question on pricing rigs.

[ShiverMePenguins]

anywho, i'm looking to building a watercooled pc near the end of the year, and i was wanting to ask about how much does the LTT community think it would set me back. i of course want to build this myself, i'm not looking towards one of the custom builders to do it. i went on cyberpower to check how much they would charge, and a watercooled rig with 2 680's in sli (with watercooling blocks of course) will cost around 3500 to have them build it. is this around what i should expect or do they still charge an extreme premium? because i'm not wanting to spend more than say, around 2500$ u.s. and i'm also most likely going to go for 7970's xfire'd because of their compute power (i'm going to school for computer science and emphasising in game design)

anyway, the wall of text is over, and i'm wondering about what it would cost me for a watercooled rig. i haven't worked with watercooling at all before, so i don't know how much more money to expect to spend.

needs/wants in regards to specs:

i7 3770k for streaming and working in udk and unity

7970's xfire for compute and gaming performance

16 gigs of ram

1tb drive with intel srt

quiet yet efficient case.

thanks for reading this enormous and boring wall of text ^^

[Guest]

You can get a decent gaming PC for what, $1600? Add another $100 for an upgraded case, $200 on rads, $200 on waterblocks, $100 on pump and res, $100 on fittings and tubing.

All up you could do a decent setup for about $2300ish excluding peripherals.

Want me to draw you up a list?

[Helltech]

I'd say roughly 2 grand USD for a completely new watercooled rig from the ground up that is decent at 1080p performance in games.

[ShiverMePenguins]

You can get a decent gaming PC for what' date=' $1600? Add another $100 for an upgraded case, $200 on rads, $200 on waterblocks, $100 on pump and res, $100 on fittings and tubing. All up you could do a decent setup for about $2300ish excluding peripherals. Want me to draw you up a list? [/quote']

if you could that would be great.

is there much tangible difference in things like udk and unity for running an x79 cpu? if there is could you list getting quad channel and x79 boards?

i have all the peripherals i want so that won't be a cost factor.

one thing though, i would like an essence stx card, because i listen to music 24/7 on my pc, and don't have a dac anymore to run through.

[ShiverMePenguins]

I'd say roughly 2 grand USD for a completely new watercooled rig from the ground up that is decent at 1080p performance in games.

for my gaming monitor i use the asus 144hz monitor. so whatever grabs me higher framerates is nice. i care more about input lag than quality, because i can just run spyder on my monitor to make it better.

for workstation related stuff i run with a 2560 1440 panel, can't remember the model name.

[Guest]

You can get a decent gaming PC for what' date=' $1600? Add another $100 for an upgraded case, $200 on rads, $200 on waterblocks, $100 on pump and res, $100 on fittings and tubing. All up you could do a decent setup for about $2300ish excluding peripherals. Want me to draw you up a list? [/quote'] if you could that would be great. is there much tangible difference in things like udk and unity for running an x79 cpu? if there is could you list getting quad channel and x79 boards? i have all the peripherals i want so that won't be a cost factor. one thing though, i would like an essence stx card, because i listen to music 24/7 on my pc, and don't have a dac anymore to run through.

I personally don't know the exact difference as I haven't messed around with UDK however I'd imagine there would be a decent increase however is the price worth it?

Have you got any ideas what case you would like to go with?

[ShiverMePenguins]

You can get a decent gaming PC for what' date=' $1600? Add another $100 for an upgraded case, $200 on rads, $200 on waterblocks, $100 on pump and res, $100 on fittings and tubing. All up you could do a decent setup for about $2300ish excluding peripherals. Want me to draw you up a list? [/quote'] if you could that would be great. is there much tangible difference in things like udk and unity for running an x79 cpu? if there is could you list getting quad channel and x79 boards? i have all the peripherals i want so that won't be a cost factor. one thing though, i would like an essence stx card, because i listen to music 24/7 on my pc, and don't have a dac anymore to run through.

I personally don't know the exact difference as I haven't messed around with UDK however I'd imagine there would be a decent increase however is the price worth it? Have you got any ideas what case you would like to go with?

i usually go for cases that are sleek and classy, like the r4 and such. i'd preffer great cable management and good airflow, apart from that i don't have any real preferences.

edit: and as for the price increase, it depends on how quicker and smoothly it lets me work. i wouldn't mind a few hundred dollar hikes, but only as long as there is a tangible difference. i feel like i'd get more difference from ssd's in raid than anything else.

edit2: i meant in regards to "felt speed". i know at least the saving and loading programs will feel faster but my only gripe is when dealing with large environments in udk. system starts to feel clunky.

right now i have:

fx-6300 oc'd to 4.4

7970 oc'd to 1100/1500

8 gigs corsair vengeance blacks at 1866

[ShiverMePenguins]

Actually, i've been talking with my friend, and we both thought it would be cool if i could have a watercooled rig inside a BitFenix Prodigy http://goo.gl/WKwg1. its a mini-itx case and has support for a 240 mm radiator on the top, and also i believe can house another 240mm radiator in the front.

and with the 7990 just announced, i'd like to go with that as my gpu. could this be done or would there be too much size constraint?

assuming the 7990 is 1000$ u.s. on release, i just built all that i know i would need for 2400$ u.s., is that reasonable for what i'm proposing now?