New mining/gaming build - soliciting advice/criticism

[Landstander]

I just pulled the trigger on a new rig, parts listing via newegg: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=18407306

Cooler Master HAF 932 case
G.Skill ripjaws 16gb (4x4) DDR3 1866 memory
ASRock A75 Extreme6 motherboard
AMD A8-3850 llano apu (has radeon 6550D gpu)
3x xfx 6950 gpus (I believe it's reference, so can unlock shaders to 6970)
OCZ Agility 3 120gb ssd
Antic High Current Pro 1200w

I know the memory and ssd are overkill for mining, but I plan to use this for gaming as well. Later I'm going to build a dedicated miner. I'm thinking about leaving the cards separate when mining and switching them to Crossfire when gaming, but not sure how realistic that is. Anyone know if there's a way to do this via software and if not, just how troublesome it would be to do manually each time?

The one thing I'm worried about is the heat. Does anyone else have this case with this many cards in it who wouldn't mind sharing their experiences? I'm going to see how it goes for a week or so, then I may switch to liquid cooling (again, overkill for mining, I know).

My order will probably be processed sometime tomorrow, so I have until then to make any changes.

Thanks for your indulgence!

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[deslok]

1. don't count on unlocking those shaders they started cutting them via laser at one point in addition to that card having the wrong memory amount for unlocking.
2. for playing games you should have skipped llano if you were going with 2 or more dedicated gpu's you're not going to take advantage of it's igpu in their hybrid crossfire and are going to run into situations where that cpu is your limiting factor a core i3 2100 bests it in all but the best threaded applications and although more expensive a core i5 2300 bests it in all non gpu categories(which don't matter since you're not using the igpu) The other choice would have been to invest in a hexcore phenom once again you're not using the igpu in your setup so it's a waste of silicon

[Landstander]

Oh man, thanks for the heads up about the unlocking capabilities, or lack thereof! I could have sworn I read in the newegg reviews that folks had unlocked the shaders, but now I'm thinking I may have been looking at a different model as I don't see those reviews anymore... Are there any unlockable 6950s left on the market? If not, I may switch to a different card...back to the drawing board I guess. What are other people finding optimal for mining and gaming?

As for the apu, I kind of just like the novelty of it, as dumb as that sounds I'm hoping to get a decent enough overclock out of the CPU to minimize the bottleneck. And the igpu I was going to toy around with 4xcrossfire with the other 6950s and if that didn't work just use it for mining.

Thanks!

[deslok]

there aren't any i know of, personally i'd buy a pair of 5970 if the 1k pricetag dosen't frigten you, you're not going to be able to use that igpu for 4x crossfire btw and mining on it is going to cripple the cpu by cutting down on it's memory bandwith and limiting your thermal headroom if you let the igpu mine 24x7 otherwise you're going to have to reboot and make bios changes every time you want to switch from gaming to mining.

[Landstander]

Thank you very much for all the advice. I just cancelled the order. I'm going to spend tonight researching and do a new order tomorrow. Think I'll keep everything but the mb/cpu/gpus. This is going to be a long night.

[Landstander]

Couldn't have asked for better timing. Just got 2 5970s from Newegg and am probably going to go with Phenom II X4 955.

Thanks again for the help, I'll send you a tip with the first coins I mine (the only btcs i currently have are already committed to another project) 

[Landstander]

Finally:

ASRock 970 Extreme4
Phenom II X4 955 Black
2x HD5970s

All else the same.

Rock.