Killing those end of summer blues

PC Perspective has teamed up with Gigabyte for a summer time giveaway that is sure to make you break a sweat.

As we approach the end of summer and the beginning of the life of Windows 10, PC Perspective and Gigabyte (along with Thermaltake and Kingston) have teamed up to bring our readers a system build guide and giveaway that is sure to get your gears turning. If you think that an X99-based system with an 8-core Intel Extreme processor, SLI graphics, 480GB SSD and 32GB of memory sounds up your alley…pay attention.

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Deep in thought…

Even with the dawn of Skylake nearly upon us, there is no debate that the Haswell-E platform will continue to be the basis of the enthusiasts dream system for a long time. Lower power consumption is great, but nothing is going to top 8-cores, 16-threads and all the PCI Express lanes you could need for expansion to faster storage and accessories. With that in mind Gigabyte has partnered with PC Perspective to showcase the power of X99 and what a builder today can expect when putting together a system with a fairly high budget, but with lofty goals in mind as well.

Let's take a look at the components we are using today.

  Gigabyte X99 System Build
Processor Intel Core i7-5960X – $1048
Motherboard Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5P – $309
Memory Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 32GB – $325
Graphics Card 2 x Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 960 2GB – $199
Storage Kingston HyperX Savage 480GB SSD – $194
Case Thermaltake Core V51 – $82
Power Supply Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 850 watt – $189
CPU Cooler Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme S – $94
Total Price $1591 – Amazon Full Card (except CPU)
$1048 – Amazon Intel Core i7-5960X
Grand Total: $2639

At the heart of our system build is the Gigabyte X99 Gaming 5P motherboard, a unit ripe with power delivery improvements, sound quality enhancements and features that enable gamers and overclockers to reach the pinnacle of all other components in the system. Looking for 4-Way SLI and CrossFire support? No problem. Need to attach 10 SATA devices for your crazy array? Check.

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Gigabyte has also provided us with a pair of GeForce GTX 960 graphics card to run in SLI for our build. The GTX 960 is more than capable of pushing 2560×1440 resolution displays and with a pair of them working together, gamers will have no more excuses.

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Obviously the Intel Core i7-5960X is a star here: with 8-cores and 16-threads of processing capability, the flagship consumer CPU from Intel is the highest performance desktop processor on the market and is more than capable of handling any computing task you can throw at it. If you are working on photo editing, 4K video, application development – it doesn't matter – this CPU will brute force its way through just about anything.

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Kingston has supplied us with 32GB of DDR4 memory running  at 2666 MHz which should appease any eager user. And the 480GB Savage SSD is awesome as well, providing speed and capacity to get up and running with an incredibly quick system build.

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And Thermaltake is here as well, providing the Core V51 chassis, the Water 3.0 240mm self-contained cooler and the Toughpower Grand 850 watt power supply that provides the juice for all the components listed above.

In total, we have about $2500 invested in this system and it would clearly make for an amazing Windows 10 and gaming rig to start off the fall.

But for those of you that might want to try their luck before investing their dollars, how about you take the time to enter into our contest below. The prize? The complete PC listed above including the Gigabyte X99 motherboard and $1000+ Intel Core i7-5960X processor!

Gigabyte X99 System Build – Win a full Core i7-5960X PC!

Enter in as many ways as you can or want to using the system above. We will ship anywhere in the world but keep in mind if you are outside the US or Canada you will have to pay taxes/tariffs on your own, sorry! The contest will run for two weeks and we'll announce the winner on this page after the person is selected and gives us their correct shipping information. Good luck!

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Please! Take this PC!!

A HUGE thanks goes to our friends and sponsors at Gigabyte for supplying all the hardware and organizing the assistance of Kingston and Thermaltake for our system build and giveaway.