So I thought I'd just say...

[Master&Puppet]

Dead excited! Just about to order my last few parts for the new gaming rig now that I am back in the UK and have some time.

CPU 3570K (have been pining over the 3770K or 3820 but I don't really need HT for the little bit of video editing I do). RASA block.

Mobo MSI z77 GD55 (don't need the extra 2 sata points of the 65).

GPUs 2x Sapphire 7950s w/ EK transparent blocks.

RAM 32gb (4x8), 1600/1333Mhz. Still deciding on these but nothing special needed. Capacity (for disking) over speed (since it makes no difference for gaming). Currently considering http://www.overclock...catid=8&subcat= - not the sexiest RAM though.

SSD 60gb Chronos (OS).

HDDs 2 TB caviar black (1 for games and programs, 1 for storage. Glad they have come back down to a reasonable price).

All wrapped up in a caselabs T10 with a couple of psus and custom watercooling across cpu and gpus.

 

[PetrolHead247]

32GB or RAM is massive overkill for gaming, 8GB would be fine or 16GB for futureproofing. Also, i'd get 2 x 670's instead of 7950's, the 670's perform better and are the same price, they're about 5% slower than a 690 but are over 20% cheaper. Apart from that it looks like a very tasty rig indeed!

 

[Lauralarry]

I agree with petrol

 

[Master&Puppet]

Yea usually I'd agree with you but I'm ramdisking the games/programs so I need the extra space for the likes of Shogun 2 and skyrim with texture packs.

Also I got the 7950s a month ago before the 670 came out, got a good deal though (£275 each) and given that I'll be overclocking them the difference between 680s/670s/7970s/7950s is negligable depending on the game

 

[yassarikhan786]

Looking forward to this M&P, spec list looks totally amazing

 

[PetrolHead247]

Yea usually I'd agree with you but I'm ramdisking the games/programs so I need the extra space for the likes of Shogun 2 and skyrim with texture packs.

Also I got the 7950s a month ago before the 670 came out, got a good deal though (£275 each) and given that I'll be overclocking them the difference between 680s/670s/7970s/7950s is negligable depending on the game

Ah ok, fair enough then mate. This is gonna be an amazing PC

 

[SieB]

All looks good, change the RASA for a Raystorm or Koolance 370 though.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Looking forward to this M&P, spec list looks totally amazing

Cheers dude

All looks good, change the RASA for a Raystorm or Koolance 370 though.

Yea I'd love a Raystorm actually, the RASA is in there simply because it's a waterblock I already own - I thought I'd update this once I'd got everything else done. In the meantime the block could do with a good lapping and I'll do the same to the cpu's IHS and post any change in temps.

I've been thinking about the IB heat problem again since I got back. It seems to me that with the default setup of the chips (chip > tim > IHS) once you hit 1.4v something is unable to expel the heat. I've seen a number of threads (like the 2 below) where people have gone as far as updating the TIM with something aftermarket.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1693361

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...IHS-Removals-CPU-temp-dropped-from-79C-to-71C

I'll see how it does at stock and then see what I can achieve by lapping the block, IHS and updating the TIM in the CPU.

 

[SieB]

Temps shouldn't be too bad with watercooling but people have definitely been getting better temps from replacing the TIM between the die and IHS, up to by 10*c+ as well

 

[Master&Puppet]

Yea, this stuff is like a disease isn't it! Gaming doesn't even require an OC on the cpu but here we are dicussing taking the cpu apart to break 5GHz stable