another new build thread

[manhattan]

its been a while since i built a machine & i must admit im a little out of touch with computer components. managaed to pick what i want but was just hoping someone could have a look over & tell me if i should change anything. dont really wanna spend too much more than this if possible, it comes to about £1000 (not including cables, monitor, keyboard mouse & speakers).

Gonna be running vista ultimate. used for image processing, occasional 3d modelling & the odd bit of gaming.

Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7
Asus P5N-T motherboard
(or)
Asus Maximus Formula motherboard (not decided which one yet)
Corsair 4Gb DDR2
Corsair 650W ATX PSU
Asus GeForce EN8800 (8800 gt @ 600Mhz)
3 x Western Digital SATA-II 320Gb (RAID 5 Setup)

as far as i can tell it should all work well together, the only thing im slightly concerned about is wether that freakin huge heatsink & fan will fit into the case. Also id like some advice on which motherboard to go with.
a friend recommended me getting a raptor drive for the os. will it make much difference?

any comments / advice is greatly welcomed

[shadowpr]

Well, unless you plan on overclocking, I wouldn't bother with the cpu heatsink. Just use the one that comes with the retail processor.

[Katreat]

Sounds like this is a work machine more than a gamer so I agree with shadow, just stick with the stock heatsink. You dont want to OC a work machine and that case is known for good air cooling so dont think you will have any problems.

You need something to load your OS. Most people are having good luck with Lite-on burners (sata) these days and if you buy retail you get Nero for a couple of extra bucks.

Have never worked with either of those Mobos so wont comment on that.

The newer HD with 16 and 32 MB caches have made raptors less attractive. In tests they are still slower but the gap is no longer very big and most people will not notice the defference. Raptors are also expensive and small in size.

Also as a final comment recognize that any 32 bit system will only see approximately 3.2 GB of ram so if you want you computer to recognize all 4 GB you will need to use Vista 64.

Kat

[manhattan]

thanks for the feedback guys its much appreciated. i think im almost ready to start purchasing now but if someone could give me some advice on the mobo that'd be great

[shadowpr]

If I had to choose between those two, I would get the Maximus Formula unless you plan on using SLI. But if I could choose something entirely different, I would go with a P5K-E. It's cheaper, and think it will serve you well.