PC Construction - Guru Tips & Comments Wanted!

[Boozad]

For a build like that I'd be looking at the Cooler Master Cosmos II case. It's the only one that I can think of that would offer the cooling needed for four GPUs. If you are running at 1920x1080 though you should be able to get away with three 4GB 770s I'd have thought.

 

[DreadStarX]

Another thing I would say, (although it would be awesome to have some nice 2560X1440 Monitors) if you are gonna have 8 screens then I would stick with 1920X1080 otherwise it will hammer the VRAM badly.

I would love to have the option to go larger than 1920x1080. Like I stated previously, EVE can have some massive fights, and I do a lot of frapsing and upload to youtube. I've only got 2 videos up now, but look for DreadStarX on YouTube.

I would love to double my resolution or have a video card that can do that. I do occasionally attach my 42" TV to my computer when my XBOX is in use.

256GB SSD's are the sweet spot for price/performance these days, but there is certainly nothing wrong with bigger capacities if you buy a quality SSD. You buy junk, that's when you start having problems. I'm very picky about what SSD I use, and recommend. As for the case, read reviews and watch videos on the ones that can suit your needs and you will find out everything you need to know about them, good and bad. You don't have to settle on one right now, but do your homework, find the one that you want and keep an eye on it and catch it on sale. You don't have to order all of this at one time, especially something like a case.

Like you, I am picky about what my machines run. I've had bad feed back on anything bigger than 160GB. So I'm cautious about it. I want the BEST possible performance possible. I have a 16TB NAS that I built a few weeks back, thats running RAID0 for my BluRay/TVShow/Music/Music Video Collection, so I have storage for long term holding, but I'll have a 4TB Internal HD for my storage/projects.

Ok, so hold off on the CPU and Mobo, the Ram well I would expect the Ivy-E boards to have 8 x Ram slots like Sandy-E, so you have the option to either get 8 x 4GB or 4 x 8GB, the later will allow for expansion should you require 64GB lol.
I love G.Skill and my last 4 sets of Ram have all been G.Skill. I expect you can run with at least 2400MHz on the new Ivy-E, but again it's best waiting until the time to see the full specs of the new chipset.

What cooling do you have planned? Realistically if you want 4 x GPU's then heat is gonna be a big issue, have you considered a full custom loop to cool the beasts?

SSD, what capacity did you have in mind? The new Samsung 840 Evo's come in 1TB size and look very promising.

Paul.

Well, I was going to look at the SXCP or XSCP Cases, according to the article here on SForums, they make some very insanely good Water Cooling kits. I was going to go a full loop, and watch the cooling. I planned on overclocking it when I need too, but I'm still a novice in that section.

As for the SSD, i was going to keep it below 250GB. Because I've heard a lot of negative comments about anything above 250GB. But I've never owned one.

As Kelly says 250/256 is a good place right now, but if you can afford bigger then there is certainly no issues with the decent brands like Samsung. The new range of 840 Evo's look good, but the older 840s and 840 Pros are excellent drives.
Just depends what space you need and how quick you want to access it. Most of us have the OS on the SSD and then a regular HDD or 2 for storage etc, I only have a 128GB SSD and my Steam games come to a few 100GB so I chucked them all on a HDD, but I have the one I play the most on my SSD for quicker load times.

Well, Like I stated above, I'm picky. I want the best possible performance. I want a complete setup that'll maximize what I do.

For a build like that I'd be looking at the Cooler Master Cosmos II case. It's the only one that I can think of that would offer the cooling needed for four GPUs. If you are running at 1920x1080 though you should be able to get away with three 4GB 770s I'd have thought.

That is one gnarly looking case Boozad. Now, if only I can find a motherboard that'd support that baby to the fullest. From the pictures, the only thing I'm worried about is the PSU. My 1300W is pretty big. I don't want to buy everything and then have to downgrade.

Looking at the 770s has me worried. The size of card, and the quantity as well, might be an issue.

Newegg.com - EVGA 04G-P4-2768-KR GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support SC 4GB w/ EVGA ACX Cooler Video Card

I was looking at these cards, running 4. The goal is to be able to have 8 monitors, SLI them when needed, but for the most part, just have 2 monitors per card. Frankly, I've never done SLI that much, I've played with a few machines with it, but never owned one. Never had the cash flow to drop 7500$ on computer parts until now.

Anyways, keep posting and I'll mull over the information.

Someone wanna explain SLI for me?

 

[Boozad]

SLI Explained.

 

[DreadStarX]

SLI Explained.

I'll read it when I return home on Friday. My school blocked that site because its a blog. =/


So lets say I didn't want to wait, and I had a timeline to have it built by;

What would you suggest I buy for the latest and greatest?

 

[kbrady1979]

Get the Samsung 840 Pro 256GB.....one of the most reliable and fastest drives on the planet. Also.....a question, why do you have your NAS set up in RAID 0? Modern hard drives are more than fast enough to saturate 1000Mbps ethernet connections, so RAID 0, I don't believe, is doing much for you. I would vote for RAID 5 or RAID 10, or if you have a bunch of HD's, RAID 6......you need some redundancy in there.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Here's your case you'll want to consider and I would think (2) 480's and a 360 should do then all the blocks and crystal link and fittings.
Obsidian Series® 900D Super Tower Case - Obsidian Series - Cases

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Some light viewing for your pleasure !

 

[DreadStarX]

Get the Samsung 840 Pro 256GB.....one of the most reliable and fastest drives on the planet. Also.....a question, why do you have your NAS set up in RAID 0? Modern hard drives are more than fast enough to saturate 1000Mbps ethernet connections, so RAID 0, I don't believe, is doing much for you. I would vote for RAID 5 or RAID 10, or if you have a bunch of HD's, RAID 6......you need some redundancy in there.

Well, my media collection consists of 4TB of movies, I have every movie in BluRay quality, and I have nearly 10TB in TV-Shows as well. So space is a necessity. Any movie that comes out, I download in a HD BluRay 1 - 3GB Copy. Also, I have no where else to store these videos if I did a RAID configuration. I contemplated RAID 5 for a long time, but that wouldn't give me the space I need. When I get home I'll take a screenshot of my drives, and I'll show you guys the capacity. The NAS is open to my friends as well, but I'll think about a RAID Configuration. I have a stable 10mbit up/down Fiber connection, so re-downloading movies isn't a huge issue, its only temporary until I can get my new job, and then I'll start buying BluRays.

As for the case, I'm down for that one or the one someone posted earlier. Both look splended, especially with dual power supplies. Though I'm not sure a standard Desktop motherboard comes with dual plugins, then again I've never tried to run dual PSUs. I always assumed you had to have the motherboard connected to the PSU for the power to work, but that was just an assumption. Thanks for that case as well, I'm beginning to drool again, I know I did last night.

Some light viewing for your pleasure !

I'll check this out when I get home. My school blocks Regular YouTube, if it isn't educational, I can't get it.

Edit:

SLI Bridges for 4 Way are dang expensive! What happened to them sending out free bridges

 

[kbrady1979]

Sounds like you have a nice collection. I have almost 4TB of TV shows archived, 95% in 720/1080p Blu Ray encodes or WEB-DL's, and have a little over 3TB of movies. I download full blu ray dumps when I can, or remuxes........and occasionally a really good encode. My movies average about 25GB each, and my TV shows average 1-1.5GB each. I will be building a NAS sometime in the future and will more than likely use RAID 5. A 1000Mbps(Gigabit LAN) has a maximum theoretical limit of 125MB/s of throughput, and even the greenest of hard drives have sequential read/write speeds of 130-150MB/s. I understand that you need the capacity though...and you already have your RAID array built. Something to think about if you build another setup and break your current array is a RAID with redundancy.

 

[DreadStarX]

Sounds like you have a nice collection. I have almost 4TB of TV shows archived, 95% in 720/1080p Blu Ray encodes or WEB-DL's, and have a little over 3TB of movies. I download full blu ray dumps when I can, or remuxes........and occasionally a really good encode. My movies average about 25GB each, and my TV shows average 1-1.5GB each. I will be building a NAS sometime in the future and will more than likely use RAID 5. A 1000Mbps(Gigabit LAN) has a maximum theoretical limit of 125MB/s of throughput, and even the greenest of hard drives have sequential read/write speeds of 130-150MB/s. I understand that you need the capacity though...and you already have your RAID array built. Something to think about if you build another setup and break your current array is a RAID with redundancy.

Yeah, I'm going to probably look into a bigger NAS, prefer more than 4 HDD Slots, if I had it my way, I'd take a 10 Drive slot, but I don't think they make those , but in reality 5 or 6 slots would be spiffy. I'm not 100% sure how raid works, my understand is;

max size / (Divided) by the Rad (0,3,5,6,10) and thats the "rough" outcome of space you'll get, and a level of redundancy.

I.e. I have 20TB of space 20 / 5 = 4TB of Space with a decent redundancy if a drive fails.
i.e.e.
R0 = 20TB
R3 = 6.5TB (Roughly)
R5 = 5TB
R6 = 3.3TB (Roughly)
R10 = 2TB

Thats how I've come to understand RAID sizes, also the # indicates the level of restorability, or so I'm told.



Edit:

On a side note, what operating systems should I run. I usually do a Dual Boot of Windows 7 / 8 with a Ubuntu setup. But I'm thinking about turning my current PC into a VMWare/Web Server setup and running Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition (MSDNAA Students ftw).

Any suggestions? I love Windows 8 and the Preview 8.1. I've gotten so comfortable with it. But I'm wondering about memory issues, and things of that nature. I can't find an operating system comparison tool, so I can't find out exactly how it would compare. I run 64bit only, I haven't touched 32bit since Windows 2000 was around.

 

[kbrady1979]

What you need to realize is RAID 0 has NO redundancy at all. RAID 1 has no performance boost, only redundancy and mirrors your data onto another drive. RAID 5 has to have at least 3 drives and you get the capacity of 2 of them. If you have 4 drives, you have the capacity of 3, and so on and so forth. For instance, if you had 4-4TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration, you would have 12TB of usable storage, and one 4TB drive of redundancy basically(it doesn't exactly work like that, but it's much easier than explaining about parity bits). RAID 6 I believe has to have a minimum of 5 disks. It is quickly becoming popular because you get a performance increase and double fault tolerance.

They make NAS' that can hold pretty much what you can afford. QNAP makes a good diskless NAS in 4, 5, 6 and 8 bay models I believe. Pop in 6-4TB drives in RAID 5 and you have 20TB of usable space!

 

[DreadStarX]

What you need to realize is RAID 0 has NO redundancy at all. RAID 1 has no performance boost, only redundancy and mirrors your data onto another drive. RAID 5 has to have at least 3 drives and you get the capacity of 2 of them. If you have 4 drives, you have the capacity of 3, and so on and so forth. For instance, if you had 4-4TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration, you would have 12TB of usable storage, and one 4TB drive of redundancy basically(it doesn't exactly work like that, but it's much easier than explaining about parity bits). RAID 6 I believe has to have a minimum of 5 disks. It is quickly becoming popular because you get a performance increase and double fault tolerance.

They make NAS' that can hold pretty much what you can afford. QNAP makes a good diskless NAS in 4, 5, 6 and 8 bay models I believe. Pop in 6-4TB drives in RAID 5 and you have 20TB of usable space!

That is damn spiffy! I just realized they had a 10 and 12 slot, but those are 2,000$+ per one. Oh man, 4TB * 12 slots :shock:. I'd never run out of usable space on that baby! What I'll probably do now that I've found this handy information out, is setup a second one specifically for movies, and what not, and use the original one for a Family Network Drive. My mom does a lot of business related work at home, my brother and I do a LOT of school work, and I tend to share a lot of source codes & projects. If I have the spare cash, I'll pick up a 5 Bay Slot, and 5x 4TB drives, and transfer all the media over after I setup a RAID6.

QNAP TS-569L-US Diskless System High-performance 5-bay NAS Server for SMBs - Newegg.com

With http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236520 for hard drives.

After looking at this QNAP NAS, I read that it can have upgraded memory. Is it worth it to upgrade from 1GB to 3GB? I mean, what kind of performance increase will I see? I'm very new to NAS, I had a friend come over and help me get everything going. My knowledge of RAID is limited to "It saves your A$$ with RAID 5,6,10" and Raid 0/1 is "You're screwed 5 ways to sunday."

And I believe we've gotten WAY off topic, haha. All is well, I guess this would count as "PC Construction" because its going to be part of a PC Network

 

[kbrady1979]

I don't know how much you will get out of upgrading the RAM. I guess it depends on what you are running OS/Program-wise. Also, RAID 1 is pure redundancy.......you have 2 drives and it copies the data bit by bit from one drive to the other. There is a performance hit and you lose half your space, but it is a "mirror image" of the data drive. RAID 0 "stripes" the data over the drive and considers it one big drive. No redundancy at all.

That is a nice NAS! Those hard drives are certainly awesome, and expensive. They are enterprise grade drives. WD and Seagate both make a reasonably priced HDD just for a NAS and while early on there were some issues with them, I think they've got it worked out. The are built for use in a NAS and are much cheaper than their enterprise grade drives. I have 2-2TB Seagate Barracuda's and 2-4TB HDD.15's and they work flawlessly. I'm sure their NAS HDD's are good too.

 

[DreadStarX]

I don't know how much you will get out of upgrading the RAM. I guess it depends on what you are running OS/Program-wise. Also, RAID 1 is pure redundancy.......you have 2 drives and it copies the data bit by bit from one drive to the other. There is a performance hit and you lose half your space, but it is a "mirror image" of the data drive. RAID 0 "stripes" the data over the drive and considers it one big drive. No redundancy at all.

That is a nice NAS! Those hard drives are certainly awesome, and expensive. They are enterprise grade drives. WD and Seagate both make a reasonably priced HDD just for a NAS and while early on there were some issues with them, I think they've got it worked out. The are built for use in a NAS and are much cheaper than their enterprise grade drives. I have 2-2TB Seagate Barracuda's and 2-4TB HDD.15's and they work flawlessly. I'm sure their NAS HDD's are good too.

Well, I'm currently enrolled in Job Corp like I stated previously, and I'm doing all this off of my final check from working this summer. Two jobs, worked 18 hour days for 4 months straight earns you an awesome paycheck. Anyways, I'm using about 2,000$ of the 7,500$ paycheck plus the 1,000$ RIO Check I get from Job Corp when I graduate from their program. So in total, I'll have a bit of cash to spend on a nice toy. The second NAS will be for my family, they're the ones who watch more movies, tvshows than I do. I'll load them on their for them, I'll just setup my spare PC as an FTP Server, and have the files stored there. I'm trying to get somethings balanced out, goals I have, etc. Anyways, no more life stories, to the point.

I just want to maximize my space, and let it sit, so I don't have to be called twice a week cause sh*t ain't working right. Thats my current issue. I live 150miles or less from home, and I'm called weekly by friends or family members because my server isn't playing nice with Windows Media Center via XBOX 360 and I have to rent a Cafe PC to remote desktop and troubleshoot the problem. Since I got the NAS, I've eliminated my power consumption, the wear and tear on my server, and the overall speed. I mean, the NAS has given me a massive relief, so I want to increase the space, and ability for my family to have virtually unlimited access to movies, tvshows, etc. My goal is to get every TV-Show produced from the 90s - Current, as well with movies. I thought about music videos, but not a lot of people watch those anymore.

Also, is it possible to get a wireless router with 5 or more ethernet ports on it? 1x NAS + 4 extra?

 

[kbrady1979]

You might want to look at Plex Media Server. It works on a PC, some smart TV's, a NAS and some mobile devices. It is a piece of cake to set up and really easy for people to use whether they are at your house, or are remoting into it. It has a very nice user interface as well. For the wireless router, yes.....you can get one with that many ports. Here is one with 7 ports. Western Digital My Net N900

I tried to reply to your PM but you must have private messages turned off because it wouldn't let me send it.

 

[DreadStarX]

You might want to look at Plex Media Server. It works on a PC, some smart TV's, a NAS and some mobile devices. It is a piece of cake to set up and really easy for people to use whether they are at your house, or are remoting into it. It has a very nice user interface as well. For the wireless router, yes.....you can get one with that many ports. Here is one with 7 ports. Western Digital My Net N900

I tried to reply to your PM but you must have private messages turned off because it wouldn't let me send it.

Thanks again kbrady. I'll look into these sorts of things. I was hoping that Linksys or Cisco had a router with that many ports. I'm doing my CCENT here in a few weeks, and I'd prefer to stick with things I know the best, so I can manipulate the crap out of it. I plan on putting restrictions on my brothers phone/computer.

As for the PM kbrady, I should have fixed it. For some reason, a lot of my settings are greyed out. My IT Guy actually uses SF and EF as well. Him and I have actually discussed a few topics here over lunch, and when I get to WBL (Worked Based Learning), I'll get to work with him, instead of going to a fiber company called "iFiber"

Edit:

My PSU has a 5 year warranty. Failure sure 1300W PSU is going to be outdated in 3 years, hopefully I can bash the crap out of it, and get a new one

I've found a new love for Cooler Master that I never had. The PSU's name is "Silent Pro", and it is silent as hell. The only fans I hear are my side fans, which I hope to ditch when I move to water cooling


I'd like to get back on topic too. Seems as if we've moved a bit away from the title.

If I DON'T want to wait to build my computer in November/December time, what is the latest and greatest you would suggest to build it? Keep in mind I plan on getting the case mentioned later on, not the XCPS case, but the other one.

To reiterate what I'm looking for;

4 Way SLI Motherboard
24 - 32GB of RAM
SSD
Water Cooling (Exact amount of parts I'll need)
24" - 27" Monitors
4x 760 GTX GFX Cards (Posted them previously, page 3 I think).

What I'm willing to spend is around $5,000.00. So, don't go too insane on me.
The works. Give a total price too, if possible.

 

[kbrady1979]

I would start with the Ivy Bridge-Extreme platform that is coming out next month. It's the same socket as Sandy Bridge-Extreme(Socket 2011) so we have a good idea of prices and performance. Sandy Bridge-Extreme has a 4 core CPU(which isn't worth buying because you can build a cheaper system with a 4-core CPU with socket 1150/1155) and a few of 6-core CPU's. The entry level 6 core is the Intel Core i7-3930K and is about $530 on a good day. That is regarded as one of the best processors for the money, and Ivy Bridge-Extreme will be coming out with an equivalent CPU which is roughly the same price. That is what I"d go with for this build.

I would seriously think about not running 4 graphics cards........seriously. There are plenty of games out there that don't scale right with SLI so you'll potentially have 2-3 cards just sitting there while gaming. You also raise the chances of something not working correctly the more cards you have. Just something to think about.

32GB of RAM is no problem, as is the SSD. Socket 2011 motherboards with 8 RAM slots can hold quite a bit of RAM, so it's just a matter of what kind and how much. RAM isn't as cheap as it was 6 months to a year ago, so being realistic about what you need isn't a bad idea. You are looking at about $300-400 for a 32GB kit. The SSD is a no brainer for me. Samsung 840 Pro 256GB. Buy it and be done with it.

I have no idea what kind of water cooling parts you'll need, because an open loop system is more of a personal preference. There are 1000 ways to run a loop and it's something you'll have to figure out. You'll need to find a radiator that will fit in the confines of your case. You'll have to decide on a pump, what kind of fittings you want. Hoses or crystal link tubing, etc. My advice, check out this guy on youtube and you'll get a better understanding of what you can and can't do. Singularity Computers

You need to make a choice on the monitors. Do you want to go with a 23/24" setup with 1080p resolution, or do you want to step up to a 27" monitor with 2560x1440 resolution? The 1440p resolution monitors are still higher than the 1080p by quite a bit sometimes, but there is no denying how awesome a display like that looks. Something to check out. Buying a good brand is the important part here.

If you want a very ballpark figure here it is.

CPU-$550
Mobo-$350
RAM-$350
SSD-$250
GPU-4 of any good card will be roughly $1800-2500
Water Cooling-No idea. I've never priced an open loop system, but you can bet it will cost a few to several hundred bucks
Monitor-$600-800 each for 27" 2560x1440 displays

That's the best I can do. Figure out your video card dilemma and we can get a better idea of where this is going.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Another point regarding the water loop pricing as it will be impossible as all cases have unique layouts and the complexity of same makes even getting close with fittings a joke until you have the layout of the rad's in the case with the mobo and water blocks and do a simple by sight layout, but actually finishing that loop the way you thought at first is like one in a thousand chance.....if that. I also say quad SLi is awkward and I would look to tri SLi. Did you watch that YouTube and it's series as the knowledge of the project you are starting is covered and explored much deeper then could ever be covered here.....just saying.

My gut says 5k will be tough as you're asking for top flight everything and really if you're putting together this kind of performance you best leave 10-30 percent margin in your numbers, hell I see you needing a couple of hundred dollars of extra fittings just to get the water loop done properly and the fittings you don't need I'm not sure if shops will take back?

 

[DreadStarX]

I would start with the Ivy Bridge-Extreme platform that is coming out next month. It's the same socket as Sandy Bridge-Extreme(Socket 2011) so we have a good idea of prices and performance. Sandy Bridge-Extreme has a 4 core CPU(which isn't worth buying because you can build a cheaper system with a 4-core CPU with socket 1150/1155) and a few of 6-core CPU's. The entry level 6 core is the Intel Core i7-3930K and is about $530 on a good day. That is regarded as one of the best processors for the money, and Ivy Bridge-Extreme will be coming out with an equivalent CPU which is roughly the same price. That is what I"d go with for this build.

I would seriously think about not running 4 graphics cards........seriously. There are plenty of games out there that don't scale right with SLI so you'll potentially have 2-3 cards just sitting there while gaming. You also raise the chances of something not working correctly the more cards you have. Just something to think about.

32GB of RAM is no problem, as is the SSD. Socket 2011 motherboards with 8 RAM slots can hold quite a bit of RAM, so it's just a matter of what kind and how much. RAM isn't as cheap as it was 6 months to a year ago, so being realistic about what you need isn't a bad idea. You are looking at about $300-400 for a 32GB kit. The SSD is a no brainer for me. Samsung 840 Pro 256GB. Buy it and be done with it.

I have no idea what kind of water cooling parts you'll need, because an open loop system is more of a personal preference. There are 1000 ways to run a loop and it's something you'll have to figure out. You'll need to find a radiator that will fit in the confines of your case. You'll have to decide on a pump, what kind of fittings you want. Hoses or crystal link tubing, etc. My advice, check out this guy on youtube and you'll get a better understanding of what you can and can't do. Singularity Computers

You need to make a choice on the monitors. Do you want to go with a 23/24" setup with 1080p resolution, or do you want to step up to a 27" monitor with 2560x1440 resolution? The 1440p resolution monitors are still higher than the 1080p by quite a bit sometimes, but there is no denying how awesome a display like that looks. Something to check out. Buying a good brand is the important part here.

If you want a very ballpark figure here it is.

CPU-$550
Mobo-$350
RAM-$350
SSD-$250
GPU-4 of any good card will be roughly $1800-2500
Water Cooling-No idea. I've never priced an open loop system, but you can bet it will cost a few to several hundred bucks
Monitor-$600-800 each for 27" 2560x1440 displays

That's the best I can do. Figure out your video card dilemma and we can get a better idea of where this is going.

The reason I'm pushing so hard for 4 Way SLI is the ability to have 8 Seperate monitors to work on the projects I have. I'm working with several others on a conversion project of a 2d to 3d game. I also multibox EVE Online a lot as well, so having multiple monitors that I can watch all my accounts with, is a massive bonus. You guys would have to play EVE to understand it, but having nuetral/spy accounts logged in, placed in specific strategic locations, gives me the advantage for ganks, and security.

I run Windows Server 2012 DataCenter Edition in one of my screens, Skype in one, Dreamweaver, Visual Studio 2012, Photoshop, FireFox/IE/Chrome in another, Media player in another, along with my resource manager, data transfers, and bandwidth monitor, and my last screen is usually free or is playing a movie.

As for GFX Cards, I'm considering just ordering 3 more 560 GTX's and rolling those in 4-Way SLI, it would cut the cost tremendously, and not to mention that they are still bad ass cards. I can always purchase a cheaper GFX Card to go back into that PC, which I'll be using as a VMWare/Web Server (internal network projects).


Monitors; well, I've decided that 24" ones will work. I checked what I had at home, which I've forgotten the brand, lol, and I'll be purchasing 8 more monitors. I thought about just purchasing 7, but having to disconnect, then reconnect, was just a massive pain, and the only thing I have left is a 15" CRT Monitor that won't fit in the server / computer room.

Another point regarding the water loop pricing as it will be impossible as all cases have unique layouts and the complexity of same makes even getting close with fittings a joke until you have the layout of the rad's in the case with the mobo and water blocks and do a simple by sight layout, but actually finishing that loop the way you thought at first is like one in a thousand chance.....if that. I also say quad SLi is awkward and I would look to tri SLi. Did you watch that YouTube and it's series as the knowledge of the project you are starting is covered and explored much deeper then could ever be covered here.....just saying.

My gut says 5k will be tough as you're asking for top flight everything and really if you're putting together this kind of performance you best leave 10-30 percent margin in your numbers, hell I see you needing a couple of hundred dollars of extra fittings just to get the water loop done properly and the fittings you don't need I'm not sure if shops will take back?

I've never done Water Cooling before, and I want to give it a try. If you read above, you'll see my statement on multiple GFX Cards. I haven't gotten a chance to watch those youtube videos because my damn internet died at home, my brother and his friends were screwing around while cutting down some trees, and cut the fiber line that goes to my house, so I had to wait till today, to even use the internet, and I'm back at school.

The only way to watch them, is if their educational ones as well, when uploaded you get to "tag" them, which I'm sure you're aware of.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I would watch those Singularity video's for sure as it will give you tremendous insights on layout options and how even with seasoned knowledge you really have to let the case speak to you as you go and having a real tight relation with a great local shop for water cooling parts appears needed otherwise you either order tons of parts to have on hand for all possibilities and then hopefully return the rest of the unused parts or save them for the next rig. Of course this is somewhat reduced if you are going to hose the rig with flexible tubing. But the EK blocks and fittings are so sweet that with rigid acrylic tubing around the blocks and most if not all the rad's seems like the best long term and as far as looks it's far and away better.