I wanted to conjure up a build that performs well in all aspects of what a computer is capable of. But not to the extreme of a high-end enthusiast or hurts the wallet. I tried my best ( my first "finalized" build. ) to make sure everything fit inside the case and that I would be able to use this system for a couple of years, maybe through college. I would sincerily appreciate your feedback on any adjustments you fine fellows suggest on making the build better.
I would get a normal ATX motherboard if you want to Crossfire. The cards will be too close together because of the way that board is laid out, and they will overheat before you even get into a game. Look for a motherboard that will allow you to have a space between the cards so that they can breathe.
I second this, the only time you should ever crossfire/SLI and get two cards at the same time is when you can't buy a stronger card like 7970s, 680s stuff like that, you'll get roughly the same perfomance with one single powerful card and less power consumption, plus the ability to crossfire/SLI with ANOTHER single powerful card for dirt cheap than what you bought the first one
Well, I personally never have an issue with SLI or Crossfire with mid ranged cards as long as it's giving me the same or better performance as a single high end card for less money.
The main issue I have with the Radeon HD 6870s is that they only have 1GB of VRAM, and games are starting to use more than that. I would suggest getting at least a 2GB card for 1920x1080. I would get 3GB or 4GB for anything above that resolution.
Yeah, I can see the problem now with the heat issue being it's a Micro ATX case so I will probably take y'alls advise on just getting a single higher-end card. But I do wanna
keep the Micro ATX for factor because of space issues I have. Do you recommend any different motherboards to bring the system more together? Also I don't really care for super fancy high resolution graphics, I mean my favorite game at te moment in Crossfire ( basically a CS1.6 clone but free. ) and I play at 1024x768 i beleive. But I do plan on playing more modern games here soon. In addition to the graphics card situation I'm not going to purchase this build for a few months, get that Christmas money! So do you fellows think I should wait for the 8000 series of AMD cards to come out and try to get one of those or do you think I should stick with a 7950/70?
Sorry for the late response, I posted it sort late last night and I had school today. Thanks for the advise, Nerd.
I sincerily appreciate your advise dudes but to be honest I don't think I will ever need to crossfire that monster of a card ( monster for me and what I need out of the system ) any time soon or ever. I think as the years go bye I can just upgrade to the newest higher-end card. Also if I may ask, do you fellows think that this system ( even in the fractal arc mini ) will last me a couple of years? Because I thought that would be one of the bigger topics is if there was enough room for all the hardware in the case that I had chosen.
yep, cases last damn near forever unless you're bored with it and if there is ever a point were a 3570K can't handle anything just buy a heatsink and OC to 4.2Ghz which it should be a good CPU for at least 5-7 years, I mean I'm still using my 955BE and it came out like 5 years ago, just had to OC it, that GPU is beast, xfx is doublelifetime warrenty, oh and each new genneration of GPUs are more powerful but they also make them more power effeceint so that's why you won't need a bigger PSU it all evens out to be the same
I've ben thinking about the GPU, and how it's going to work in my case. I know I could remove the top harddrive cage but then it would look alittle silly to me. Plus I would like to have that space for future storage space. So I've been looking around at all the higher-end GPU's and find some that are under 260mm ( case limits with the HD cage in. ) And that best one is a variation of the gtx670. MSI's reference version is 9.53" according to newegg. Plus I don't think I need the top teir graphics card because I'm not really into the super high resolutions, 1080p at the most. Also I'm pretty sure I wont ever use more than 1 screen so the 2gb is plenty. But if I do decide to do so they have 4 gb versions just shy under 260mm. In addition to the resoultions, I don't mind play on settings like medium or high so... I would enjoy to here you fellows thoughts on if i should make this change or not.