Building a new rig.

[cabooble]

Mentlegen.

I have some money burning a hole in my pocket, and a 5+ year old computer. I want to update to 144Hz G-sync goodness.

AMD is releasing their HBM graphics cards in... a week. Do you think Nvidia will react by dropping prices on its lineup?

-GPU: I was leaning toward a 980GTX after price drop. Maybe even a TI. I can't see them lowering price on 980GTX TI though. Titan X is sitting pretty at 1,000USD and will probably stay there to inflate lower end prices. Rusty had suggested a 760GTX w/ 6GB VRAM, but I only see models going up to 4GB. They are cheap though.

-MONITOR: I've been looking at the Acer Predator. 144Hz 1440p 1MS GTG G-sync IPS panel. Anyone aware of other monitors with similar specs coming out soon?

-CPU: i7 4790K. I want to future proof with the extra cores. I heard these things don't OC so well. Any advice? Not interested in liquid cooling.

-RAM: no idea which RAM to get. I may want to fuck around with a RAM drive at some point, so maybe a 32gig kit? Would I get better timings with 2x16GB or 4x8?

-MOBO: I need help here. Something that overclocks well. Max 2 GPUs needed.

Case, PSU, SSD/HDDs, thermals I can figure out in an afternoon.

I appreciate any input.

[Rusty]

144HZ is great. I don't have that setup, but I would in a heartbeat. Recommended is 24".

Stick with Nvidia. I'd get the GTX 970. There are many variations of the GTX 970. I have the MSI Golden - Limited Ed. It overclocks pretty nicely.
The 980 is not worth it - unless you can get it for $500 or less.

Monitor, I really want the PG278Q - but that's a $900 monitor. It's an Asus - and it's top of the line. If you want G-sync, Go with this monitor. You will not be disappointed.
Just make sure you get an Nvidia card, otherwise you are tossing your money out the window. Only higher end Nvidia cards support G-sync and you will definitively want that feature.

CPU is redundant really. It's an easy swap later on. The I7 4790 has more than enough juice to handle anything you toss at it. No need to overclock. You won't be maxing that processor - unless you're doing some major stuff - but as a pro gamer. The 4790 will be more than enough.

Ram - Ram is really important. You want 2x16GB. Why? Because the more physical dimm's you have - the more chances of a chip burning out.
Get any DDR3 1600mhz CL9 1.5v RAM. Nothing more. Nothing less. This is what you want.

MOBO. Asus Z97 (there are various differentiations in Z97 models) - You can do the research to find what you're after. But the Z97 is what you want.
Case - whatever you want. Just make sure it has an appropriate Air Intake/Outake flow. Bad flow means worse performance for your system.
PSU - you want the Seasonic PLATINUM (important word) 860. Don't shop for anything else. Just buy this one, and be done with it. You can get the 1200 if you want, but the 860 will run two cards, plus everything else just fine.

HDD's - you want one HDD 3TB and you also want two SSD's Make sure your read/write speed of the SSD's is 520/550Mb/s All SSD's perform differently. They also go on sale quite a bit. So don't ever pay full price for an SSD.

Recommended HD setup
C: SSD - OS + NS2 / Adobe ( large apps )
D: HDD - Program files + regular Steam games
E : SSD - Heavy load steam games. / HighQuality movies you may want to stream to a TV / 5G device, etc.

External Drives (3TB Max ) for backups, etc.

Cheers!
~Rusty