As promised during last weeks episode of Wingman’s Hangar here’s the specs on Chris’ rigs!
LA Machine
Case: Thermaltake GT10
Motherboard: Asus X79 Pro
CPU: Intel i7-3960X Extreme Edition
PSU: Corsair AX1200
Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H100 Liquid CPU Cooler
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance (blue) 1600mhz
Primary OS Drive: 500 GB SSD A-DATA XPG
Video Recording Drive: 256 GB Corsiar GForce GT SSD
Cached Data Drive: 128 GB Corsair GForce GT SSD
Data Drive: 7200 WD 2TB HDD
Video Card: 2x EVGA GTX680SC GPUs in SLI
Video Capture Card: AverMedia Live Gamer HD
Primary Diplay: Asus VG278H 27inch 1080p 3D
Secondary Display: Asus PB278Q 27inch 2560×1440
Keyboard: Cyborg V7
Mouse: Cyborg Rat 7
Flight Control System: Siatek X52
Austin machine
Case: Corsair Graphite series 600T Silver
Motherboard: Asus X79 Deluxe
CPU: Intel i7-3930K
PSU: Corsair HX1050
Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H100 Liquid CPU Cooler
RAM: 16 GB Corsair Platinum Dominator 1866mHz
Primary OS Drive: 500GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD
Data Drive: 3TB WD 7200 rpm HDD
Blu-Ray Drive: LG 14x BluRay burner
Video Card: Gigabyte GTX680 Windforce x3
Primary Display: AsusVG278H 1080p
Secondary Display: AsusVE278Q 1080p
Keyboard: Logitech G710
Mouse: Cyborg Rat 5
Did we mention that Chris builds his own rigs?
And, no this is not the rig you will need to play the game.
I feel ever so slightly envious right now lol.
Nice rigs Chris!
I knew it was a badass i7!!!
The Housing of the 2nd is pretty much my taste. The Hardware, yes, nice! Would have bought the same, but didn’t had the money.
About watercooling: The Fans in my corsair(Corsair Carbide 500) and even those of CPU (scythe mugen) are that silence you almost could think you have watercooling!
I just hope those Specs will not be the minimum for playing Star Citizen!
PS: And as it seems I am not the only one who has a messed up desktop!
Hey, it’s not messed up. Just rustic. And don’t worry, as in the hiding print beneath the last picture, this is not the rig you’ll need to play.
Great rigs, it seems that he is even bigger fan of SSDs than I am:) But I will buy 1TB SSD to show him
After all I will not play only Star Citizen.
I’m getting one
It says you’ll not need to have that caliber of a rig to play the game, which is good for accessibility, but I’d like it if they included graphic options for the elite enthusiast PC builders to use. This game, when run maxed out, could be the standard to which every PC gamer’s rig could be compared.
Well, with 10,000 polygons per character, for example, the game likely will do just that; you’ll probably need a rig like one of these to get the most out of its graphics.
Now we know where some of that 7 and a half million bucks is going.
Seriously, either of these rigs would bankrupt me to build.
I think me too.. would be interesting to know whether the rigs are above 10k $ or even more…^^
And i already see the graphics settings of Star Citizen: “poor” “medium” “high” “very high” “ultra” “CHRIS ROBERTS” xD
I put the parts together on Newegg.com, substituting similar or better items when the specific item couldn’t be found. Both prices are shipped to my home and include an OEM copy of Windows 7 or 8 Pro 64-bit.
Chris’ Home Computer: $6287
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=26634007
Austin Computer: $4223
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=26634127
10k $ is waaaay of the mark mate, I built my Rig last year with the same specs as the one in LA, except i’ve water-cooled the entire thing in a dual loop system using one 360 for the 2 4GB 680′s and one 240 for the OC i7 3930K, and I spent 2,900 $ USD. I could probably have gotten it down to 2500 $ if id shopped smart like some of my friends do instead of at one supplier.
I say not a bad rig almost the same as mine,
though I went with a AMD 8 core 8120 4GHZ cpu, 12GB Patriot Extreme ram, and 2 AMD HD 6950s with 2gb ram each.
And for storage to make sure I had enough for all my Gaming and Game creation needs I went with 3 2TB Seagate Hard drives.
Great System though it tends to over heat when I re-encode Video to stream to the Xbox 360 for some reason. (almost hit 80c the other day)
(does not go above 60c for most gaming)
One of the questions that fans were asking was about his builds, or rigs, so we thought it would be fun to show you – Chris is a man of many talents.
WM
Thanks for that it was fun looking through his build.
I like how he still builds his own rigs. Chris truly is one of us!
One of us… one of us.. one of us…
What if god was one of us? Isn’t that a song?
Joan Osbourne – One Of Us
(:
i really like that song
Rab, I thought it was by Dr. Evil?
So say we all!
clerks the animated series ? (last episode)
Honestly what I loved most about the pictures is that he has a friggin’ Galaga arcade!! I’ve seen lots of gaming machines but man how I’d love to have a dedicated galaga arcade at home..
Hell yeah to this!
have you seen in the background, just above the monitors (in the same image), the tanks and other statues/ spacecraft?
I think the next thing to do is a walk around his office(s)
I’m quite dissapointed that he doesn’t list a soundcard in any of the rigs (meaning he’s ok with onboard sound) and the speakers he is using in the first set of pics are crap.
I’m now very worried that sound quality in this game is going to be an afterthought and will be just ‘good enough’.
Don’t worry Demonik
I’d believe he uses heaphones to actually play, Speakers are good if you want to show other people something ( I still have 20-Year old Speakers… Still good quality, but nothing compared to my Headset)!
I’m guessing with top of the notch quality!
I hope this is in our (and your) hands as we are the community behind this project. So: if we want brilliant sound, we get it!
And in my opinion this kind of game HAS to have great sound, especially in a surround sound environment.
I hope he installs the new SoundBlaster card sometime in the near future.
I wouldn’t worry too much about his audio setup. It’s the job of the sound design studio to ensure that the mixed down audio translates well to many many different configurations of sound systems. So audio will need to sound good regardless of what speakers or headphones or soundcards or audio interfaces are being used. But, the onus is on the sound design team (and the recording/mixing engineers and producer) to get the sound right.
Cheers, Thanks!
ps. Yay, Chris got the same mouse I do! Man knows what’s good!
;P
In Chris We Trustâ„¢
So im guessing Chris will ship the rig to me next weekend ?
Sorry, but I called it first! ;p
Rock, scissors, paper??
Spock
Lizard! I win
What a beast.
That’s a kickass rig. I don’t even want to know what he paid for this. But nice to see he builds his own rig.
Not that it’s hard or anything, assembling a PC got a lot easier compared to ten years ago.
I just built my first rig in 20 years. It is way more complicated now.
Just with all those SSDs and a SLI of GTX680 sure no less than $2000, and I’m syre I get pretty short, considering that the case is Thermaltake Levelt 10 which is above $200 the cheapest version (I cannot see which version is Chris’s rig). Is a rig I would build for myself if I could afford it, and sure everybody else
Veeery short.
Better take 4000$ and dont espect monitors or pereferie incl.
I was expecting a quad 690!
SLI is max for games.
More is benching, cause is the input lag.
Niiiiiiice. That’s one hell of a beast. I would like for the line “but can it run crysis” to become “but can it run star citizen”. make it happen!
nice very nice Chris
The CPUs are not over-clocked?
4.6 Ghz Austin
4.4 Ghz LA
Not overly overclocked for development stability reasons.
4.4 is good enough for anything anyway, so…
Okay, I am in awe. Now to price this type of machine out. Maybe in a year..or so..If The hardware prices fall a bit. This is nice. I needed some ideas. Chris please keep us updated on changes. Thank you
Fantastic. Great to see that we think much alike, as hardware goes…
Is the first Rig including in the Constellation Package ?? — lol
I like that you use Asus MB’s and Corsair PSU’s, though some may say there are better brands, that’s all I use for my clients and myself. But, what I most enjoyed was the Galaga Arcade unit in the background, I love graphics today, and the scale of sandbox games now-a-days, but classic arcade games IMO still rule easy.
Drool…
Ok, I understand this is the system Chris will use during the next four years of development? Then I am a little bit reassured, that I can afford it, when the game comes out.
Anyway they are looking wicked as hell. The white box reminds me of something from Weiland Yutani Corp from Alien Movies.
I can’t wait to upgrade my rig. In 3-4 years. I don’t have the money to make a beast like the LA Machine.
Nice setup.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Star Citizen will be designed to make full use of such systems for those of us who have them!
I’m hoping for little extras like extra persistent space debris during battles etc
)
(stuff that is only seen as persistent client side for extra time, tracked by players PC as a scalable option to what their machine can handle
At the moment the AMD 7950 is looking the best performing value for money option for Star Citizen
– going by Crysis 2 and MechWarrior online (also use CryEngine 3)
For now the game engine seems to favour AMD, but we will have to see once the Star Citizen can be benchmarked + as always, wait till last minute to buy and see what the next Gen GFx cards are like ~_^
got a serious inferiority complex going on now
those are some nice rigs
Think about the inferiority complex who bui … … okay, okay, I show myself the way out
Lol that processor costs more than my computer.
Very nice! And I thought my rigs were pretty good.
But can it run Crysis?
Which one?
Im thinking the first one, that was the only hardware killer in the series from my point of view
No Crysis Warhead then? Disappointing.
Oh and you can be assured that Crysis 3 has pretty high system requirements to max it out
He’s got a Rat !!
!!
So Chris, would you consider yourself an enthusiast?
Chris is definitely a technology pioneer!
Sweet seeing Chris’s setups. Reminds me of the old days when I built my first 486 DX2 just to play Wing Commander 2. I haven’t built a rig in years because with all the travelling I do, I haven’t owned a desktop model in a decade, so I’m out of touch on hardware specs. The question I have is, will that setup be old hat in two years when SC comes out?
@Tiger
CPU no, GPU yes.
I wonder if 6C 12T will be worth mentioning at the end.
Online it may help with full server.
Btw a good 850W suply is enough for SLI and OC
Yeah, thinking back, the GPUs get a refresh so often that new features that barely exist today will be commonplace in 2 years.
I took the liberty of going to Newegg and pricing out Chris’s LA rig and give or take a few items and instant or mail-in rebates, just the components in the box came to $4350. So, it’s not a shabby(or cheap) setup at all.
Add the monitors and peripherals, you’re looking at probably about 5K for that setup, but as Chris and others have pointed out, that won’t be the minimum hardware requirements to play Star Citizen.
I had to upgrade to a 486 to play Strike Commander, so right with you.
I had to upgrade mu 386 dx16 to 4MB Ram to play Wing Commander. Those were the good times
Whooaa!! me to i overclocked my DX2 66mhz to 80 mhz.. I was playing X-wing at that time^^
Motherboard with 8 RAM slots
*drools*
:O
A mighty fine setup for sure! Chris is definitely a man of exquisite taste, but we already new that.
The RAT rocks
It is a nice System but the corsair watercooling is a shame. If you do watercooling, do it right and build something with a big radiator and low noise fans. That way you can get a silent rig with some serious OC.
@Tiger Claw any Hardware is old after two years, but High End Hardware will usually still handle the new games at a decent detail level. This might somewhat change though if the new consoles will have decent hardware.
If he doesn’t mind the noise or just doesn’t have the time and nerves to fiddle with a ‘real’ water cooling, Corsair water cooling systems (I’m guessing H80/100) with different fans are nothing to be ashamed of, the performance is still good enough for slightly overclocked systems like these here.
Very nice system! Hey I use a RAT 7 too!
Gaaassspp!!! Sweet rigs…Now for the 2nd Gasssssssp!!! no joystick?? Sacriledge!! LOL
Quote: “Flight Control System: Siatek [Saitek] X52″
I remember the time when I bought my 486-DX4 with 100MHz to run WC3 Heart of the Tiger (Best game of the series in my opinion, next to Privateer).
That time I was surprised, that a game could actually span multiple CD’s.
I guess the retail version of Star Citizen will be shipped on multiple DVD’s.
Chris Roberts Computer – Awsome
GALAGA Stand up Video Game – PRICELESS (The man has my heart!)
Yeah, the Galaga Box is a great interior in this room.
More impressive than the pc, imho ^^
OMG! Galaga! The memories of time and nickles wasted on that box. I miss those days.
Anyone who has Galaga in their home is a true gamer. I loved Galaga when I was a kid and I still play it when I can find it.
Chris, We need a “Galaga” class fighter. That would be an awsome tribute to the Galaga game who anyone played games in the 80′s would apprecaite. I would buy one.
Galaga Class Fighter……FTW!
well i guess that liquid cooling solution has been ratified. I have wondered how that particular cooler would work and to see that he has it in both systems. Nice..
Seriously jealous of those rigs! But love the fact that he builds his own!
Holy mother of the universe!
I’m also a Chris R. who builds his own rigs lol. Anyone in central fl give a holler. Knew I liked the guy for more then his kick ass games.
Those setups are jaw droppers. Enthusiasts spending that kind of cash these days are rare out here. I can only imagine ever having enough scratch to build anything near that level.
$5000+ rig WOW
Now that’s what i call a rig!
Despite the fact that i don’t like SLI/Crossfire and thus i am “only” using one GTX 680 my rig is almost comparable! Even have the same monitors
!
May i ask why you use liquid cooling for your CPU but not for your GTX 680s and the mainboard?
To much work not easy to change.
S.2011 and i7 39xx with oc over 4,2GHz is not easy under air.
He was smart enough to use Evga GPU on SLI rig witch pushes warm air out the case.
Impressive. I’m still looking at the 500 SSD and the 2-3 TB HD….the question is do we rebuild now or wait until 2014….The other unanswered question is what is he playing on them right now…
Chris, great choice on the Thermaltake Level 10 Snow Edition case! Ironically I’m getting that same case when I build my new rig in a couple of months. Thanks for providing those screenshots, because I also plan to install a Corsair H100(i) in that rig, and was concerned about removing the 200mm top fan to mount that. Looks like it fits beautifully.
Sadly I’ll only be able to afford one EVGA GTX 680 in there for now, but I’m going with the 4gb FTW+ version.
Some great rigs you have there sir. Its an honor to build mine in the footsteps of yours, and primarily to play the very game you are creating for us. Thank you!
Also Chris I forgot to ask this but I’m curious…how is your airflow set up for the H100 in the Thermaltake case? Is it a push/pull setup or strictly exhaust? (I believe the stock Thermaltake fan was exhaust from what I read) Just wondering what works best for when I set up my new rig. Thanks!
Its just pull set up as intake – push/pull would almost touch the MB. You could put the second set of fans on the top but then they would be exposed. Rear fan is exhaust, as is the side fan. Front is intake, as it the bottom fan. EVGA cards exhaust heat out the back so it helps with the case temps as well.
Thanks for the reply! I could never find anything conclusive about the H100 on a Thermaltake Level 10 rig, but most people in general seemed to use a push/pull setup. I much prefer a total cooling option as I love to push processors to their limits. I think I shall go full intake on mine as well – that case looks more than sufficient to exhaust where needed (along with the EVGA card like you mentioned).
I also like how you have the additional 120mm fan on the bottom of the unit for increased intake. I don’t think many people seem to take advantage of that feature. If there’s room for a fan, why not?
Thanks again for sharing.
“I think I shall go full intake on mine as well”
I really wouldn’t recommend that. The reason you use a push/pull method of cooling is to ensure air that has been warmed up is expelled from the case efficiently while bringing is a constantly supply of fresh cool air. If all of your fans are bringing air in, it traps any hot air already heated by the components in the case getting hotter and hotter creating a diminishing return on your cooling performance.
A push/pull setup prevents this provided you go with the way air works in nature. What I mean by this is as air warms up it naturally expands and rises. So the ideal fan setup on a PC case is fans on the front, bottom and side should be intakes. And the fans on the top and rear should be exhausts. This way you create a natural air flow through your case constantly expelling hot air heated by the components while constantly bringing in a fresh supply of cool air to maintain top cooling performance. You should also try to get the exhaust and intake to be as equal as possible. You can have a little more intake to exhaust or vice-versa, but you generally want to be as balanced as possible.
Such as on my computer. I have 2 120mm fans on the front as intake, 1 120mm on bottom as intake and 1 200mm fan on the side as an intake. And I have 3 120mm fans on top as exhausts and 1 120mm fan on the back also as an exhaust.
I have tested many configurations on several cases thoroughly and experience has proven in every instance, that in air cooled PC’s the push/pull configuration is by far the best way to go. The absolute worst is having all fans as exhausts. While having all intakes is not “as” bad as having all exhausts, it doesn’t even come close to being as effective as a push/pull configuration. I have several friends who built their computers and their computers would constantly go down due to overheating. After troubleshooting, I found their fans were not set up in a “proper” push/pull configuration. After changing it, they haven’t had their computers overheat since.
I can not stress this enough. The way you set up the fans on your computer is crucial to cooling performance. As I said before, after over 15 years of building gaming rigs, experience has proven in every instance, that in air cooled PC’s, the push/pull configuration is by far the best way to go.
Hope this helps.
I may have misunderstood. I thought you were talking about the full case fans setup and now I think you were talking exclusively about the H100. Sorry if I misunderstood your original intent.
As for the H100, I’m currently running an H80, and by default it was setup as an intake. I played around with it and found that the radiator as an exhaust works better. While the radiator as an intake worked slightly better (not by much) as an intake for cooling the CPU, it increased case temps by a considerable degree. Plus due to it’s placement, it contradicted the natural air flow of the case, further reducing overall case cooling capacity. When I switched it to full exhaust (flipped the fans), overall system temps improved and stabilized, while CPU temps were not quite as good as it was on intake (only by about a degree or 2 max), it was still easily far more efficient at cooling the CPU than other air CPU coolers by a large margin.
Again sorry if I misunderstood your original context. I just can’t edit or remove a post once I’ve posted it. So this follow up will have to do.
Hey, np problem. That’d be insane if someone made a rig that completely did intake or exhaust only…I don’t think that would bode well after a short time.
Ultimately I’ll have to test out the rig itself to see what temps work best, but since mine will be so close (practically a clone) of Chris’s Thermaltake rig, I may end up going intake. That case has ridiculous airflow already.
In either event, I am so excited to build a new rig soon, especially for this game.
heya Tyber,
I would consider waiting another month for AMD to release its new generation cards which last time I checked (some time ago) were due out in approx March…
Early rumours were hinting at good things to come from them. If nothing else they might drive a price war
Have a look at this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/compare,2947.html?prod5695=on&prod5554=on&prod5628=on&prod5549=on&prod5723=on
In Crysis 2 (closest released game to Star Citizen’s Cry Engine 3 for now I think) – the 7950 (AMD especially in the UK is Cheap compared to NVidia) is about the same performance as the 670 and only 2.8fps slower than the 680 @ 1920×1080 DX11 2xAA
Pushing beyond 71fps is Expensive on this Engine!!!
660Ti — 58.60fps
7950 — 70.30fps
670 — 70.70fps
680 — 73.10fps
7970 — 76.10fps
(drivers should have improved from AMD (I know) and most likely NVidia too since that test)
I would also consider the Noctua NH-D14 over the H100 if you like a Quiet PC – check out some review comparisons.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/h100i-elc240-seidon-240m-lq320,review-32598.html
Most of all, have fun building it ^_^
Nice rigs… Next question… What’s Chris’s high score on Galaga? =)
No AMD love….
Well nice rigs. I couldn’t afford one.
… i plan to update my 5 year old machine this year. But it will be a complete AMD system. I like ‘underdogs’ and do not want Intel to be the solo player and monopolist who can dictate CPU prices.
if your getting an amd system, be sure to buy water cooling with it and then get the amd piledriver 8 core cpu then over clock it to 5 ghz! considering its base clock is already at 4.0 ghz, then go with 8-16 gigs of ram along with two 7970 ghz or black editions in crossfire!
Already there
A real enthusiast’s PC! Great choices Chris.
I made two NewEgg wish-lists for the L.A. & Austin rig parts list, although I had to use 2 of the ASUS VE278Q Black 27″ since the AsusVG278H is discontinued, and the curent pricing comes out to L.A. = $5962.66 & Austin = $4685.74.
So currently a 5K system will probably show off SC in all it’s glory.
How ironic? My first pc, the 386 dx20 with 1K ram, 40Meg HD and a 13″ Sony Trinitron COLOUR monitor, cost me 5K.
Went to the local computer store and asked: “What’s the best game I can buy that’ll tax my top-o-the-line system please?
“Wing Commander sir”!
Sold!
:O did your 386 20 have DX? i had SX :/ it missead a math processor
i got one as i upgraded to a 386 DX 40 though 
Keep in mind the L.A. System is also for saving videos to share with us and the rest of CIS, as well as playing with the game-in-progress while video conferencing, editing the physics engine and reading the forums, so he had to really throw a lot into that machine so it stays stable while he’s doing 12 things at once.
I’m sure he’ll be letting other people at CIG test things with a Compaq loaded with 1 GB of RAM to see how the game play lags on smaller systems.
Excellent machines. Hopefully the new degree will allow me a new job wich will allow my to build a new machine closer to the release date. This way I can be playing SC for a long time to come.
So onboard sound is good enough for Chris Roberts.
What headphones and/or speaker & aplifier setups does Chris use?
That array of SSDs are impressive. I just built a machine for my wife and am impressed at the difference they make. It was good preactice for the rig I’ll build later this year for me for use on the alpha.
You gotz lagz?
Woah! GUYS? Did you see that?! What an amazing piece of kit! Glaxian in the background! SWEET AS BRO! – so that’s where he gets his inspiration from! Way cool! Chris, You’ve gone up in my estimates 10 fold! (oh and nice work PCs too
)
Sorry, Mate, it’s not GALAXIAN, it’s GALAGA.
I just want to say I love you.
And I mean that PC by saying that.
Wish I could save enough money this year for a PC half as good as this one.
Nice one, not even close to this lvl on my comp BUT I have the same primary monitor (YAY
).
That the spirit
Nice rigs but where is the sound card?!!
a “Siatek X52″? I could’ve sworn it says “Saitek’ on mine.
But seriously, look at that array of SSD’s in the first one.
Thats some very overpriced shit. Most of that money that has been wasted on case, psu… could have gone for better GPU for example or could have been saved -.-
Nice setup though.
Total respect!
You paid over $5,000 for this build? And people knock me for my $4,274 Alienware PC. Which has everything you have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj3-rDK8T18
Nice rigs, was hoping to build mine much the same. Last year took me 6 months to get mine together and still maybe going for SLI.
Nice Rig, I think I will start saving. I should be able to pile up a good amount of money until release
. My current Rig looks like this:
Hardware Manufacturer ARLT
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory 16384MB RAM
Hard Drive Samsung SSD 830 – 128 GB + 1TB Samsung HE103JU
Video Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670
Monitor Samsung SyncMaster 205BW + Samsung SyncMaster S27B350
Speakers 5.1 Labtec Soundsystem + Sennheiser PC350
Peripherals Keyboard Microsoft Sidewinder X6
Mouse Logitech MX518
Mouse Surface Sharkoon Gaming Matt
Computer Case Coolermaster CM690
Ah the processor is OC to 4.2GHZ
Forgot to mention, it cost me about 1300 € that’s 1740 $
Render the first rig ingame as a starbase or a very industrial freighter so we can fly a bonafied RSI Rig.
Omg… My rig looks like an old nintendo compared to that monster of his :I
Could squeeze out more badass with a 7970 sli rig
Expect other ssd, gfx and no video capture card nearly my rig. He knows, what is good!
“Except” was the word.
my rig is basically the same but a generation older. why not get better monitors though anything less then a 32 is not even worth having anymore
There is no 32 monitor out there and using a tv as monitor is retarded. 27 in 1080 p is at least the pixel ratio, which is acceptable. Bigger monitors need more resolution. I have a 30″ dell ultrasharp having 2560×1600, which is the biggest monitor you can buy. His monitors a quite good and have a nice picture close to an ips panel
Nice one… About 5.400 EUR in germany… I WILL start saving… Maybe I should switch of the lig
ht… lol! Yeah, i will just use candles from now on. xD
So that’s where our money is going?
I’ve got the same mouse and keyboard (already saw it in GDC video).
I bet Chris bought the KB for the same reason, the 80′s sci-fi look.
I recently built my first rig. have to say it was one of my more frustrating and rewarding projects.. I would definatly advise anyone to do it!
Chris’ rigs put mine humble little pc to shame though lol envy doesn’t begin to describe it.. I want!
Awesome machine Chris! My is also not that bad but your PC will be only a dream for me
I am not familiar with top-of-the-line stuff, but can someone tell me what the small LED readout in the Austin machines’ motherboard is? I don’t see it in the LA machine, but I imagine it’s a similar enough motherboard, being X79-based, and from ASUS.
Also, awesome you still build your own rigs. Is one of these to be awarded to an SC user? Or are you going to build one special for them?
And here I sit, with my $300 laptop and $5 mouse, and begin to worry…
Same case as Chris /)^3^(\
nice config.
however i don’t understand the use of 2 x GTX680 otherwise 2 x HD7870 are much better and far away less expensive.
“Video Card: Gigabyte GTX680 Windforce x3″
I love the Windforce-cooler. Got a GTX 570 Windforce x3 in my main PC. But i hate Gigabyte for building such a bad card around this cooler. I hope with the new 6xx Series they solved the problems.
Bought 3 GTX 570 Windforce 3x. First one for myself then one for a friend. Mine runs fine but only if i LOWER the clockrates to standardsettings (With Gigabyte-specs it would run slightly overclocked but was not stable). The card of my friend didnt run stable at all. Underclocking didnt help. We sent it back, got another one. Newer series. This card makes strange “electrical” noises. Friend has the PC on the table so it was very annoying. Finally he took my card and runs it underclocked and i got his card because my PC is not on the table. Grml….
Such a wunderful cooler and so bad cards beneath it… Damn you Gigabyte…
I don’t understand why would people pay extra money to get overclocked CPU. i5 is as good as i7 today and will run any game on max settings with GTX 680 for graphics for at least 5 years to come… AND you can overclock i5 to like 4.5Ghz with some brand cooler fan. With this graphics card and i5 you don’t even need a SLI.
“i5 is as good as i7 today” – keep on trying.
Though it’s true that roughly any game will run fine on i5. Even the 1st generation one.
We will see.
Point is no one optimise for SMT, if Chris dos it can give +20%.
About the only thing I have in common is the WD 2TB 7200 HDDs, I have 8 of them in my server at home.
Oh and the CPU is made by Intel
Very nice rig Chris, and gives some thought on where to go with the next upgrade in a couple of years.
Fun fact: Chris PC is roughly 4 times more powerful then FUTURE generation of consoles (by rumored specs of Xobx 720 and PlayStation 4)!
Hahahahaha
The most impressive part, is that you have your own Galaga machine.
And now you know how Skynet will be born…..
@Chris
Now you just need a couple more monitors to develop for the “Surround View 3D”
In two years I will catch up with that rig, but for now I must envy at Chris Roberts monster
forget about the PCs, i want that Galaga Arcade Machine!
Chris your rig looks like a transformed/colapsed R2D2
i like it!
My game machine isnt close to those specifications, but still runs every title smooth with full settings. Thats everything that matters.
I love the look behind the scenes and i enjoy seeing people are just as crazy/normal as i am
Nice rigs!
Hell thats gonna be fun! 
But i will have an even better rig in 2014
The Gforce GTX 680 models already dropped below 400 euros.
In 2 years time, when the game has just released, i will build my own rig with the GTX 8xx series
Now, the one thing I am curious about, is less about what the super-computer of the famous Chris Roberts is, but more about what the average employee at Cloud Imperium is using. Let’s be honest, Chris Roberts has a bit more means for a 6-7000 dollar computer, whereas the average employee might not.
I have “almost” got the same rig,
Case: Corsair Carbide 500R (white)
Motherboard: Asus X79 Pro
CPU: Intel i7-3930
PSU: 850W Tacens
Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H100 Liquid CPU Cooler
RAM: 32GB G.Skill Ripjaw 1866mhz
Primary OS Drive: 128 GB SSD samsung 830
Data Drive: 7200 Samsung 1Tb, 7200 Samsung 500Gb and an external 7200 WD 2TB HDD
Video Card: AMD(ATI) HD5870
Primary Diplay: Samsung XL2370 23inch 1920×1080
Secondary Display: Dell u2412m 24inch 1920×1200
Keyboard: Razer Deathstalker (without the screen)
Mouse: Razer Ouroboros
Flight Control System: Siatek X52
No dual CPUs?
If that 2Tb 7200rpm WD HD is the FAEX SATA III version, then that’s the exact same hard drive I use in my computer for my games drive.
Nice build Chris. Although when I built my computer, I went with the previous generation Sandy Bridge on a Z68 chipset instead of opting for the Ivy bridge on the X79 chipset. The reason, is because while the Ivy Bridge CPU’s are excellent performers, their performance benefit over the previous Sandy Bridge CPU’s was very minimal. And they were a lot more expensive than the Sandy Bridge CPU’s. The only real tangible benefit to using an Ivy Bridge CPU over a Sandy Bridge CPU was for the 2 extra physical core and 2 extra logical cores via hyperthreading (OS reads 12 cores (6ph by 6log) on Ivy as opposed to 8 cores (4ph by 4log) on Sandy). And since the common issue with multicore systems is that unless you are a very heavy multitasker, or even more rarely, a game properly uses your multicore processor to it’s full potential to run the game optimally and efficiently to run the game smoothly. At the time, Sandy bridge was the best bang for buck option.
I only bring this up to illustrate a point and ask a commonly asked question, but rarely answered by developers. One I think you can actually answer since you have proven that you (like many of us) build your own gaming rigs. You’ve said that this game will be natively be 64bit. But will the game also be properly multithreaded to take advantage of many of our multicore processors and if so, what would likely be the optimal (ideal) processor to have for this game (ie dual core w/o hyperthreading, dual core w/ hyperthreading, quad with or quad without, etc.)?
Hey Guys… the first rig is the minimum system requirements to play Star Citizen !!!
do you don’t know this…!!??
LOL
Haha Chris system is almost part for part identical to mine… Love those Force GT solid state!
That awesome’ Close to what I have
Case Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Asus X79 Rampage 4
i7 3930k stock
64 GB Ram Red gskill 1600
$TB data
480 GB ssd Boot and games
3 Gtx 670 Asus DCII in sli
Corsair 1200ax PSU with red sleeve
Corsair H100i Watercooler
but I bet you didn’t have to spread out purchase over a year
It does me proud to know you build your own rigs, Chris. I especially like your second rig in the Corsair case – I am a proud owner of the Obsidian 600D, which is a supremely awesome case.
I envy your inside power though – boy do I ever. Still, I plan on doing a major overhaul just before retail for Squad42, so we’ll just see what I can come up with in 18-24 months time!
THE GAME IS AFOOT!
There is a new CPU in the works, so wait a year and a half before building a new rig
I have buy a new PC last year. Its:
i5 2500k @ 4,5 Ghz
)
CPU Cooler : Be Quiet Dark Rock Advanced
8 GB Corsair
Asus 660 TI Direkt CUII
MSI Board P67 C45
128 GB SSD (for OS: Win XP (32) and Win 8 (64)
3×2 TB HDD Seagate Barracuda (with all my games. Steam needs alone over 1,4 TB
After I see the specs of the new Haswell CPU I don’t think to buy new CPU/Board in the next 2-3 years. Maybe the 660 TI will be replace by a 860 TI but thats also in the future
Enough for the most games. Crysis 3 Beta runs good in 1080p at very high 45 FPS – but without AA 
With 4-AA on its going down to 25 FPS Oo
Put the LA rig together on PCPartPicker.
I had to guess on exactly which of a few parts some of the items were as the description actually applied to a few versions of some items.
GRAND TOTAL: $5868.98
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ADxx
I just built mine with the same case. I also have a 500 GB SSD, and its fantastic. The level 10 GT is the best case design I’ve seen.
Nice rig. I also got Nvidia, but the processor will always be AMD. Still wonder why so many poeple buy Intel, when AMD is cheaper and just as reliable. I almost would say the same goes for ATI, but sadly they have nothing like CUDA and Open CL is still sort of experimental.
LOL
My System is brand new, but against yours it is old ^^
CPU: AMD FX8350 8-core 4GHz (yes i know… Intel is faster)
CPU Cooling: Arctic Freezer 13 CO
Case: Cooler Master HAF932 Adv.
Motherboard: ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 (nice board)
GPU: 1x GIGABYTE AMD HD7870 OC Windfast3
RAM: 16GB G.Skill 1600MHz DDR3
SSD/HDD: SanDisk 128GB SSD 6GB/s, 2x Samsung SATA 500GB
niceeee
also happy to see an ati gpu in that since I go with ati for videocards also. good choice
Mmm…When I build my rig, I will be taking pictures just like these.
This is just an amazing build. I hope Star Citizen is going to run on this ~1500€ build (as of now):
http://www.mifcom.de/product_configuration.php?id=T46EHIV2K0
For the first time there is a game I want to play, a High-end PC in reach and the money to pay both (already pledged for StarCitizen). Hopefully we will see some more gameplay scenes as of E3 or Gamescom this year.
Didn’t notice in January: Chris takes the term Desktop very serious