ok here is my build, i need to know how it will oc, and if i should bother with the ultras, and any other suggestions you might have, thanks.

canadian prices

Case: Lian Li V2000 $280 (i absolutely need this case to put my radiator box in it.. if i get suggestions about putting my rad box in my case then i may think about it, but this case has 2 fans in the bottom compartment if ur not familiar with it, and im probably going to cut another 120 mm hole on the other side to blow air in, then the other would suck air out)
accessories: clear side panel $40 (iv got to see this rig! lol)

Mobo: EVGA Nforce 680i $282.40

Graphics card: 2x EVGA 8800 Ultra $1,519.98 ($759.99 each)

Ram: Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-9136C5D 2GB 2X1GB PC2-9136 DDR2-1142 CL 5-5-5-15-2T 240PIN Dual Memory Kit $$575.39

Hard Drive1: 36GB WD Raptor 10,000 rpm $144.71
Hard Drive2: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB 1000GB SATA2 7200RPM $429.99

PSU: OCZ ProXStream 1000W ATX V2.2 20/24PIN 80MM Fan Active PFC Power Supply $324.99

DVD writer: Samsung SH-S183A Black SATA DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL 8X INT DVD Writer $51.60

(idk if i need this...)Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Audio 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI $54.18

CPU: Q6600 not sure on price right now, but i assume like $300 or so on july 22

total computer cost: $4006

i need to cut some stuff down so that i can still afford a water set up to cool the cpu and perhaps chipset.. i dont know what ram to get.. i saw dominator for like $225 so i may opt to get that instead, but does anyone know what ram has those little lights on the side green yellow then red...? damn that looks cool, and if i had 4 sticks!!! crazy haha. anyways im not sure if the 680i has integrated sound.. so do i need the sound card or not??

not sure on the hard drives, raid 0 or not!!!!! cant decide!! and i dont think i want that 1 tb card since frankly that is just too much and too costly, so can anyone suggest a 500 gig hard drive thats good? like this one for $118 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM

as for water cooling i was going to get the following parts to cool the cpu: (i need suggestions)

arctic silver 5 $8
Copper TDX Block for Intel 775 Processors $53
(radiator)Thermochill PA120.3 $135
Danger Den DDC-12V 18 Watt Version 3.2 (this pump is only 3/8" so is that worse than 1/2 or not??)$75
Danger Den Dual 5 1/4" Bay Reservoir $32
Tube clamps $10
tubing $14
(i have noooo idea at all what sort of solution to use but ill assume it comes to $50)

total water cooling price: $327 ($377 with water additives)
Total cost: $4333 (too bad it wasnt 3333 :S) lol (insert old smiley.. sigh i wish we still had that old smiley)

anyways i need to get it to around 3900 or so including the water cooling system... if possible i would like to get it to about 3600/3500 around that area, since taxes are an absolute killer where i live... like 13% or something ******* crazy like that.. god damn British Columbia.. honestly i should just drive down to Washington or Seattle or somewhere where the taxes aren't too high... because here in Canada its hell...

anyways thanks for the help


*ooo last thing before i forget... should i just wait till the 8900/8950 and penryn... !!! GOD DAMN i cant decide... all i can say is that right now i have 2 computers, one of them just literally blew up, like the power supply caught on fire.. (record breaking temps here where i live 35 degrees celcius) and the system im on right now is embarrassing

only a 8800gts
e6600 @ 3.2Ghz
... lol
jk

my system is as follows:
p4 2.4ghz
ocz 420 watt psu (upgraded in 2004 i think or 05 i cant remember.. whenever bf2 came out)
BFG 6600 GT OC (upgraded when i got psu)
2 gig ram (upgraded from 512 when i got psu)
asus p4s8x
80 gig hd
pretty cool case lol but only 1 fan pretty crazy actually, when i take the side cover off, my cpu drops 10 degrees idle LOL)

err, why the 2 8800 ultras? what screen do you have?

I would put one in, buy a good watercooling system (because even if you upgrade your graphics card and cpu, most of the parts from your watercooling rig dont need to change.

things like graphics cards and cpus you upgrade all the time. things like cases, psus, cooling rigs you tend to not upgrade so much.

if you really want sli, get 2 x 8800 gtx in sli, and watercool then overclock them.

2 ultras are pretty much a waste of cash, they will perform better than 2 GTX's but you could get 2 GTX's and slighty OC them and save yourself alot of money.

if you want a killer rig, you have over speced it into throwing money away

1) keep the case, DVD

2) any 680i Mobo are good, i use abit but asus are savage too

3) Power supply even though Ocz are good ( have one ) PC Power and cooling are better rated....

4) Ram $500 on ram ??? great maybe but you should be able to 99% of the performance at 200$

5) 2 8800 ultras ???? you have a 30 inch 2560 * 1600 monitor ?, if you need two cards just get the regular 8800 GTX if you get them with the watercooling blocks on you'll save a lot of hassle

6) Hard drives not the best choice, for a fast drive get 150gb Raptor X and for big drives get 2 500gb samsung, WD,or seagate much cheaper

7) Cpu by an E6600, the quad while better will be slaughtered before an e6600 overclocked become too slow, with game still not taking advantage of all the cores, and buy next gen after christmas

my 1 euro

hmm ic ok lets assume it is just 2 gtx cards, what then do i change??

Raptor X = waste of cash, although they look cool.

Regular Raptor = still waste of cash, but still super fast and might be worth it to you.

get cheaper ram. as oakley says, expensive ram is the biggest waste of money. dont get me wrong - get good name brand ram, but dont pay that much money for it! get 4 GB instead of 2, although you might want vista 64 for that.

get one or two raptor 74 gb and one or two 500 GB from seagate or wd.

if you want the ultimate bling for your pc, get a physx card. it is expensive, has lots of transistors, and does almost nothing for your pc. at least now anyway.

personally I would go with a q6600 and oc it.

The raptor X has the same internals as the 74 Gb raptor
The raptor 150 has different re slower internals

I have the raptor X in the computer and start up and applacation loading is very fast

gaaaa i posted right after u did but i didnt see ur post before i posted.. no edit

why would i get a 150 gig wd raptor?? there is no difference except the 150 costs a lot more.. and since i wont be saving stuff on it, what is the point??

and sry i dont understand what you meant by ocz someone or other and the psu..?

and how about this then for the build:

Case: Lian Li V2000 $280
accessories: clear side panel $40

Mobo: EVGA Nforce 680i $282.40

Graphics card: 2x EVGA 8800 GTX $1,306.28 ($653.14 each)

Ram: Corsair XMS2 Dominator TWIN2X2048-6400C4D 2GB 2X1GB PC6400 DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Memory Kit $265

Hard Drive1: 36GB WD Raptor 10,000 rpm $144.71
Hard Drive2: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive $154

PSU: OCZ ProXStream 1000W ATX V2.2 20/24PIN 80MM Fan Active PFC Power Supply $324.99

DVD writer: Samsung SH-S183A Black SATA DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL 8X INT DVD Writer $51.60

(idk if i need this...)Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Audio 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI $54.18

CPU: Q6600 not sure on price right now, but i assume like $300 or so on july 22

total computer cost: $3205

arctic silver 5 $8
Copper TDX Block for Intel 775 Processors $53
(radiator)Thermochill PA120.3 $135
Danger Den DDC-12V 18 Watt Version 3.2 (this pump is only 3/8" so is that worse than 1/2 or not??)$75
Danger Den Dual 5 1/4" Bay Reservoir $32
Tube clamps $10
tubing $14
(i have noooo idea at all what sort of solution to use)

total water cooling price: $327

total price: $3532

i just need to get the other questions i had answered which were at the beginning. and are my hard drives ok?? and should i go raid 0 i still cant decide.. and is it even worth it to spend $327 and not even cool the gpu etc?? though cooling the gpu would cost like an extra 200 probably... or what about the chipset>??? and asus striker extreme is it worth it to get that mobo?? and for ram could i go cheaper because i dont even plan to oc it at all, i just want to get the q6600 to like 3.6 or so stable and run that constantly if thats possible etc.. and i want to get around 1700+ 3d marks 2006

thanks

doesnt the 36 gig have the same internals as the 74 except smaller etc???

gahh.... im looking at the toms hardware charts for it, and it doesnt, so what about a 74 and the other hard drive i mentioned the 500 gig one??

Do you really need 2 8800? then if so go for it, but at the moment you will probably get better results using one 8800 than 2 as SLI isnt scaling too well.

also if you want a quad core wait for the july 22nd price cuts then go for Q6600 and overclock, should save a few $

you can edit. the button looks like a pencil on a page, hover over it and it says quick edit. didnt notice that either.

as for raid 0 or not, I dont know. I installed vista yesterday on my new machine, with a raid 0 array (2 x 320 GB seagate 7200.10 drives). so far, its fast, but I dont know what it would be like if it had only 1 7200.10. its a lot faster than I'm used to certainly.

I would hazard a guess that raid 0 doesnt make that much of a difference. but as I said, I dont really know, I cant compare my rig easily. unless someone has similar specs, and we did a subjective and objective comparison (athlon x2 5600+, 2 GB ram etc etc).

the 74 is $205 so

total system cost is: $3592

btw the system= 4k WITH TAXES.... grrrr ****..
i somehow have to cut like another 200 off...

*and i did notice the pencil thing right away but it wont let me edit.. like it says ur not allowed to edit this page ...

*btw now all of a sudden it is working... before the edit button was at the very top now its down bottom right.. weird i guess thg is fixing some things

The 36gb raptor is just fine for your intended needs and it'll save you some money as well. You could always pick up another one later on for RAID 0 if you find that the single 36gb version isn't enough for you. You also probably don't need a 1000W power supply. I drummed up what you have listed in the power supply calculator with a decent OC on the Q6600 and GTX's and it gave me a suggestion of 772W. 850W PSU should still be more than you need with some room to grow on. As for your pump you could get a swiftech 655 pump it's pretty much the same as the more expensive DD 1/2 inch pump. 1/2 inch tubing will give you better performance especially if you're running your components in a series. Also ditch the resevoir for a T-Line setup that'll save you some money as well. Since you're water cooling you'll want to make sure you have enough air flow for the chipset and PWMs or water cool those components as well. I would also ditch the sound card until you know if you really need it. Stiker Extreme isn't really worth it.