I would like to get as many suggestions (alternitives) as possible for a graphics work station only (no mon., speakers, etc...). The budget is $1500.00, but of course would like to spend less. The cpu and mobo are about the only things I have almost written in stone. I know the cpu cooler i have chosen is a monster and would greatly appreciate an alternative to it (air cooled). Also, I am not sure if the psu is big enough.
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] WD6401AALS - $75.00 (sys drive) going to split this drive in half and install XP Pro 64 bit and win 7 rc 64 bit
For a graphics workstation, I think you're right about the PSU not being big enough. Not sure what workstation class video cards draw, but I doubt they would be less than the standard gaming graphics cards. For your hard drives, why not just go with 2 1TB caviar blacks? the price difference isn't huge, and the larger drive will perform slightly better than it's smaller counterpart.
As for partitioning for both win 7 and xp pro 64, Can't you just use the win 7 RC with the XP virtualization mode for your needs? it's a bit more flexible and you have access to you win 7 stuff at the same time as your xp programs are running, without needing to restart.
http://lifehacker.com/5331599/wind [...] -windows-7
When the public release comes out, just upgrade to win 7 pro (which I assume you already plan to do) as this will be sure to have the xp mode feature. Don't think home premium win 7 will. The only issue is that you will need a valid XP license, so you'll still have to get that.