My box finally imploded last night after 4 years of serving me well, but the parts for it were selected and assembled with the help of a friend that I no longer have access to.

I use my comp for FT and PS, with HEM+hud. I also play a fair amount of games on a daily basis, mostly HoN, SC2 and WoW. I have two 24" monitors, and would like to have a graphics card setup that will allow maximal use of both, such as a dvd running full screen on one with a game full screened on another or dual-boxing wow accounts.

HD size is probably the only thing i already know about, 300gb should be plenty for my needs. I have no idea about motherboards, processors, memory, power supplies, or cases: neither what i need nor what parts are compatible with each other.

It would be a great help to get advise re: these issues from people with experience in building machines from parts. Im also curious about which components have domain over the performance of 1) pt3/hem compiling data quickly and 2) multiple graphics-intensive programs operating on two monitors simultaneously.

Build me a box!

There are about 3-5 threads a week that are almost identical to this. Please look through them to get an idea of what you think you need, and we can provide feedback. Almost everyone lists their requirements in their threads so you can get a good idea for what will work best.

We can make sure you don't make any mistakes.

Are you going to assemble yourself?

pt3/HEM is dependent on processor speed partially, but harddrive speed more importantly. many people choose Solid state drive (SSD) for their databases

Video card gives you graphics power

So I looked around a little and found/read the Nsight7 PSA thread. I have a better-if general-idea of what specs I want for the components, but still feel unable to pair it all up.

Definitely need a quad core processor. Was looking at the Intel Core 2 2.83Ghz, but I could spring for an i7 of some sort, I'm just not sure if my needs require it (stars+HEM, SC3/HoN+DVD, etc).

The motherboard is gonna need space for 2 graphics cards and both a HDD and SSD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125280
I plan on starting this rig out with a couple of these GTX 285s.

Somehow I think my HD space requirements are well below average. I need room for the three big games (SC2 is only 12GB, WoW 15GB, and HoN<10 for sure) and my HEM databases (which are not all that big at the moment), but all my media and stuff that I don't really need on a daily basis is stored on an external HD. I was thinking of starting with a just a 120GB SSD and buying a conventional HDD down the road if I find I need more space. Is this even a viable strat?

1x4GB RAM to allow for expansion to 8 if needed also seems the right road to take, as the PSA makes it sound like I'd want to at least clear this threshhold.

Since there is a real positive chance that I might upgrade both the number of graphics cards as well as adding a HDD, I see the point when the PSA says splurge on the power supply. I don't know what I need, but I'm willing to err on the side of more power.

As far as cases, the computer I've been using for the last four years I was more than happy with as far as gaming performance until HoN came out earlier this year, and the processor wasn't overclocked, so I'm not really sure I will be attempting to do so for this one. Thus, I'm not sure if I should get a gaming case or not. I can say that I keep my box on the carpeted floor flush against an ikea desk that has a solid 2D 'board' (for lack of better words) instead of conventional legs. This I'm sure contributes to heat retention, but dual 24" monitors takes up too much real estate on my desk to put the box there, so unless doing so is just straight ignorant, the floor is where its probably going to stay. I don't really care if the case looks badass or anything, I just don't want my **** to fry in the future if it turns out I need to follow through on all the upgrades.

I understand that its pretty weak for people with a lot of knowledge to deal with people that have little to none, but I would really appreciate whatever grunt work you masters could do for me. A series of hyperlinks to suggested components that would meet these needs and all work together would be especially boner-inspiring. Thank you and/or sorry in advance.

1. You want an i7 for your tasks. You could go with an i5 of course, but not with a Core2
2. You don't need 2xGTX285 for those games. I'm not up to date about benchmarks tho.
3. 1x4GB RAM is wrong. You'll have 4 memory slots on your Motherboard and 4GB chips are expensive. And having more than 4GB can't hurt.
4. Never save money at the PSU. Don't go for watts, but for quality.

I guess this is gonna be my starting point...

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD9 LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 XL ATX Intel Motherboard
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GV-N285UD-1GH GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.505524

CPU: Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115211

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Case: Saw this CoolerMaster case w/ PSU. The Floor my box sits on is carpeted, and I'm not much of a room-cleaner, so dust has always been an issue. Does the packaged PSU cut the mustard for wattage and quality? (Told not to skimp on the PSU...)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119221

Memory: I'm in the dark as to how memory works. If I'm reading this correctly, the motherboard I'm looking at has 6 slots for memory. Do all have to be filled at the same time? Newegg seems to sell memory sticks in bundles. Can I get a 3x or 4x 2GB bundle to start and add more if I feel its needed? Can you mix and match memory sticks or are there compatibility issues there?

Hard Drives: What size SSD would be sufficient as a boot drive that also holds my HEM? For the database size, assume that I start a new one every year, never go for elite, and only keep two databases on the drive at a time, archiving the older ones to an external. After further consideration, I'm probably going to go with HDDs from the start as well for media, 1-2TB range. Is making a box with both a SSD and one or more HDDs going to require any special know-how or extra equipment?

Thanks a mill again.

You will probably get very similar performance for less money by downgrading the motherboard to a lesser GA-X58A-UD model like the GA-X58A-UD5/7 etc. Don't get the GA-X58A-UD3r at this point though as it has issues currently. Just check on the gygabyte website that the GA-X58A-UD board you choose has the features you need and get the cheapest that does. The testing sites/mags I've read suggest minute preformance difference if any between these models.

Same goes for the processor, consider the i7-930 and overclocking it to the i7-950 rate. This sounds daunting to someone doing a first build but the motherboards for i7 boards come with software that will do a gentle overclock for you by clicking a few buttons. The gygabyte boards mentioned do this and elavate an i7-930 to the i7-950 rate for free easily.

Memory - the processor and motherboard you chose and those i mentioned run triple channel memory so you can fill 3 or 6 of the slots. It recommend filling 3 with 3gb sticks for 6gb memory and only filling the other 3 if you find you require more when using your pc. many wont need more. the slots on the motherboard are colour coded and refer to your motherboard manual for which slots to fill.

Hard Drive:

Is making a box with both a SSD and one or more HDDs going to require any special know-how or extra equipment?

No - just load windows onto the SSD when you install it

+ you'll have to work out the size you need yourself from your current pc as yearly DB differ vastly in size for differnet people, windows 7 however takes 16 - 20gb which is more than xp. So basically 20GB + Games/Apps you use + DB size x2 = Size you need.

Quick way - GB size of my computer on present pc - size of my documents folder + some redundancy.

Also,

for which SSD read this

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/window...-31982-22.html

For which graphics card read this

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforc...iew-31965.html

Sorry, mistyped 3x2gb for 6gb add another 3x2gb for 12gb if thats not enough - should be fine with 6gb though