Building computer for first time, need help

Well, first off, if you want this thing to last 5 years, you might want to consider overclocking at least a little bit. While a 2.6GHz i7 is fast, with some of the games that will probably come out by then, I don't know if it'll be fast enough to keep up. Maybe it will! Perhaps the video cards will make up for it with future offloading technologies

Secondly, why RAID-1? It's good for a mirror image and only protects against a dead hard-drive, but if you get a virus or some other kind of data corruption, it will not protect against that. Thus, RAID-1 for personal use isn't a great idea. You would probably benefit more by just having one as a separate backup. That way if you do end up losing data to a virus or accidental delete, it won't transfer to your backup drive and you can do a quick restore, and you'll have twice the space!

Third, if you're going to have an i7, two 4870 cards, and two HDDs, I recommend at least a 750watt PSU. It looks like with your selection of parts, at 100% load, you'll be using 570watts which is beyond the recommended load for optimal efficiency on your current PSU. You would do better with something like a PC Power and Cooling 750 Quad. With that PSU, you won't have to do any load-balancing either because it's a single 60amp +12v rail. And if you do decide to overclock even slightly (the stock cooler is enough for 3 to 3.2GHz, depending on ambient temps), you'll definitely need the extra wattage.

Yea you will probably benefit from the additional read performance in loading games. But if you go with RAID-0, it's not that it doubles the chances that a drive will die (as if RAID-0 kills drives faster), but if one of the drives does fail, you lose the entire array. If you already have a backup drive you could safely RAID-0 and just backup your stuff on the NAS. That way you get read/write performance and double the space.

The stock HSF is not that bad. I had mine overclocked to 3.2GHz in a room at about 65F with stock and it ran relatively cool around 60C fully loaded. I did just upgrade to a Thermalright True Black with a 109CFM 120mm fan though, and my PSU comes in today so I can't wait to see how that performs. If your room is pretty warm, you could probably still do a 3GHz overclock without a problem. The biggest issue with overclocking and heat is when you start increasing the voltage, and at 3 or even 3.2GHz you won't be doing that, especially if you get a D0 stepping chip.

Good luck with your rig, sounds like a winner

Spend $300-$400 on a case/psu/dvd drive/HD and $600-700 on a mobo/ram/cpu/gpu now. Bank the rest, put it in a 2-3year GIC,Tbill,bond whatever. Upgrade when the investments have matured. Thats the only way a gaming budget has any chance of being useful after years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_3 Doom 3 came out in 2004 (5 years ago) and it crushed hardware.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2156&p=5 Read this Anandtech article and see what a top of the line system cost back then

Top of the line August 2004 Doom 3 box (doesn't include HD, DVD Drive, Case, PSU)
AMD Athlon 64 FX53 (2.4GHz) $825
MSI K8N Neo2 $120
Gigabyte GV-N68U256D 256MB GeForce 6800 Ultra $525
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (7.1) $80
2GB (2 X 1024MB) OCZ PC3200 EB $600
Total ~$2200 (not adjusting to account for inflation and spending power)

What does this system play now? Nothing, lol. But your upgrading along the way.

This is the best non-cripped i7 system:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115202 LGA 1366 i7 920 $290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128375 Giga UD3R X58 $210 - $15MIR (xfire)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227381 OCZ DDR3 1600 3x2GB $110 - $20MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827129032 LG DVD Drive $25
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136284 WD 1TB FALS $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129042 Antec 300 Case $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341010 OCZ 600W PSU $70 - $20MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 83%3A20729 1GB 4870 $200 - $30MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6812887001 6pin adapters $3 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233029 Xigma Dark Knight $40 (Intel specific)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835186020 Artic MX-2 Thermal Compound $7

$1130 - $85MIR

Add a second 4870 a year from now when they are $100.
The PSU could use an upgrade to http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703009 PCP&C 750W $125 - $25MIR 4x6pin.
The motherboard could be upgraded to either:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131359 Asus P6T x58 $240 (SLI/xfire)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128374 Giga UD4P x58 $270 - $20MIR (SLI/xfire)
Just so you have nvidia and ati support.

Good Combos if you want a beefire GPU and SLI/xfire support:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.173430 Gigabyte UD4P and GTX 285 $580 - $50MIR ($30 combo discount)
If you want a better case at a discount price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.165527 CM Storm Sniper with i7920 $410 ($30 combo discount)

The onboard does 7.1 as well. I don't trust creative sound cards. Up until recently, I always support sound blaster/creative sound but their support has always been garbage. From supporting new OS, driver support, to remeding issues in games and having good support for their tech.

I've found that onboard sound has always been a hassle free experience, while the card maybe cheap it probably give little return and potenial headache in the future.

I have heard of strange driver problems with some sound cards. I agree with MykC on trying the onboard 7.1 sound first. Any cpu savings on an i7 cpu will be negligible. Installing an add-on card later will make certain that any new problems are related to the sound card and not the basic build. Who knows, it might work just fine for you.

I would not start off with a crossfire configuration when there are single card options available at similar performance. Use a single 4870X2 instead, or even a single GTX285 or GTX295.
At upgrade time, you then have choices; either add another equal card, or sell your old top end card and replace it whith the then newest and greatest.

It is not clear to me that raid-1 will help performance. Writes, such as automatic saves will be slower. Reading from a single task might not be faster.
If 300gb will do, look into the WD velociraptor. It is currently the fastest conventional drive around.

Alternatively look at the intel X25-M SSD

I would install a decent oem cpu cooler during the initial build. It does not cost much. I hate to remove a mobo later from a working system to reinstall a cpu.
Your system will run cooler, and quieter. Any overclocking you may want(3.3?) will be easy with an oem cooler.

wow whos the loser who gave me a thumb down for giving advice

Well I'll probably hit purchase on newegg monday morning. Thanks for all the help! I'll probably post again when I have problems putting it together lol.