Random upgrades, etc

Not really sure where to place this, so here'll work.

so Christmas is approaching and ive decided to get some new goodies

So here's what Ive got in mind:

4GB DDR2 1066 ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145214

Monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009127

Hard Drive
The one I currently have has a bad sector and is also really slow, so I'm getting the WD black series drives. The question is whether or not I should go for a RAID system, since I'm looking for speed, not capacity. So, I was planning on 2x 640GB drives. The other question is about how many platters the drives have.

500GB=2x250GB platters
640GB=2x320GB platters
750GB=2x375GB platters

the 375GB platters dont make much sense to me, so I was wondering if the 750 GB drive is in fact not 2 platters but three? But yeah, is RAID a good idea? Again, I want speed, not huge capacity.

I could consider a raptor, but kind of hesitant about the noise.

other info: (if necessary)

AMD 6000+ 125W TDP
asus m2n sli deluxe
2GB corsair PC6400
radeon 4850
thermaltake 750W modular PSU
WD 160 GB drive: bad sector
awesome MX revolution mouse

750GB = 3 250GB platters. The 640GB drives with 2 platters have slightly higher performance values.
"Friends don't let friends use RAID" Minor performance gains vs potential for major disaster.
Unless your 2GB DDR2 800 is 4 sticks of 512MB it probably makes more sense to stay with DDR2. The different between DDR2 800 and DDR2 1066 is very very slim.

if you use 3ds max a lot, you should go with as much memory the board can take, the memory you have chosen is good

i would suggest looking into performance numbers for a phenom x4 in 3ds max
you may get better render times with a quad core

as for the monitor, i would suggest skipping a 19" and going to 22" instead
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009145
higher resolution, way better for max