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[Zeph]

You could afford a 6990 for the price of those two 6970s. Also, you may be getting 50% more memory bandwidth with triple channel, but it's not like your processor will make up for it and give you par performance now that Sandy Bridge is around. Two 6990s barely saturate 16 PCIe lanes so it's not like you'll need that many lanes with two 6970s. The i7 950, and even the 960, would be the bottleneck.

If you're still set on TRIPPAHL CHANNAHL memory, just stick with a single 6970 and consider this a decent mid range machine to keep you going till whatever comes out to replace LGA 2011 and the Sandy Bridge Enthusiast chips due in 5 or so months. You say you've done your research and looking for concerns about the parts. Keep in mind that only the enthusiast level of hardware can make full use of the chipset (i7 990x, dual 6990s, RAID, etc.). You'd get much better performance per dollar out of Sandy Bridge.

[Warsaw]

Except the equivalent SB CPU (i7 2600K) is $315 where as this CPU is $260. I don't call $55 chump change. The only 1155 boards worth buying are those sporting Z68, and none of them have the full PCIe support. I can also get RAM at a better price/quantity ratio than with a dual-channel setup. When you say the 950 is the bottle-neck, you have to remember that this is one very high bottleneck. All the benchmarks I've read conclude that any CPU you buy, whether it's a Sempron or an Intel Extreme, is a bottleneck to the best GPUs out today.

Performance per dollar lies with Nehalem on the i7 and Sandy Bridge on the i5.

If I were building a mid-range machine, then I'd be sticking with AMD on the AM3. Performance per dollar on those Phenom II X4s and X6s is really hard to beat right now. This machine I build now is going to last me for another six years with only one intermittent RAM and/or GPU upgrade around its mid-life (expansion to 24GB and dual HD7990). Like it has with my current machine, the console market will allow me to get away with that.

I appreciate the input, so thank you. I had considered most of those points before choosing. I just really do not like the Sandy Bridge platform; it reeks of LGA1156 shenanigans. On the LGA 1366 front, the i7-990X is a money sink for little real-world advantage. I cannot afford two HD6990s right now, and as they are likely to disappear and be found only at exhorbitant prices later, I won't be able to later add a second for Crossfire. Thus, dual 6970s are optimal (I'm going to be running 2560x1600...I'm not wasting power here).

P.S. I am going to be overclocking this.

P.P.S. Also interested in hearing any thoughts on a full-on Bulldozer build. I know it's not good now, but what about the possible future using heavily threaded applications and the fact that AM3+ is still sticking around for one more generation? Benches show that FX-8150 = i7 2600K when it can be fully loaded, so there's hope.

[Zeph]

No, the equivalent SB CPU is the 2500k and it's 219 dollars. The 2600k shames the 950.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/100?vs=288

Anyways, have fun with your PCI express 2.0 mobo with PCIe3 around the corner.

And oh, you still have some research to do. There are 1155 boards out there that can give you dual 16x slots for your video cards.

Then again, you seem to be confused that you can't afford something that's less expensive than what you're trying to get. Wasn't telling you to get two of them. You're overclocking so you can easily overcome the 5-10% difference between a 6990 and 6970cf.

Not like I'm trying to lead you to the best in your price range, deals with what you put in it instead of what you could put in it, and is generally cheaper than what you've suggested considering you're at the end of a cycle and all. That would be silly.

[Warsaw]

Ok, I'll play:

I've actually had the 2600K vs. 950 CPU comparison up all day. That's not what I call shaming, especially when they aren't clocked the same. Shaming is what the i5 2500K does to the FX-8150. If you want a slightly more accurate picture, compare the 975 Extreme and the 2600K. Even then, it's still not clock-for-clock.

On the graphics front, the last time I checked $700 is not less expensive than 2 x $320. Look at the rebate; I do rebates. Benches then show two 6970s as outperforming a single 6990. I already stated why I wouldn't get an HD6990, and it's a perfectly valid set of reasons. I said I can't afford two, and the only reason to get the 6990 over two 6970s is if I plan on getting two. I can't get another one later within reason, since I don't exactly have a steady income. Oh, and then there's the fact that two 6990s is barely better than one. Not worth an extra $700.

PCE Express 3.0 is irrelevant when none of the CPUs can activate it. None of the motherboards sporting both Z68 and PCI Express 3.0 have x16/x16. There are plenty of P67 boards, but then you lose the entire advantage of getting a Sandy Bridge system. I haven't been able to find a PCIe 3.0 Z68 board that also does x16/x16. Here's the best Z68 board that supports PCIe 3.0. None of the planned Ivy Bridge chipsets (the 7 series) support x16/x16, either.

I'm coming from a single-core AMD Athlon 64 3200+. ANYTHING is a step up. I don't give a rat's ass about power consumption, noise, or boot times. I don't foresee any major graphical revolution happening within three years with the current consoles sticking around (whelp, new Xbox to be possibly revealed in 2013). Most games are also not CPU-limited when it comes to using an Intel CPU with all the settings cranked up. I've seen the performance boost of the Socket 2011, and it's not much over the i7 990X, let alone the i7 2600K. Considering that those benches are with the most powerful SKU, it makes it clear that Sandy Bridge-E will be just as underwhelming compared to Sandy Bridge as Bulldozer was to the Phenom II. X79 lacks the staying power of X58.

Bottom line: since I seem to be unable to, find me a PCI-E 3.0 board with 16x/16x on the PCI-E 3.0 lanes, and I'll bite for the 1155.

[Donut]

so yesterday i noticed when i was looking at the bios readout thing that flashes on the screen when you boot up a computer that my ram speed was DDR3 - 1333. i was like, "no. that is not right, i paid for more than that." my ram is ddr3 and rated at 1600. idk if youd call that rating but thats the speed its designed to work with. so i went into the bios and changed the ram speed from 1333 to 1600.

doesnt seem to be a problem, but is there anything else i need to do to take advantage of the full 1600 mhz, or is that fine?
E: unrelated, im pretty sure im running the newest nvidea drivers on my GTX 560Ti (285.62), and just now my screen went black for a second or two, came back on, and said the drivers recovered from a crash or something. this is the second time this has happened. is that just a new driver issue?

[=sw=warlord]

if you have mixed memory speeds for the RAM, the entire set will be clocked to the speed of the lowest denominator.

[Warsaw]

It's not a driver issue, it's a feature! Yay Nvidia!

Also, there is a good portion of RAM that is advertised at a certain speed, but runs slower by default. It's like some sort of safety net, according to reviews I've read on Newegg.

[Amit]

Well, you can just put it up to speed in the BIOS right?

[Higuy]

The insides of your guys computers look really nice.

...you should see mine

[Donut]

Well, you can just put it up to speed in the BIOS right?

yeah thats exactly what i did. just changed the ram speed from 1333 to 1600. my question was whether or not this is all i had to do. i was thinking i might also have to do something like reset the voltage or something. idfk. it works just fine now so i guess not. also it was 4 identical sticks of 2gb ram that all came in the same box, so theres no mixed speeds there.

also, i clean installed the nvidea drivers again and i havent had a problem since, so i guess we're good