The MoBo has some darn good sound already on board. I'd hold off on buying a sound card until you had a chance to experience it.
Why do you want RAID ? Unless you doing some extreme database apps or just need to have your system boot in half the time, the only thing you are going to see is a miniscule increase in gaming performance.....storagereview showed an increase from 519 to 529 (< 2%) on gaming performance with 2nd drive in RAID 0 added.
http://74.6.146.127/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=RAID+0+storagereview+wiki&fr=moz35&u=faq.storagereview.com/SingleDriveVsRaid0&w=raid+0+storagereview+%22storage+review%22+wiki+wikipedia&d=EdK7Fam4UMU0&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=.21nvsbvKw52_7_mKIzBxw--
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2101
"If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop."
http://www.techwarelabs.com/articl [...] ex_6.shtml
".....we did not see an increase in FPS through its use. Load times for levels and games was significantly reduced utilizing the Raid controller and array. As we stated we do not expect that the majority of gamers are willing to purchase greater than 4 drives and a controller for this kind of setup. While onboard Raid is an option available to many users you should be aware that using onboard Raid will mean the consumption of CPU time for this task and thus a reduction in performance that may actually lead to worse FPS. An add-on controller will always be the best option until they integrate discreet Raid controllers with their own memory into consumer level motherboards."
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1001325
However, many have tried to justify/overlook those shortcomings by simply saying "It's faster." Anyone who does this is wrong, wasting their money, and buying into hype. Nothing more.
http://computer-drives-storage.sui [...] erformance
The real-world performance benefits possible in a single-user PC situation is not a given for most people, because the benefits rely on multiple independent, simultaneous requests. One person running most desktop applications may not see a big payback in performance because they are not written to do asynchronous I/O to disks. Understanding this can help avoid disappointment.
http://www.scs-myung.com/v2/index. [...] om_content
What about performance? This, we suspect, is the primary reason why so many users doggedly pursue the RAID 0 "holy grail." This inevitably leads to dissapointment by those that notice little or no performance gain.....As stated above, first person shooters rarely benefit from RAID 0.__ Frame rates will almost certainly not improve, as they are determined by your video card and processor above all else. In fact, theoretically your FPS frame rate may decrease, since many low-cost RAID controllers (anything made by Highpoint at the tiem of this writing, and most cards from Promise) implement RAID in software, so the process of splitting and combining data across your drives is done by your CPU, which could better be utilized by your game. That said, the CPU overhead of RAID0 is minimal on high-performance processors.
Yes, there are certainly applications that benefit from RAID 0 but gaming is not one of them. For the investment, I think your money would be better spent on a SSD....Intel G2 or the new Vertex 2 when they hit the streets.
As for what HD to pick.....check out the performance charts and pick whatever 500 GB per platter drive performs best under your usage patterns. The WD Black 2 TB is a good choice but at smaller capacities, you are limited to the Seagate 7200.12 or the Spinpoint F3. The 7200.12 excels in gaming, multimedia and pictures whereas the F3 wins at music and movie maker. See the comparisons here (copy past link in manually, link won't work in forum):
(http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/compare,1006.html?prod[2371]=on&prod[2770]=on)
As for PSU, the best buy is the Antec CP-850 which gets a 10.0 performance rating on www.jonnyguru.com and gets an Editor's Choice over at www.silenctPCreview.com But that would require a Antec 1200, P193 or P183 case. Next to that I'd recommend the Antec SG-850 or the Seasonic M12D 850W. Note: that's the M12D not the S12 which is an entirely different class. The Corsair HX-850 is another choice....matches the others electrically but it's not as quiet as the others.
Heat Sink - For performance and ease of installation, the Prolimatech Megahalems fits both criteria. Here's what I'm putting in new builds Mega w/ IC Diamond TIM and twin Scythe PWM fans (make sure ya MoBo can handle the fan wattage). ($95 for the HS, TIM and two PWM fans and a Y cable splitter). If you only going to OC to 3.33 Ghz or so , I'd skip the 2nd fan and the splitter.
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8807/cpu-pro-01/Prolimatech_Megahalems_Rev_B_Intel_CPU_Heatsink_LGA_775_1156_1366_AM2_AM2_AM3_Hot_Item.html
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7038/thr-41/Innovation_Cooling_Diamond_7_Carat_Thermal_Compound_-_15_Grams.html?id=BZWnrfIC
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/10026/fan-639/Scythe_Slip_Stream_120mm_x_25mm_PWM_Fan_-_SY1225SL12LM-P.html?tl=g36c365s936
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8418/cab-150/FrozenCPU_PMW_Y_Splitter_Cable.html
If that's a budget breaker, look at the Xigmatec S1283 or one of the others here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_Heatsinks
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm#INTELHEATSINK
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=371&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=15
With twin GPU's, I'd opt for larger case ....Antec 1200 or HAF 932
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