New Build - Anyone else running this? Pointers?

FINAL BUILD SPECS:

- Antec 900 Gaming Case

- ABS Tagan BZ800w PSU

- ASUS Striker II Formula 780i

- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz 6MB L2

- Tuniq 120LFB CPU fan

- Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800 2GB (2x1GB)

- eVGA nForce 8800GTX

- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 32MB cache HDD

- Samsung SH-203N 20x DVD (DL) burner with Light Scribe

- Mitsumi Floppy+Media Reader

- 2 x SATA II data/power cables, an extra 120mm crystal/blue led fan, and a free 1GB flash drive

- Dell Ultra Sharp 2208WFP (best bang for the buck @ $292 to my door)

- Dell AS501 Sound Bar

- XP Pro

Total Price: $1900 (Including all taxes and shipping, and minus rebates)



-Sauv

- eVGA nForce 8800GTX x2

They've been around for quite some time now and i don't think there good value for money at the moment. You would be better off with 2x 8800GT's and save a lot more money, which means better keyboard + mouse + sound


- WD 150GB Raptor HDD

Over rated in my opinion, just stick with a standard 7200rpm hard drive.

by the way your thinking of getting a Q6600 to 3.6ghz air cooled on a 780i? that's quite a tall order, the 780i runs very hot by the way.

After reading through numerous tests and reviews I settled in on the GTX's for their performance. For any gaming computer the video cards in the system is what makes the system. I feel they will be worth the $820.

Not to mention since I have been gaming for a little bit now I have already acquired the peripherals I plan on using with this build.

As for the HDD.... I may still be swayed to something different before I buy next week. I am going through each piece again to verify that is what I want to go with.

I am reading about what can be done with the Q66 on the 780i right now. Hopefully I can pull off the 3.6 on air.

3 years ago Raptors were head and shoulders above a standard 7200RPM HD in terms of performance. Thats no longer true. And MOST gaming rigs do not contain Raptors. And its a very small bang for a very large buck.
These days you're much better off with a fast 500GB or WD 750GB AAKS $150.
You can check actual performance comparisons here.

Get a single GTX. SLI GTX @ 1680x1050 max resolution on your Dell 2208WFP won't give you the performance boost I think you expect they will. I would have suggested SLI GTXs for a 24" 1920x1200 monitor.

Get Vista32 instead of XP Pro and double your RAM to 4GB.

Did you settle on a CPU cooling solution yet?

I am Air Cooling my system, hence the cpu air cooler in the specs I posted.

I am not getting Vista until they finish working out the bugs (if that ever happens, can you say Windows ME?)

4GB of ram on a 32-bit system and one 768MB card (as you suggest) I would be wasting at least 1GB of it (for XP) or more (for Vista). As a 32-bit system can only utilize 4GB of memory system-wide, why would I not go for 3GB on a single vidcard setup, or 2GB running dual SLI?

As for the dual cards on my 22" monitor, I am still looking into it, but so far the reports I have seen show there is a pretty substantial improvement, even at my native resolution.

Its true that you'd only see ~3.3GB of RAM under Vista32. But the price difference between 4GB (4x1GB) and 3GB (2x1GB+2x512MB) is only about ~$25. Instead of "wasting" 1GB - I like to think you have a spare 1GB stick of RAM in case any one stick fails you can run 2GB dual channel.

Buying XP Pro and then getting Vista (when the bugs are worked out? with SP1 maybe - in a few more weeks)?
What Vista bugs are you concerned about? Usually only systems with older, legacy parts that don't have Vista drivers or poor early Vista drivers for some budget hardware caused problems. Have you seen many people complaining about Vista being loaded on their new gaming systems lately?

@ WR2

Its actually more like 3.2G with Vista because it chews up almost 800M when you have over 2GB of RAM. Then you take out the 768M of video ram.

I don't here people complaining about Vista on their gaming rigs, because nobody I know that games uses it. I do here everyone of my friends and family that have Vista and don't game complaining daily about all sorts of fun things.

I also don't have to buy XP as I already have a retail copy laying around here from when I updated my old computer about 7 years ago. Its only Home edition, but it will work.

Also, from what I have seen and heard, there is no reason (gaming-wise) to go with more than 2GB of RAM on XP.

I am editing my OP to show the new items I have settled on, on would still love some help in regards to what I should do with the mobo.

I should mention that I am still undecided if I want 2 vid cards. Though I would really like that option in the future. I also would prefer getting a mobo that has the new 45nm support and PCIe 2.0. I also realize that the new 780i boards that are coming out will probably be getting replaced in the distant future once they make better integration of the 2.0.

So I am really at a standstill. I wouldn't mind getting the new ASUS Striker II formula, and could do so, without buying the second vid card right now. This would leave me upgrading options in the future (like the 2nd vid card, and maybe a physics card if they are ever worth it).

I am also considering a p35 board, to save money and keep the box cooler. Not worrying about future-proofing it, just getting the most for my money right now.