This section sounds like a dichotomy, but really it's not. You can still spend a lot for a gaming rig and get a really poor return on your investment. I'm all for spending money if you have it to spend, and if it makes sense. A lot of high-end systems seem determined just to spend money for the sake of spending money. This section will spend money .. lots of it, but will still try to be smart about it. Yeah, that $1000 hand-painted case looks cool, but it doesn't help you frag that poor sod who greatly deserves it.
As mentioned in the introduction, all prices are from Newegg. No special prices (e.g., after mail-in-rebate prices or combo prices are used if that can be avoided. You should be able to load these items in your cart and get them at or near the prices quoted.
CPU - Surprise! This is the same CPU as in the mainstream build. The Intel Core i7 is still the CPU to get, but the 920 (Nehalem) processor is already $280. The next model up, the 950 is over twice as much at $570 and the top model, the 975 Extreme is $1000. For this rig, we really want the fastest CPU available, but paying nearly $600 or $1000 for an increase of .4 and .67 GHz, respectively is just money wasted in this case. The Core i7 920 has proven to be very overclockable - far past the stock speeds of both the 950 and 975 with just a little help. We're going to beef up the cooling here to allow for smooth overclocking. As far as doing the overclocking is concerned, a lot of sites can help you with the settings to try for. One useful one I found is at tech Power-Up.com, which has a list of the settings other have used during successfully overclocking the 920. X-bit labs also has a nice Core i7 overclocking guide as does Hot Hardware.com Dec 2008 and Hot Hardware.com April, 2009.
CPU Cooler - Since the plan is to support overclocking the CPU, a good aftermarket cooler is in order. The one chosen for this build is the Cooler Master V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP. I gave serious thought to going with both general water cooling for the whole system and special CPU-only water cooling kits as well. I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on one. There's a lot of extra work involved with water cooling all the devices in the case (CPU, GPUs, northbridge, power phasing MOSFETs, memory, hard drives, etc). We can still air cool at a reasonable level with very good overclocking overhead using this cooler, a large case with decent airflow and a number of (large, quiet) fans. While we won't be able to overclock into the upper stratosphere this way, it will be more than fast enough for anything out there today (and the next couple years at least). I expect this to allow CPU overclocking to at least 3.6 GHz, but 3.8 GHz or better should also be possible with stability. This cooler includes a backplate, so it must be mounted to the motherboard while it is outside the case, but hallelujah we don't have to worry about those terrible stock posts popping out of the motherboard. This thing's heavy, so the backplate's pretty much a requirement.
Motherboard - I'm again sticking with Gigabyte on this build since they're my favorite motherboard maker at the moment. For this build, I've spec-ed the GA-EX58-UD5 as the motherboard. At $280, it's not cheap (nor is it the most expensive), but Supports triple SLI or Crossfire (at x16,x16,x8), has the wonderful 2 oz copper PCB, 12+2+2 power phasing, DDR3 2100 memory support up to 24GB, 10 SATA ports, 8 USB ports on the back (with headers for 4 more such as the front panel of the case). The motherboard also has onboard switches for power and reset to aid in building the system and LEDs all over for monitoring northbridge voltage, southbridge voltage, northbridge temperature, northbridge power phase, system power phase, CPU voltage and CPU temperature. These are very nice while building, and with a case with a window, allow for a quick visual check of the system at any time. More information on this motherboard can be found at Gigabyte's web site. I will admit looking long and hard at the EVGA E758-A1 motherboard because of a number of good reviews. That would be my second choice only because of the 12 GB memory limit (which seems absurd today), 1 fewer SATA ports, 4 fewer USB ports on the back and 4 fewer overall USB ports. There is a rebate on the EVGA board to bring its price down to the same as the Gigabyte one is at with a current instant savings. I like instant saving more than sending in rebates. If you looked at the list of overclocked systems an their parameters pointed to under CPU above, you notice a lot of those builders used the GA-EX58-UD5.
Memory - In this component, I'm going with 6 GB of very fast OCZ XMP Ready Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3-1600 (PC3 12800) OCZ3X1600LV6GK memory. This memory is made specifically for the X58 chipset and allows overclocking with very little effort. The "XMP-Ready" moniker means that the memory has Intel Extreme Memory Profiles in the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) chip. The SPD sets the timings and voltages for various clock speeds used by the motherboard. This will give us the speed we need while not exceeding the 1.65V maximum to drive the memory. You can find out more about this memory from OCZ's web site.
Graphics Card - The motherboard for this rig handles up to three matched graphics cards using either Nvidia SLI or ATI 3-Way Crossfire. One option here would be to go with a pair or a triple of the fastest graphics cards on the market today - the Nvidia GTX 295. That card is essentially a pair of GTX 275's in SLI mode mated together as a single card taking a single PCI-Express slot (although the card is still two slots wide and blocks the next slot position). I not inclined to go all the way to triple SLI with GTX 295s. I'm more inclined to vote for a pair of GTX 275's in SLI (which is cheaper than one GTX 295 though the two approaches should have similar speed) or a pair of GTX 295's in SLI. The option to add a third card is always there later if the need arises. Since this is the "Price is not a consideration" build, I'm going to cry just a little and go with two GTX 295's. Seriously, a single GTX 295 would be enough, but this is the rig for those with money aplenty. No sense in making it any worse than necessary, so we're going with a pair of Gigabyte GV-N295-18I-B Rev2.0 GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 cards at $470 each. Ouch.
Sound - In my own machine, I have a Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Champion Series. This is the one with the separate breakout box for headphones and various audio/midi inputs and outputs. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I can tell the difference in the sound quality between this card and the onboard sound of the various motherboards it's been in. I keep moving this from build to build because I like it so much. Vista-64 driver support is solid. With that in mind, I've chosen the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 Sound Card. Because of the layout of the motherboard, a standard PCI card won't work. Therefore, we go with a PCI-Express (x1) card that can fit in the slot "behind" or "above" the first graphics card. With this card, there's no need for a separate box for front panel audio since the card has support for such on it. (Previous X-Fi cards often did not support front panel audio short of having the break out box.) There is more info about this card at Creative's web site.
Case - Because of the dual blast furnace elements - sometimes called graphics cards - we need a case that's large to allow for airflow and provides for plenty of fans (included or optional ones. To fill these needs, I've picked the Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower computer case. Its price recently dropped by $30 to 170, and regardless of Newegg's description, the case now has a side window with a bracket for an optional fan. All the other (120mm) fans are included and have three speed settings. This includes three fans in the front - one in front of each of the three drive cages (that each hold up to three hard disks), two fans in the rear toward the top, and one large 200mm fan on the top itself. We will add one additional 120mm fan for the side fan mount to blow down onto the graphics cards. There is also an optional fan mounting that can be attached behind any one of the drive cages, but we'll not use that for now. The size of this case is very large, but the graphics cards we have chosen are very long and get quite warm. This case allows for the airflow needed to keep them cool. More info on this case is at Antec's site.
Power Supply - No beating around the bush with this power supply. Wimpy PSUs need not apply. Go to the Nvidia's SLI Zone web site and specifically go to the certified power supplies section. Check out the PSUs listed under dual GeForce GTX 295 GPU's, you'll see none are less than 1200W. Those graphics cards are powerful and they require real power. The CPU is a decent little hand warmer, too. For this, I'm only looking at my top tier manufacturers. I'd like to have gone with PC Power & Cooling, but at $530 for their 1200W unit, I'll have to pass. (Come on, now, PC Power & Cooling.) Instead, I'm going with another of my favorites, Enermax and their Galaxy EVO EGX1250EWT 1250W 80 Plus Bronze Certified Power Supply. It has active Power Factor Correction (PFC) (as do all PSUs I recommend nowadays), it's modular, and the 80-Plus Bronze certification means the unit is at least 85% efficient at 50% loading (although we'll be loading it beyond 50% which makes it less so).
Hard Drive - I debated about going hog wild here and going with only Solid State Disks (SSDs) in a RAID 0 or 0 + 1 array, but they are still prohibitively too expensive to get "enough" storage space. Instead, I'm going with a pair of 160GB drives in RAID 0 that will be good for booting the OS, putting on your favorite apps and games. Unfortunately, the size might mean jockying files and apps around, but the speeds are too amazing to ignore. The general scenerio is to put the OS, some often used apps and the current game or two being played on the SSD. All other files like video, pictures, lesser used applications and games on a standard hard disk RAID array. The case being used here is plenty big enough, so we could put in the SSD and still have room for a RAID 0 or RAID 0+1 array. I'd been a big proponent of Western Digital's Velociraptor drives, but, with one or two exceptions, they can't even run in the same races as the new SSD drives.
That said, now it's time to pick which controller type for the drive I wanted. This is something one never even thinks about for hard disk drives, but at this time, the choice of SDD controller makes a big difference .. and which controller is number changes over time. There's a long, but good article at Anantech that goes through a lot of the various issues with various controllers. Depending on which benchmark on which day, the Samsung-based-controller drives beat or lose to the Indilinx-based-controller drives that beat or lose to the Intel-based-controller drives. The Indilinx-based SSDs seem to have issues with their performance over time, and I've seen some small rumblings of data corruption on them. The generally recognized winner seems to be the 2nd generation Intel SSDs, but they are only available in sizes up to 160 GB, which I find just too small. So rather than one of these, we'll go with a pair of Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH160G2C1 (G2) in RAID 0. The fact is that compared to a standard hard drive (whether in a RAID configuration or not), any of these latest SSDs are lightning fast. PC Perspective has a nice comparison chart.
You may note that in the Miscellaneous section below, there's an adapter to allow up to two 2.5" SSD drives fit in one 3.5" drive bay. These are really made to fit in laptop drive bays, so the adpater is required for desktops. Another item to keep in mind is that once the SSD is up and running, we will want to shut off any Windows automatic defragmentation of the disks. SSDs don't defragment like a hard disk and the extra writes just serve to shorten the SSDs life.
We still need a bit more storage than just a logical 320GB drive, so I'm going with my current favorite hard disk, the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB SATA hard drives. I've added not one, not two, but four drives to be used in a 0+1 RAID array. RAID 0+1 is my preferred RAID type in that it provides the security of a mirrored RAID 1 array with the speed of a striped RAID 0 array. Having lost not one, but two disks (not at the same time, however) in my current RAID 0+1 array recently, I vouch for it. I replaced the failed disk and rebuilt the array with no data loss. That's the point. This setup then is a 2TB array made from 4TB of disk drives. It might sound wasteful, but if you crave speed, but require security, this is the ticket. We certainly have room in the case, and we're not trying to conserve money here; we're just not trying to waste it. Additionally, a smart person might set up automatic backup of the key files on the SSD RAID 0 array to the traditional hard drive RAID 0+1 array. (Hint, hint.)
DVD-RW - While DVD-RW drives are a commodity, Plextor quality is still the best. For this component, I've selected the Plextor 24X DVD/CD Writer Black SATA Model PX-880SA with LightScribe support & 2MB Cache, SATA interface, OEM version. In order to burn CDs/DVDs, we still need software. If you happen to have a copy of Nero or Roxio CD Creater, feel free to go with that. However, in looking at the reviews for both Roxio and Nero, neither one is given all that good of marks from their owners. I use Nero 9, now, with no problems myself. Before that, I used Roxio CD creator until some point where it just seemed to not be a reliable program, so I switched. Nero has had its ups and downs, too, but the lastest version 9 release is working well for me. This might be the time to try the free ImgBurn burning software, which its proponents seem almost rabid about. Others include the free Burning Studio 6.76 from Ashampoo (which also sells a commercial version), CDBurnerXP and InfraRecorder (which is open source).
Operating System - For this, we go with the venerable Vista Home Premium 64-bit version. This particular version is for system builders, which means you get to do your own product support. I'm not sure how that's any different than the retail version when it comes right down to it. I always end up tracking down my software issues myself. There's just so much info available on the web I've never found the need to use the Microsoft telephone support system. This particular version is $10 more than usual because it includes an upgrade coupon to Windows 7.
Miscellaneous - There are a few miscellaneous items with this build. First is the extra case fan for the side fan mount, a tube of Arctic Silver 5 to be used as the thermal compound between the Intel i7 920 and the Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler, and finally an SSD 2.5" to 3.5" drive adapter.
There are no explicit cost limits here, which makes designing this build a lot of fun. That said, wasting money is stupid, so I've tried to be somewhat outrageous without being frivolous. This machine should be lightning fast at booting, playing games, sorting out your life, curing cancer, or any task you put it to. If you have a Newegg account, you should be able to see this saved wish list with these components. If you build this system (or one based off of it), I love to hear from you with any tips, problems, praises or jeers you have by emailing me