New Gaming/Mining Rig - Thoughts Please

[the joint]

Hola.

So, I finally decided to make the leap to improve my hardware.  I wanted to get some general opinions from the community regarding my new computer purchase because, in all truthfulness, I spent quite a bit of money (used a combination of new and old parts) and I could use a little reassurance that I made a decent decision.

Keep in mind that I realize this is by no means an efficient mining rig for the cost.  In this sense it's downright inefficient.  I wanted a full-blown kick-ass computer that will serve my gaming and music production needs as well as mining needs.  My main idea was to essentially slowly buy Bitcoins (by mining them) using my hardware as a hedge.  I wanted a computer that would maintain good resale value for a few years.  In other words, if the value of Bitcoins dropped to zero tomorrow, I want to know that my hardware is still a valuable asset.  I have a 4-year in-store warranty on all parts.

The specs:
Intel I7-2600k  3.4 GHz Socket H2
Corsair 16GB (4X4GB) DDR3-1866 MHZ  Ram
3 X Radeon HD 6970  Crossfired
Samsung SH-222AB-RSBS 22X Internal DVD SATA Drive
1 TB HDD
Windows 7 64-bit
Cooler Master RC-942-KKN1 Full Tower Case
Thermaltake TRX-1200M PSU
ASUS Maxiumus IV Extreme B3 RoG Edition Motherboard

Building this computer allowed me to utilize some spare parts I had to build another desktop with a single 5870 which will also be used for mining and Bitcoin storage with minimal Internet usage outside of having to connect to the Bitcoin client and to mine.

Electricity is included in my rent. 

Thoughts?  Be honest if it sucks, but be nice if you say it sucks   Adrenaline gets pumping when I drop a load of cash that I can't afford without a good chance of recouping my immediate losses.

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[rjk]

Looks good. You mentioned music production - for that I would highly recommend re-vamping your storage subsystem. You might want to consider an SSD or 2 as an OS/scratch disk, and a set of HDDs with some kind of RAID. My rig has four 2 TB WD RE4's in RAID 10 for mass storage, and an SSD for OS/scratch space.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Honestly it will be very very very (likely frustratingly impossible) to keep 3 graphics cards cool in a gaming case while mining 24/7.

If it were me and this will be a do it all workstation I would go for a pair of 7970s instead.   Better/easier gaming performance, simpler design, and a lot easier to keep cool.

If you want crazy balls to the walls this likely doesn't make sense performance in a workstation you could do what I did ... 4x watercooled 5970s (8 GPU).

[the joint]

Honestly it will be very very very (likely frustratingly impossible) to keep 3 graphics cards cool in a gaming case while mining 24/7.

If it were me and this will be a do it all workstation I would go for a pair of 7970s instead.   Better/easier gaming performance, simpler design, and a lot easier to keep cool.

If you want crazy balls to the walls this likely doesn't make sense performance in a workstation you could do what I did ... 4x watercooled 5970s (8 GPU).

The reason I chose 3 crossfired 6970's was because I already owned one 6970  and it happens to be a triple slot ASUS.  It doesn't fit in my midtower-case and I can't fit both it and a wireless card on my spare motherboard.  This allowed me to transfer my 6970 into the 3X crossfire setup and still be able to use my existing shitty MSI motherboard to run my spare 5870.  

Trust me, I considered the 7970s.  But 2 6970's at $700 total beats the $1100 minimum I would've paid for the 7970's.  I chose the option that I felt best utilized all my parts and would allow me to retain the highest hashing power.  3X 6970 plus 1X 5870 to me was preferrable than 2X7970 and 1X 5870 with a spare 6970.  Even if I sold the 6970, I'd still be $200-$300 short of where I'm at now cause the 7970's are so damn expensive.

Edit:  I also plan on keeping the side of the case off and blowing a fan directly on it at all times.  I'm in the basement of a house in the Midwest and it's a nice and cool 60 degrees down here.

[the joint]

Looks good. You mentioned music production - for that I would highly recommend re-vamping your storage subsystem. You might want to consider an SSD or 2 as an OS/scratch disk, and a set of HDDs with some kind of RAID. My rig has four 2 TB WD RE4's in RAID 10 for mass storage, and an SSD for OS/scratch space.

Duly noted.  Unfortunately HDDs are outrageously expensive these days.  I plan on using the 1 TB HDD in my spare desktop as additional data storage if space starts getting tight.  I have a SATA-USB data transfer cable to do the job.