did quite a bit of 3D rendering, I'd get a Pro grade graphics card as well.

This is of course, just my opinion, and some of those parts are from my favorite vendors....your mileage may vary.

How about the Rampage IV mentioned in the first post?

I'd still take the P9X79-E WS. It's not as "pretty" as the Rampage IV, but it's a workstation class motherboard, and I'd take that for function and reliability. Again, just personal preference. Either would be fine

Well its for gaming though. So I would use a ROG board.

A "Gaming motherboard" is kind of misleading........any board would be fine for gaming. The motherboard has very very little to do with playing games. My Asus Z77 Sabertooth is in the TUF series and is meant for years of reliability, and is a HELL of a gaming motherboard.

You said either is fine.