First time builder....looking for some advice

I plan on doing my first ever gaming pc build and could use some advice/tips/recommendations on builds. I'm not sure when I plan on doing the build, but am hopeful to start this summer (gotta sell my laptop first). The wife just gave me a budget of $2000.99 (she had a couple drinks when she gave me that price), but I'm sure I can stretch out an extra hundred if needed. No I also have an additional $700 that I plan to use towards the build, which gives me a total of $2700.99. Now obviously I would like to save as much money as possible, but I do want to have a great gaming experience, which from the research I have done, I should have enough money for a decent build.

I'll give you a quick rundown on what I would like my system to do, or have the potential to do. I want to game above 1080p. Looking at 1440p @ 144hz or 4k. From what I have read, going 4k can be really expensive and to get the most out of it, would require a larger screen. For 1440p I think a 27" screen is a good size, possibly 30"+ if it's in my budget. I'd like to be able to hit max settings on all games now and for the next year, possibly 2. I would like to go SLI, but if not within the budget, going SLI in the future is a must. As of right now I'm looking at the Titan X and 980 Ti (leaning more towards the 980 Ti for 1440p gaming, Titan X for possibly 4k).

I'm not apposed to waiting out a bit, especially for news on Pascal. Even if it doesn't live up to all the hype, the possibility of the Titan X or 980 Ti going down in price a little may be worth the wait. If I'm able to start building this summer, I'd like to do that. Now I don't want to have to wait until the end of the year or 2017 unless Pascal blows our minds.

What would you guys recommend for a motherboard and CPU to go with either of the GPUs I've listed? I'd like to get an unlocked intel CPU and a motherboard that would be able to do 2 way and possibly 3 way SLI. Any recommendations you guys have will be appreciated. If you guys know of any sites you can link me to help me learn more about some of the products out there, please let me know. Thanks.

Edit: Also, what would you guys recommend for a monitor to fit within my budget.

 

2000 and 99 cents. Gee, that's mighty generous of her
You could try giving her a couple of more drinks, see where it leads .

IMO, I wouldn't go with SLI/XF, just a waste of money.
What monitor are you looking for, IPS or TN?

 

LOL with the performance he wants you pretty much need it.

OP I play at 4k with 980 Ti sli. Forget the Titan X, its a waste of money. You instead could get 980 Ti sli for like 1200, and then get the rest of an X99 build or something with an i7 5820k. I love gaming at 4k (27" monitor with Gsync) but if you like higher refresh rates go 1440p if you want. It should be easily doable at your budget. I personally again would go X99 (I have an Asus X99-A) because you have more cores and those cpus OC very well. Then you have DDR4 ram and probably support for Broadwell-e cpus when they come out if you wanna upgrade down the road. The extra pci lanes are great for sli. The one thing you should ask about is if you shoot for 144hz what cpu is best for that. I don't play it so I don't know if my cpu would bottleneck it at all. At 4.5Ghz I doubt it would, but that's about the only situation I can think of where the 6700k MAY be better. Again probably not though, and as multicore support increases the 5820k just performs better and better.

 

If OP goes 1440p route single 980ti will be solid.

 

I don't necessarily have to have SLI right off the bat, although if it fits my budget I might as well get it. As far as performance goes, I don't see it being a waste of money. Obviously when games aren't optimized for SLI it can be discouraging, but typically they get optimized eventually.

As far as monitor, I'm not sure. I don't really know the difference between IPS and TN. Doing a quick search and it appears that TN is capable of 144hz while IPS isn't (not sure if that's still true or not). I'm looking for a good quality picture with high refresh rate, simple enough eh?

I know the Titan X is a bit of a waste of money, but perhaps prices will slowly start to drop in the coming months with word of Pascal. I am thinking about getting 2x 980 Ti's if it fits my budget, but if not, I'll get one now and one later down the road. How is 4k on a 27" screen? Are text really small? I may go 1440p now and upgrade to 4k later on when monitors start to drop down in price a bit.

 

Windows 10 scaling is great so text is fine. The 980 Ti outperforms the Titan X often (like the Gigabyte G1 variants I have) and the vram isn't really relevant yet even at 4k. SLI scaling works great on most games as well. The Acer XB270HU is a 144hz IPS monitor if that interests you. IPS has better viewing angles as well besides just better colors.

That's true for 60fps, not 144fps, one is totally not enough to max games at that refresh rate and resolution.

 

It seems that badly optimized SLI profiles have been happening a lot lately.
Still, with that kind of budget I do suppose it won't be a problem to get a second GPU for you.

Like Galm17 has noted, IPS can do 144Hz.
It also has better image quality. The only reason to consider TN is if you like to have a faster GTG time (1ms instead of 4ms), if that bothers you..

Is 144 FPS even possible in SLI though? I mean yeah, some games might deliver, like CSGO, but that thing can even run on a taster with over 9000 FPS.
Modern AAA titles? No chance. I think TotalBiscuit had like 70 FPS with Titan X in the opening scene (not very demanding) in ROTTR at 1080p.

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider had quite a performance boost for me at least. I play it above 60fps with my 980 Ti sli, so at 1440p it should be hitting over 100.

 

I would avoid SLI entirely. Poorly supported in a lot of AAA titles.

Having had both 144hz 1440p IPS and TN, I can say that the 4ms IPS screens are not as blur free and caused me to actually get a headache playing faced paced games. Your mileage will vary though because if you're not used to 1ms 144hz screens I doubt you'd notice. For me coming from a 1080p 144hz 1ms screen the change was noticed and I hated it. I had to buy the 144hz 1440p TN G-Sync and couldn't be happier with my choice.

 

SLI is antilove, SLI is antilife. SLI SLI why won't you die?

 

Thanks for the comments guys. I've got some time to think about a build, so my budget may raise a bit or prices may drop to allow me to build something really nice. I think the motherboard and monitor will be the most difficult for me to decide on.