Im going to be upgrading to a new intel i7 system, but wanted also phenom x4 as a possible recommendations so I can weigh the pros and cons. so please provide links if u can, benchmarks as well so I can make a educated decision on my new system. money is no object I plan on spending at least $3k for a custom built system.

I need recommendations on the latest i7 (current, or maybe wait til sept/oct release in which I will be purchasing) and a good top of the line phenom x4.

also a top end HD (thinking of getting a SSD but is it realy worth it right now? or should i just raid a couple of 300 GB velociraptors?)

im hoping for Quad SLI, is the 295 GTX SLI worth it? such as 2x 295 GTX SLi

a good mobo (overclockable, anti-emi, voltage dip switches)

good water cooling system (gonna finally throw my head first into it for some true overclocking prowess :)\

so thats basically it. throw me some recommendations as well as a good PSU( good amps, good Power wattage), and a good case.

thanx :)

DIscuss! :) and of courze I appreciate the help as I am a bit lost in what I should buy and what i shouldnt waste my money on.

games I plan on playing is FSX ( love this simulation) crysis, and any game similar in complexity. i also play AGE of Conan(not as of now as I am unsubbbed for time being work schedule sucks )
 

While I don't have time currently to be looking up information for the hardware you're trying to use I do have some first-hand knowledge about water vs air cooling to give you.

I have experience with both and can honestly say that water cooling does not do any better of a job than a good air cooling system with some great fans.

Like this heatsink for example.  I use this on my own computer and get better numbers then I did with my old water cooling system which was top of the line when I purchased it.

If you really want to do better than air cooling you will need to go with a phase changer like this one.  But one that fits your MB, of course.

Well to start off i'll say im not personally all that big into liquid cooling myself, with the case i chose you should be fine and with the components there is really no need to o/c it for some time. I'm extremely tired right now but bored and at work... Unsure if you want to add mouse, keyboard, speakers, and monitor in but those are mainly a personal preferance. As far as SSD goes i see you have pretty deep pockets and could get one but i didnt incude one. Now the video cards there will be a huge performance drop once you add the third and fourth cards with the lack of technology as of now but there is room for expansion.

AMD Phenom II X4 955: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx      Excellent CPU

MSI 790FX-GD70 : www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx    Chose for the easy overclocking wheel and x4 pcie slots

Antec Twelve Hundred : www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   Personally own one and keeps nice and cool

EVGA GeForce GTX 295 Superclocked X2 SLI: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx  Power hungry dual GPUs

WD VelociRaptor X2: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   as opposed to a SSD if you perfer

CORSAIR DOMINATOR (3 x 2GB) DDR3 2000: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   Only brand i trust

Thermaltake 140mm CPU Cooler: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx    Huge massive ice box

BFG Tech EX-1200: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   Only thing with enough power to the rails i could find

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   I use integrated but this is nice

LG  BD-ROM Blu-ray Burner: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx    Assuming you want blu-ray

LG DVD Burner with LightScribe: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   

Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx   Free windows 7!

I think that about sums it up though... Still a few hours left of work im sure i may need to make some corrections i overlooked tomorrow if i ever wake up haha. Or better yet i can wake up and see everyones corrections already!

Dual GTX 295's actually turn in worse results than 3x 285's in most games, and it comes out to about the same price but you have to make sure to get a good 3x SLI mobo (16x 8x 8x such as Gigabyte GA-EX58 or ASUS P6T Deluxe)
 
Some useful information in this review: http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gf-gtx295-sli.html If you pick up a 120hz display you can use nvidia's 3d glasses, which supposedly are starting to work well in new games and if you are dropping $3k I'd suggest checking that out :)
 

Once you SLI that much GPU power you definitely need an i7 to run it. The Phenom II is great at gaming in normal systems and I usually recommend it but falls behind trying to keep up with that much GPU power.
 
 
As for PSU, a 3x GTX 285 system will draw 800W so you will want a 1200W PSU to keep it at an efficient load, a 1000W PSU would suffice as well - and pick a good brand (Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, SevenTeam, Silverstone, XClio, Antec..)
 

Also if you are willing to wait till sept/oct like you mentioned, ATI's DX11 gpu should be hitting the shelves.

My suggested build:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202 i7 920 (OC to 3.66ghz, disable hyperthreading) $280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362 Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Mobo (good OC'er) $280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189021 XClio Diamondpower 1080W PSU (85A on single 12v rail) $240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130486 3x EVGA GeForce GTX 285 2GB (3x$410 for stock clock) $1230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227408 OCZ DDR3 1600 7-7-7-24 6GB Ram $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167005 Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD $230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284 WD Caviar Black 1TB HD $95

RAID doesn't really help load speeds. An SSD will tear it apart in real world application. What RAID is good at is artificial benchmarks and moving large sequential data/server apps but gamers actually see almost no benefit and often a penalty due to RAID overhead.

I have an i7 920 and i love it.

It is easy overclocked :) . is pretty fast for my taste :)

thanx guys i appreciate the assist. i will probably update, later on once i purchase it :P. i heard some good things about the i7 975 but the amd 3.2ghz 955 phenom looks like a beast, and is dirt cheap lol. so i got a good month or 2 before i can buy this. i may very well dismiss the SSD's as its not really cost effective and go with the velociraptors. ill update.

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Originally posted by nakuma
thanx guys i appreciate the assist. i will probably update, later on once i purchase it :P. i heard some good things about the i7 975 but the amd 3.2ghz 955 phenom looks like a beast, and is dirt cheap lol. so i got a good month or 2 before i can buy this. i may very well dismiss the SSD's as its not really cost effective and go with the velociraptors. ill update.

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Well, it's $230 for a 300gb velociraptor, 2 to put in raid = $460. SSD is $230, plus a 1TB storage drive for $95 is $325. The SSD route gets you a faster drive and more total space for a lot cheaper, and if you really do want to spend $460 on storage you can get a larger and faster SSD on top of that..

The i7 975 is $1000. Absolutely no reason to buy that, and a 920 can OC pretty well. The 955 Phenom is good but once you hit SLI speeds the CPU becomes the bottleneck so you really need to top it out or your $1200 SLI investment is for nothin.

Sli and tri sli is the biggest freaking marketing BS campaign since smoking,it's total BS unless your doing like medical grade analysis and need 2560 resolution or doing auto cad .I have been PC gaming for 20+ years NOONE in their right mind uses 2560 yet for the simple reason that the textures arnt available and the GPU's don't process it properly 1680 is the new 1024 and will be for the next 5 years minimum,so save your money.

Anyone that  plays PC's knows that its BS,is it really worth 1400 dollars to play crysis 14 fps better then the next person,imo that just validates these companys that are expanding development timelines which have been increasing,NOT DECREASING.

Originally posted by noquarter

My suggested build:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202 i7 920 (OC to 3.66ghz, disable hyperthreading) $280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362 Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Mobo (good OC'er) $280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189021 XClio Diamondpower 1080W PSU (85A on single 12v rail) $240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130486 3x EVGA GeForce GTX 285 2GB (3x$410 for stock clock) $1230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227408 OCZ DDR3 1600 7-7-7-24 6GB Ram $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167005 Intel X25-M G1 80GB SSD $230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284 WD Caviar Black 1TB HD $95

RAID doesn't really help load speeds. An SSD will tear it apart in real world application. What RAID is good at is artificial benchmarks and moving large sequential data/server apps but gamers actually see almost no benefit and often a penalty due to RAID overhead.

Interesting read you found there. I knew it wasnt a huge increase but basically no increase... thats insane. I was also thinking about buying a ssd hd in another month or two assuming the price drops into marginal for a 250gb. 

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Originally posted by Gweed0

Interesting read you found there. I knew it wasnt a huge increase but basically no increase... thats insane. I was also thinking about buying a ssd hd in another month or two assuming the price drops into marginal for a 250gb. 

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Yea, I actually used onboard RAID forever before I read this and tested it myself and was pretty disappointed.. it took me 44 seconds to load LotRO off the RAID and 41 seconds off my single drive. :(

Admittedly onboard and cheap addin RAID controllers suck but the review leads me to believe even with a $80 controller I would only remove the penalty I had from my onboard rather than get a boost.. On the other hand I have seen SSD drives in action and they are quick as hell.

yeah im definitely gearing towards full SSD storage, with a back up high capacity storage tradtional HD 1TB for photoshop textures, 3d scenes, and other design files I have. ive researched SSD's although they are bit expensive still the speed u get fromthe blow away traditional platter drives.

If you are going to be working in 3D I highly recommend using an ATI solution mainly because of how the Processing Unit is designed. You will have staggeringly higher performance in viewport with a consumer ATI card then a nVidia card in most modern CAD programs.

There is no need for a Crossfire or SLI setup. 1 highend graphics card is good enough to tackle any game today. If a game comes out tommorrow that is taxing, a multi-gpu setup from today probably won't be strong enough to support it. Support in other computer programs is severely limited. It would be a waste of money and energy to use a multi-gpu setup.