Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello, my name is Olivier and ive been lurking these forums for a long time.

Where it all started
I just had a pretty bad snowboard accident last week. I fell during a high speed off track escapade and a broken tree impaled my left leg, about 4 inches deep. It barely missed my vital veins... I could have died alone in the woods running out of blood. Unfortunatly I wont be able to continue my brazilian jui jutsu classes for a long time or any kind of sport for atleast 2 months. Also note that i am currently under the effect of insanly powerfull painkiller and english is not my main language so i try my best to be clear.

SO, now i cannot work for the next 3 weeks and im stuck in my bed, so i want to use this time to build myself the dream gaming machine and i would appreciate your help.

My monitors
I currently have a dell 2407wfp IPS monitor which i love, so i decided to buy a used 2407wfp-hc and a 2408wfp (this one supports displayport) on a local selling website. I will be running 1920x1200 resolution on each screens for a total of 5760x1200.

The big dilemma i have is to decide what video cards i will be using. I assume i will have to go SLI or Crossfire for this kind of horspower needed to push this resolution. I mostly play Call of duty Black Ops, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam and a online driving simulator named iRacing.

My questions
I dont see myself running portrait mode but i may try. The main use will be landscape.Price is not that much of a problem but i feel really bad of spending 1000$ on a 580GTX Sli setup to still be bottlenecked by a 1.5gb Vram architecture. I am currently trying to read as much reviews as possible but most of them does not show triple monitor performance. I have see ALOT of thread talking about flickering problems and driver problems on ATI side, i am really hesitant going that way. Although, i have a native displayport monitor (2408wfp) so i may not encounter those problems since i will not need any adapters). The problem is that ati seem to have the best hardware suited for the task (6970 2gb edition). I would like to have your toughts on that.

My pc parts
I will purchase the rest of the hardware soon, here is a list of what i was looking at:

CASE: Corsair 600T (for 130$, really hard to beat and for strange reasons I love the look)
PSU: Probably Corsair 1000w, need more readings
CPU: Probably an i5 2500k that i will try to have a nice overclock, aiming at 4ghz)
MOBO: Not sure yet, i need stable mobo with not problems
RAM: Depends on mobo
CPU HEATSINK: I am aiming towards corsair H50 (only 50$). It may not be the best, but the h70 looks way too big for the case and i want to try watercooling. Im open to suggestions..
HDDs: 1 120gb SSD + 1tb hdd. Need to read reviews. Looking at the OCZ vertex.
SOUNDCARD: Dont know yet, something that could power a pair of nice headphones.

Triple monitor stand
This is really important, i need a monitor stand that has feets so that i can move around the setup on my desk. The reason for it is that when i will play games, i will sit in front of my desk with my chair, but when i play iracing, i have my own custom-built racing cocpit, and this cocpit does not slide under my desk, so i have to put the monitors as close as possible on the edge of the desk to be the closest possible to my face. The height needs to be ajustable too, because my cocpit is really low on the ground. (I will probably create a thread just for this in the future)

Thank you very much for your help guys.

I'd go with a 6970 2GB honestly. You also shouldn't have any flickering issues with a DP monitor.

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System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

Well its kind of too late, i purchased the whole setup before the thread had time to be approved. Here is the receipt. I went for dual 6950s that are gonna be flashed to 6970s.

Due out soon, next week I hope, is Palit's GTX 580 with 3gb.

Price is unknown at the moment.

Another option, anyways.

The ATI driver issues and stutter/flickering is keeping me away from ATI, as well. It almost seems to be a hit or miss situation. With that, I'll opt for the 100% chance of not dealing with it and going with Nvidia.

Uldred

Well good show, that works too.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

3GB 580s look to be £480 or ~$650. Somewhere around there.

I still havent received my PC yet but after doing some readings on this forum i start to have doubts in my monitors selection.

I have:
dell 2407fpw (purchased in 2006 for 900$ CAD)
dell 2407fpw-hc (purchased used for 250$ CAD)
dell 2408wfp (purchased used for 280$ CAD)

Some users said that the EID (whatever it stands for) for the monitors may not be matching the screen sizes (even if the specs on the dell website says it does). So it may prevent me from running with bezel compensation. Does anyone know if these monitors will cause problem?