Intend to mainly use the computer for gaming. Secondary uses will be: (1) poker (.net legal sites of course), (2) listening to music on i-tunes, (3) some Word processing for work, and (4) watching some movies (when wife kicks me out of the family room).
My monitor is a carryover and is 20in Dell LCD (not widescreen).
I kind of agree on the Maxtor but I got it for the low price of free, so decided to go with it. I have an external WD drive that I will use to back it up. Because I knew was going to use that drive for media, I decided to spring for the Raptor for system and games. I agree, I don't need the Raptor and it is probably the most frivilous thing in the build, but since the other drive was free I kind of justified it to myself.
As far as the CPU I condidered three: (1) E2160, (2) E6750, and (3) Q6600. I may want a Penryn about 18 months so I did not want to spend too much and feel guilty about getting rid of what i have so that eliminated the Q6600. I actually strongly considered the E2160 b/c of its overclock potential. In the end I decided on middle of the road. BTW - picked up a Thermalright Ultima-90 for CPU cooling.
The potential to get a Penryn someday also dictated the motherboard choice - wanted the Asus x38 for the 1600 FSB. I also really liked all the fan headers on the Maximus. However, its a bummer that there is no eSATA. Finally, the PCI Express 2.0 seems like a good thing but might turn out to be a waste - hard to say at this point.
I considered the Foxconn x38a because it has both ddr2 and ddr3, but seriously, do I want Foxconn?
Also got the EVGA video card so maybe can step up 90 days from now if I do not like this card, or something tons better is out.
The power supply will fit - the Cosmos case is gynormous. It has already arrived and seriously, its almost too big but I like all the cool features. Hopefully will be quiet too - my last computer sounds like a hair dryer and I can't take it any more.
The A-Data RAM is a bit of a concern - never really heard about them but the Newegg reviews were good. Anyway, I got 4GB DDR2 800 for $70 after rebate so decided to roll the dice. I almost got the Patriot Extreme 4GB DDR2 800 (cas latency 4) but this stuff was $100 less.
So much about building a computer seems like a crap shoot. You do research but in the end it seems like little more than educated guessing.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and let me know if you have others.