By We harness the power of six to build an impressive gaming desktop with killer multi-monitor capabilities.
Intel recently introduced its Core i7-970 CPU, a six-core chip that lacks an unlocked multiplier, is slower, and a bit less expensive than the groundbreaking Core i7-980X Extreme Edition. The Core i7-970 has made it possible to construct a top-of-the-line performance PC without going completely crazy in the process. That got us thinking: How many other “sixes” could we pack into a build and still maintain our sanity and some semblance of fiscal discipline? It turned out to be a little easier than we thought—and thus our “Big 6” gaming machine was born.
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We started with the most obvious choice, given the processor we were determined to use: RAM. We went with 6GB of DDR3 from Crucial, in the form of two 3GB Ballistix sticks ($185.99)—ideal for getting the performance boost from Intel’s triple-channel memory technology. Then we looked at storage, and chose three 7,200-rpm 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drives for $179 each. Yes, WD just announced its first 3TB hard drives, but this saves us a few bucks and retains the speed that using those drives would sap.
Our favorite part of the build—and, truth be told, one of the reasons we wanted to explore this theme of sixes—is the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition video card ($479). It’s AMD’s highest-level single GPU card, with 2GB of video memory that makes it powerful enough in its own right. But it comes with six mini DisplayPort connectors, which gives us the opportunity to hook up an entire wall of monitors if we want to.
You could pick any motherboard with an LGA1366 socket to unit all these components, but we went with the Asus Rampage III Formula ($219). It has plenty of things we like: advanced overclocking features, excellent integrated audio, six RAM slots, eight SATA ports (two of which run 6Gbps SATA), and power and reset switches on the board itself. We decided to install all these pieces in a Thermaltake Armor A60 ($89.99) case, which has—you guessed it—six drive bays covered by a hinge door, and hot-swapping capabilities.
The power supply is a basic Thermaltake Toughpower XT ($104.99 after rebate), a modular PSU (which always helps with cable management) that’s strong enough to deal with these components today, and give us the freedom to add more in the future. We also decided to employ a Thermaltake SpinQ cooler ($51.99), which we’ll definitely want if we ever get into overclocking. As for the operating system, we briefly considered installing Ubuntu Satanic Edition 666.6 (“Jesus’ Jugular”), but we thought it best not to tempt fate. So we just stuck with the latest 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium ($99.99). After all, seven isn’t that far removed from six.
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