Well after lots and lots of thought and research. I broke down and let Digital Storm build my newest system. Price was hard to beat a few things are indulgences I could of done away with. The wife had been itching pretty bad for me to hand down my latest system. So she pretty much didn't stop proding me until I ordered this new one. I finaly went with a case they had to custom order the Lian Li x900 for alot of reasons I just love this case. All the intake areas have filters that can be pulled out and cleaned which is great if you live in a dusty area like I do. The case is also not your typical setup with this one you have an area for hdd/ssd bays on top instead of in the front. Which you should notice in the pictures I will add that the case is not nearly as long as a typical case. I also had the lighting changed up a bit stock the case comes with blue led fans. I also got it with liquid cooling on the cpu as they specialize in doing some pretty nice Oc's at DS. Anyways on to the specs and pics.. hope everyone enjoys because I sure am its a beast. Asus Sabertooth MB I7 950 stock 3.07 oc'd to 4ghz 6gigs of Corsair domi 1600 EVGA GTX 580 40 Gig SSD as the boot/current game drive 1TB WD 64meg Drive as the Data drive
so, how much did that rig set you back? I'll be looking to build a new one either when I get my taxes next year or over the summer. Got the case, and a decent XFS mobo that can handle most 775's. Think I'll just get a new proc (maybe mobo combo), sound card, vid card, and power supply.
The entire setup cost me right at $2900 bucks. The case and video card were 2 of the biggest cost though. The case is something I plan to keep and just update the system as needed. Same thing I'm now doing with my other system that the wife took over also a Lian Li case. I'm kind of glad I got the GTX 580 right as it came out the price shot up a good bit a week after there release due to supply issues. As for the water cooling thats something DS puts together themselves its hard to see but the resevoir is in the top center behind the optical drives. The price on it though was roughly $250 bucks I could of easily gone with a Noctua14 and had it aircooled and saved $125 bucks. So this was more of a splurge for the visuals and to help keep the cpu cooler with the OC. For the price its worth it though for me the time they spend testing the system and burning in parts is peace of mind that I'm not going to have to RMA a bunch of parts from new egg. All in all it was a good experience the system arrived packed between 2 cushions of air basicly with that expandable foam inside the chasis. They also sent every unused part from MB,Case,Video card fan etc anything extra basicly they didn't just keep it. I priced out the exact same build on New Egg a few times and came within about 300 bucks of there cost. I went back and forth and finaly did it knowing I'd always have it in the back of my mind that I let a few hundred bucks keep me from doing something I realy wanted to.
Yeah, that's a good place for the reservoir to be. How you likin' the 580? I'm waiting for a 570 or equivalent.
Its a beast super quiet actualy quieter and cooler then my GTX 260 was running. The diffrence in graphics is more noticeable then I expected. Games I was running at 30-50 fps on max settings are now running at 160-200fps with max aa and all the candy turned up. I did a 3dmark vantage just for shits and it came right in at 30k without any over clocking on the gpu. Not sure if they have a 570 planned honestly haven't read up anything beyond the 580 in the last few weeks while I waited on the system to arrive.
Looks gorgeous, is that case 48 inches? It looks huge, but even with the range required, the CM on it is exquisite.
Most, if not all, of the Lian Li cases are ridiculously big, and for good reason in this case I suppose. Don't know the dimensions though.
The pictures are deceptive of its actual deminsions Height is 23.54" Length is 15.28". With most cases normaly being around 19 inches deep so its a bit more compact in that area. As you can see by the HDD and Fan placement in the front. Typicaly that area would have the optical/hdd running down the entire front. The Width 9.06" has just enough room for the cooling loops to fit neatly inside. I'd assume just about any aftermarket aircooler would fit aswell.