help with building a new rig

[totdos]

Okay so I'm currently looking at building a new desktop for myself
I have two setup options

First of i could go with:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66 GHz 12mb l2 cach
XFX 780i nforce sli motherboard
2x Asus extreme 9800gtx+ in sli
4 Gb Corsair DDR2 1066 dominator w/fan

or

Intel i7 -920 2.66 GHz
Asus P6T motherboard (which supports 3 way sli and CrossFireX)
Nvidia GTX 280 1Gb ddr3
4Gb GSkill ddr3 1600

I know its a choice between old and new platforms, but with the lga775 setup I would have more graphical capability but with the new i7 setup I would have much room for future upgrades

any input will be appreciated

[Alaron]

Welcome to PCMech.

We always recommend a single video card solution instead of SLI. It is more economical to upgrade to another faster card when you need to then use two older generation cards to try to make the system last longer. I'd go with the second setup (Check out a triple-channel RAM kit of 3 or 6GB instead of 4 though).

[shadowpr]

I also like the second setup a lot more than the first. Agree with Alaron about getting a triple-channel kit.

What power supply?

And don't forget the hd, dvd, os, monitor, speakers, keyboard, and mouse.

[totdos]

well I was looking at a corsair 750watt PSU, I think that would give sufficient power. I wanted to go triple channel ram kit but i didn't know if just 3gig of ram would be sufficient for all the new resource hungry games. HDD goina be two Western Digital Caviar SE 750GB SATA II 3.5LP 16MB 7200rpm, dvd rom Asus BC-1205PT Blu-ray Disc Reader & DVD Writer Combo SATA DVD and monitor is a Acer G24 24" Gaming Monitor 1920x1200 2ms 50000:1, already have a Microsoft sidewinder and Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard, and for sound just gona hook my philips HTS3265 surround sound on it, its 600watt RMS so it does what i need

[glc]

If you are going to put more than 3 gigs of ram in, I'd recommend a 64 bit operating system.

Moved to BYOPC.

[totdos]

I don't know much about patriot ram but I was looking at triple channel ddr3 packages and the patriot viper 3gb package is really well priced ddr3 1600 with latency's of 9-9-9-24, does anyone have any experience with this ram and is it decent?