Am I on the right track?

[Leif2006]

Ok so I started this build about three months ago and wanted a do it all entertainment PC that could take the place of any console gaming, blu ray, and regular PC tasks,(and I wanted it all hooked up to my new 55 inch LED)... not bragging just trying to show you how excited I was about all this. so I put back little by little and research hours on end only to find everything I want to do contradicting itself. basically to use the full potiental of high end cards I need a High end monitor (but my tv is soo big lol that was the point!!!) so I decided to build a cheaper HTPC later on and for now go for triple display wich in the end I have come to realize is the only thing that will satisfy my want... so lets get started.

BUDGET about 1000 more not including monitors we'll wait on those and just use my TV for now

I currently have
CASE: Thermal take armor plus
PSU: antec 750 watt modular 80% cert
BLU RAY: LG BLU RAY writer
RAM: OCZ tri channel 6 gigs (3x2)
MOBO: gigabyte ud3r x58A
Periphials: MOUSE: Gigabyte mx8000
KEYBOARD: siatek cyborg
All were bought from new egg exept the key board. now I have some questions about the following hardware I am going to buy the I7 930 and was wondering what graphic cards to go with. At first I wanted 2 MSI HAWK 5770's, but I'm not sure if buying an AMD GPU and an Intell CPU will cause problems with drivers and such. I know everyone sais its fine but it kind of scares me relieing on competitors to be compatible. as for the storage I wanted to run two vilociraptors in raid, but I wasnt sure wether to do it on the sata 2 control or the sata 3 controller as I have heard bad things about the marvell chip. and I'm most definately going with liquid cooling and overclocking the bejesus out of that 930, and after all that is finished I'll add another ram kit to bump it up to twelve gigs.
thank you all soooo kuch, I didnt mean to write a book.

 

[Leif2006]

oh yeah and I'm gnna run Win7 64 and dual boot linux.

 

[COLGeek]

First things, first. You absolutely DO NOT need to worry about compatibility between Intel CPUs and ATI or Nvidia GPUs. Not sure of your sources, but they are beyond wrong.

That being said, you other concern areas are more subjective. Going RAID is a no brainer, but up to you. Make sure you understand the limitations (and benefits) of RAID (a much more detailed discussion than can be answered here).

SATA 2 or 3 is somewhat academic, mechanical HDDs can't saturate a SATA 2 connection as it is now. Going to SATA3 is of little value unless you are going to use SDDs. Here, I recommend you save a few $$$ and go SATA2.

Liquid cooling is cool (no pun intended), just double, no triple check everything before you add liquid to your beast.

Good luck!

 

[Leif2006]

No one has ever told me not to mix intel and ATI I just worry about down the road with support and what not, and if I'm just being rediculous, I'm still not sure if Nvidia offers a better Performance/price ratio at 380$'s than two 5770's

I understand raid as well as one can without getting there hands dirty with it, basically my delima is with the marvel chip. I understand sata three is faster than mechanicly possible for HDD's as of now, so if I go with HHD's I would go raptors in raid 0 on the sata 2 ports, but if i do go with the sata 3 I want to run two SSD's in raid , but I have heard bad things about the sata 3 in raid on my mobo(which uses the marvel chip) and I have also heard raid 0 is pointless with SSD'd because they already stripe data internally. so basically if two SSD's would be faster then I would go with that. my first gut instinct was two small SSD's with sata 3 in raid 0 with an internal drive for schedule backups for the OS, and then four small raptors in raid 1+0 for programs and then a large external drive for media, mind you that MOBO has enough sata ports to run a server so I might as well use it. to break it down:
2 Crucial RealSSD C300 2.5" 64GB sataIII MLC+280$
1 WD 500GIG drive I already own for the back up of the SSD's (i realize this wont protect drives just the data)
4 WD velociraptor 150 I already own two so this comes out to about 260 dollars for all my games and such
and I have A 1TB external drive for media
U think I can beat that performance for 550$'s?

 

[COLGeek]

Sounds like a good plan. You should have a pretty solid storage solution. 2 5770s will perform well also, but I forgot to ask earlier..What resolution do you plan to game at?

You might want to consider a 5850 for now and add another one later if you need it. Great cost/performance ratio especially at up to 1920x1080.

 

[Leif2006]

Best answer selected by Leif2006.

 

[Leif2006]

probably 1920x1080

 

[COLGeek]

Will be a rockin' system. Have fun!