Several building concerns / questions

[Halcyon]

Hello all,

First time builder checking in!

After spending couple days lurking the board, especially this section of forums, many of my initial questions have already been answered. However there are couple issues I would like opinion / help on.

First, list of planned parts. Feel free to comment!

Lian Li PC-S80 case or Thermaltake Armor

Geforce 8800 GTX (brand yet to be determined, thinking EVGA)

Asus Striker Extreme motherboard. (May get another 8800 later, thus SLI mobo)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU

G.Skill 2GB Dual Kit DDR2-800 F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK 4-4-4-12 (Maybe 2 of these for 4GB)

Western Digital Raptor 150GB OR WD 320 GB, Caviar RE2, 3.5", SATAII/300, 16MB, 7200RPM

Samsung DVD+-RW Dual Layer, SH-S182M, 18x8x5x, LightScribe

Tuniq tower HSF OR Scythe Ninja

Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU OR BQuiet Darkpower 850W PSU

Purpose is general use including newest games and eventually mild overclocking.

Currently biggest concern is hard drive setup. I am thinking between 2 Raptors in RAID 0 (with accepting risk of data loss) , or 4 regular 7200rpm Western Digitals or Seagates in RAID 0+1, or if budget goes tight just single raptor for OS and one big slower drive for storage and one later for Linux / dual boot. Lots of folks on forum have said RAID is waste of time / money so I dont want to do it if there isnt any benefit in practise. Any thoughts?

Another concern is first time boot up. Does BIOS detect CPU settings / voltages / memory latency / timing automatically or do I need to input them manually on first POST?

I am probably getting Vista, so I am thinking if 2GB of RAM is enough. Any ideas?

Tuniq tower looks very massive HSF. Any experience if it fits on Asus Striker? (or other good recommendable mobo? )

Many thanks in advance!

[sgtspector]

If you are worried about data loss don't bother with raid. It's not worth the trouble with a desktop machine. Get a reliable backup program (Acronis True Image works great so far for me) and an external hard drive and use them. Also your choice of optical drives is going to be panned by many members. I have no bad expereince personally with Samsung but many here will tell you avoid Samsung. Liteon is a popular and economical choice. Good Luck and welcome to PCMech.

[Staren]

Ok since you are looking at such a high powered system, I'll comment on each part. Keep in mind this is a major system. A LOT more powerful then what we even consider a high end gaming rig. With that said, welcome to PCMech.

Lian Li PC-S80 case or Thermaltake Armor

\\ Go with what you like. Cases are personal choice really.

Geforce 8800 GTX (brand yet to be determined, thinking EVGA)

\\ First for brand, might as well go EVGA. There a respected brand for nVidia cards and you
\\ can't really go wrong. Now for the long part. I don't think you understand quite how
\\ powerful of a jump these cards are. We've had a first hand account on these boards saying
\\ that even with one GTX, the system is bottlenecked at the CPU. To balance one of these
\\ things to get everything out of it you pretty much need a Core 2 Duo E6700 or better and
\\ a 22" monitor running at high resolutions. Unless all your gong for is benchmarks and
\\ bragging rights, you
\\ don't need SLI.

Asus Striker Extreme motherboard. (May get another 8800 later, thus SLI mobo)

\\ If you have money to burn, ok. But fair warning: we have not seen testing of this thing yet. \\ There might be glitches we don't know about.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU

\\ Nice CPU. It's the best price vs. power prosessor for gaming right now. But as I said, if you
\\ really are going ultra high end it will not match the video card. For a more moderate rig with
\\ a budget it's as good as you're going to get, but if you're going this nuts anyway, I'd get a
\\ more balanced processor. When you're dropping this much money, whats another $100?

G.Skill 2GB Dual Kit DDR2-800 F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK 4-4-4-12 (Maybe 2 of these for 4GB)

\\ Some people might talk you out of G.Skill to Corsair XMS or OCZ, personally I think they're
\\ fine. As of right now, 2GB is the sweet spot. Unless you're doing video work, you don't
\\ really need more. You can add more later.

Western Digital Raptor 150GB OR WD 320 GB, Caviar RE2, 3.5", SATAII/300, 16MB, 7200RPM

\\ None of the above. I'd go with a Seagate 7200.10. More then fast enough.

Samsung DVD+-RW Dual Layer, SH-S182M, 18x8x5x, LightScribe

\\ The general view here is stay away from Samsung drives. Just not been all that reliable.
\\ Look at Lite-On.

Tuniq tower HSF OR Scythe Ninja

\\ Don't know enough about specalty heatsinks and fans to comment.

Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU OR BQuiet Darkpower 850W PSU

\\ Enermax is a name I know and I'd probobly trust it over the BQuiet, but I haven't seen any
\\ testing on the nuclear reactor substitute power supplies. I'd see what the review sites say
\\ first.

[Katreat]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU Geforce 8800 GTX (brand yet to be determined, thinking EVGA) Asus Striker Extreme motherboard. (May get another 8800 later, thus SLI mobo)

I have to agree with Staren on this one. SLI is not really an upgrade path, you can almost always do better with a single more powerful card. But it is a viable “performance” increase if you are willing to pay the price. The problem is from every review I have read the cards are currently so powerful that as Staren commented, your processor will bottleneck you. So, If you are going for bragging rights go all the way and throw an Extreme QX6700 in there so that second card is for more than just show.

[Mr.Ferrari]

Are you ordering from the UK? (takin a guess as you dont see BeQuiet! over here in the US)

Everything looks good..you dont have to spend that much on a SLI motherboard, but it is fine.

I personally trust Corsair the most for ram.

For the powersupply, I would stay away from the Darkpower series. They are I believe* based on Topower units. Which aren't the best for high end systems.

The Enermax is better. Still not the best. You dont really need 1000w. The 850w versions should be quieter and more then you need.