Help Me Pick Out My New System

Krummith

It's about that time again for me, time to upgrade the old system. I thought I'd post what I was thinking of getting, to see if anyone had any suggestions or noticed any glaring flaws that I've missed.

The List:
EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel X 2
Thermaltake Toughpower W0128RU ATX12V / EPS12V 650W Power Supply
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 X 2
Western Digital Caviar SE WD5000AAJS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive X 3
Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS Black Full Tower Case w/ 25CM Fan
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model LH-20A1L-06

Any suggestions are welcome!

xThanatoSx

Given the power requirements of that system, is the 650w definitely going to be enough?

Other than that - looks pretty sweet.

mastman

You can't tell me you need 1.5 TB-- or are you RAIDing those bad boys?

gneGne

First of all why would you want the 8600GTS in SLi? SLi is something you use when you got a lot of cash to blow to do crazy things like 2x 8800GTX... with mid-range videocards it's not interesting at all since you can buy one card that will be faster + cheaper. I suggest buying the 8800GT 512mb, this thing just eats everything.
Furthermore, I think that 2x750GB harddrives will be more sufficient and probably cheaper.

Finally,
I wouldn't go for a 680i mobo anymore... Try looking at the P35 series like the abit P35-Pro (reviewed)
The E6850 is not really interesting imo... get either the Q6600(about same price?) or the cheaper E6750.
Corsair HX520 is a popular and reliable power supply, switch your thermaltake to that.
Change your DVD burner to the new Samsung 203B, the newest and best out there right now.

EDIT: overlooked a few things + 8800gt seems to be in stock

saltiness

Unless something has changed very recently, SLI is epic fail economically speaking. It's usually only a 20% or so increase in performance for twice the price. Why not just get the 8800GT which is apparently beating out the 8800GTS for less than $300.

Krummith

t xThanatoSx: That is one of the things I was unsure about

t mastman: I was going to RAID them, I have another 500gb that I was going to throw into the mix, also I use a lot of drive space. I do a lot of audio conversion (Analog to Digital, Vinyl, Reel To Reel, that sorta stuff)

t gneGne: Doesn't the corsair seem a little puny at 520W? Definitely looking at the Samsung! Thanks!


t gneGne & saltiness: I hadn't really compared ratings of single cards vs. SLI'd cards. I was surprised that in the rating charts at Tom's Hardware there wasn't much difference between the single card and dual ones. Time to scrap that!

gneGne

Krummith wrote: »

t gneGne: Doesn't the corsair seem a little puny at 520W? Definitely looking at the Samsung! Thanks!

It should be enough, I don't have the numbers myself, but there has been alot of exaggerating on getting very high output PSUs. Harddrives shouldn't use that much power, but Corsair has the same PSU with a power of 620W so that should definately be powerful enough.

Krummith wrote: »

t gneGne & saltiness: I hadn't really compared ratings of single cards vs. SLI'd cards. I was surprised that in the rating charts at Tom's Hardware there wasn't much difference between the single card and dual ones. Time to scrap that!

Yeah, sadly enough 2 cards are not 2 times as powerful... Anyway, since you're into audio and ripping of cd's I would definately consider getting the Samsung SH203B dvd drive. It's the editors choice on a site dedicated to just reviewing dvd-drives so that should mean something URL="http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Samsung-SH-S203B-DVD-Burner-Review"]Linky[/URL.