Mid-High end System, OC intent

[joedhiggins]

1 x Thermaltake Kandalf VD4000BWS Black Chassis: 1.0mm SECC Front door: Aluminum ATX / BTX Tower Computer Case - Retail -- 279.99

1 x Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping Kentsfield 2.40GHz 8MB L2 LGA 775 Processor Retail BX80562Q6600 SLACR -- 275.49
(from clubit.com, a retailer I am not familiar with, any advice on retailer that guarantees G0 would be appreciated)

1 x GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R INTEL P35 CHIPSET ATX FORM FACTOR -- 127.00

2 x CRUCIAL BALLISTIX TRACER BL2KIT12864AL804 2GB KIT (1GB x 2) MATCH PAIR PC26400 800MHZ 4-4-4-12 240-PIN DDR2 DIMM W/HEAT SPREADER -- 227.00 (113.50 each)

4 x WD 750GB 7500AAKS STAT2 16MB 7200RPM HDD (Bare drive) -- 759.60 (189.90 each)
(I may drop this down to 2 drives and run raid 0, backing up everything onto externals; else I will run in raid 10, I still haven't decided)

1 x EVGA 640-P2-N825-AR GF8800GTS SUPERCLOCKED 640MB DDR3 PCI-Express w/HDCP DVI+DVI+HDTVOut ROHS -- 379.90
(I am planning on using eVGA's step up to grab the new generation of nvidia cards when they are released)

1 x SAMSUNG SH-S203B/BEBN Black 20X DOUBLE LAYER DVD+/-RW SATA DRIVE w/Software (Bare drive) -- 31.99

2 x SAMSUNG 22" 226BW WIDESCREEN 1680X1050 1000:1 (DC 3000:1) 2MS VGA DVI -- 609.34 (304.67 each)
(alternately: SAMSUNG 21.6" 216BW WIDESCREEN 1680X1050 1000:1 (DC 3000:1) 5MS VGA DVI which I can pick up for 245.00 each, I can't really see a disadvantage here, I would appreciate anyone with experience with either of these giving advice)

1 x ANTEC QUATTRO 850 850W TRUEPOWER QUATTRO ATX 12V / EPS12V RoHS & 80PLUS CERTIFIED UL & FCC POWER SUPPLY -- 172.50

Total Price: 2862.81

I am essentially going to be using this for workstation (3d/video/etc.)/ and for gaming. As both of these are hobbies, I weight them about equally. To facilitate this, I am considering dual or triple boot with XP 64, Vista 32 (and V64 as a possible third), but I am open to advice in this area.

I may drop in a BLU/HDDVD at a later date, but so far the implementation for these technologies seems somewhat poor.

A couple of other questions:

Is SLI worth considering for this setup?

Does the LCS on the case I am looking at provide enough cooling to make it woth going that route over the high end air cooling systems?

I plan on overclocking, are there any considerations I am overlooking?

I can essentially spend as much as I care to on the system, but I am somewhat price conscious, I don't want to spend frivolously. So any advice on components to upgrade would be appreciated (For me, spending 1000 on a video card that will net a 10% or smaller performance gain is not reasonable; however I am willing to consider alternate options if the price/performance increase is reasonable).

I have looked over toms latest guides, and have taken some points from them to improve my prior build. Any comments/criticism/help is greatly appreciated.

Joe

 

[akhilles]

http://www.tankguys.com/product_info.php?products_id=1712

They guarantee G0.

I'd get 2 x Seagate 500GB SATAII for about a hundred bucks each.

The Antec PSU is how much? This psu for example has a rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341003

You will def. need a 3rd-party cpu cooler to o/c the q6600. Freezer 7 Pro would be the minimum.

Some say SLI is worth it if both cards are top of the line. i.e. GTX or ULTRA. IMO, sli is worth it if you can save, say, about 15% of the cost of a single card that has similiar performance. To SLI, you need to factor in power consumption, space, heat & noise.

 

[joedhiggins]

The case I am considering has built in water cooling, not sure if it performs well enough for serious OC, but I have read some positive reviews.

 

[cory1234]

Ok, I would highly recommend getting a 8800gtx and then still using the setup program if you want to upgrade later for a $2800 build. Just to let you know evga's "setup" prices are never close to the street prices..always at least $100 higher.(They want $600 for the "regular" 8800gtx..and dont even think about the ultra..its like $900 on there.) And if you get seagates 500gb drives for $100 you can get more GB for cheaper.

 

[joedhiggins]

I love Seagate, but based on what I have read on tom's about the WDs (high end pricing guide) they seem to be the fastest SATAs around (supposedly they beat out the 10k raptors). I am a stickler for I/O performance, even the fastest of hardware seems sluggish when pared with a slow HD, I hate waiting for programs to load/files to open, etc. If anyone can link a good comparison for I/O performance between these two drives, I would be very grateful.

 

[joedhiggins]

Anyone know how well that kandalf LCS case performs, is it worth the price?

 

[Kabobi]

dont know about the Kandalf LCS, but the Water cooled P180 or 182 is quite nice. However, i've never personally owned one, just heard good things about it.