2700 Budget:

4870s are in stock now.
No- 1200 RAM does not benefit you at all unless you overclock to that high.
PSU is fine.

Water cooling is a waste. Don't bother.

Why 2 4870s? How big is your monitor? If it is under 1920x1200 resolutions you don't need the 2nd one.

Why RAID? Unless you are doing something that video editing or other operation that requires large drive writes RAID will not help you but doubles your chances of failure and data loss.

I disagree! Watercooling is awesome. I have been watercooling for about 4 years now, and I love it. The silence and performance are beautiful. Plus the 4870 runs hot......and generally this is bad for regular cooling, it also usually indicates that if you can take away that heat (with superior cooling like watercooling), then you should be able to get some really high overclocks.

Only thing with watercooling is that it takes time to learn what works well, and what doesn't. There are also many ways to save money, while maximizing your cooling.

DrakeConnar, where are you anyways? If you live near the Toronto area, I would be happy to assist you in your project and give you a few pointers.

Let me resend me statement and try again:

Low-end Watercooling is a waste. Don't bother. Now if you want to spend $300-400 for a setup, it is awesome.

Why do you guys say watercooling is a waste? My current set-up has a Thermochill 120.2PA and I'm able to reach 4.1 Ghz on a pentium D. I felt that this was the only thing that has kept my computer competitive thus far. I havn't tried overclocking on air though so maybe the gains between a zalman and my water aren't as extream as I thought they were two years ago.

I'm in Dayton Ohio so thanks for the offer, but I should be fine putting this together once I know what parts I want.

And when you guys say 775 is dead how big of a difference is Nehalem going to make? The problem is I wanted to build this system back in April, but kept putting it off because of the new video cards... I'm really getting tired of playing games and only getting 20fps on high with my Ati 1900xtx. I can't stand to play for more than an hour before getting a headache.

My current resolution is 1680 by 1050. I should be fine with a single card for now, but I do plan on upgrading my monitor before my System. I would prefer one video card so I can purchase just one waterblock. I would get the GTX280 if it came down $100. I guess the 4870x2 if I waited for the new processors, but like I said: I'm getting a headache with the low FPS from the latest Gen games.  

Don't listen to the 775 is dead nonsense. Nehalem is only going to the in the Extreme end until mid 2009. 775 will be around until at least end of 2009 in the value segment.

Buy a system now get whatever you want. Unless you are a once a year upgrade type waiting for Nahalem makes little sense. Ignore anyone who tells you otherwise.

GTX280 is a bad value even at $100 less. Avoid that card completely.

Thanks for the reply duck. I'm still a bit concerned about the watercooling debate. I'll have to research that some more. I always felt it made a substantial difference for the ~300 I put into it, but here I am having to upgrade after two years anyways...

I would like to know how high average clocks on air vs water are and what the gains are. Any ideas on where I can get info like this? I'll search overclock forums in the mean time.

Overclocks depends more on the CPU you get then the cooling used. I don't mean which CPU (Q6600,Q9450 etc)- I mean your exact CPU you will out of the box. There are some Q6600s that will not get above 3.2 on air water or cooking oil. There are some that on water hit 4.3. Mine goes 3.6 on air so I would assume I got a good one.

Q9450 is built on a 45nm process which allows the CPU to run cooler. This should enable slightly better overclocks then the Q6600. However, the first gen Q6600 (B3 stepping) was a terrible O/Ced compared to the new one (G0 stepping).

Even at stock the Q9450 is a blazing fast CPU. Unless you are a benchmark junkie the performance gains seen above 3.6GHz really start to fade out.

More and more I'm thinking Air. That watercool setup there cost $512 and in Lieu of it I could buy a second or third 4870. I think the performance gain of having another video card would exceed the gain of overclocking slightly higher.

So my next question. What's the best Air cooler for the Q9450? I've seen the XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 get thrown around. Thanks!

You found the correct answer sir.

Thanks for the help you've given Duck.

I see that you recommend the 800 DDR2 4-4-4-12 over the 1066 5-5-5-1x. All of the arguements I read tend to agree with you that the difference is nothing and the price is cheaper. However that OCZ platinum 1066 on sale really has me drooling  . What do you suppose I can clock the Corsair 800s at? And will they keep their timings?  

I use G.Skill RAM in my builds. Tight timings and runs cool.

OCZ DDR 1066 has voltage issues on quite a few motherboards. It is a good deal though. Just be aware you might have to troubleshoot a bit.