Budget Quad Build: Help wanted

Hi folks.

After trying multiple configurations, I've run into a brick wall of sorts. I have a *very* strict budget to work within of $1600. $1600 is ok, $1601 isn't.  (Had to set a limit somewhere, that's the absolute upper end for me).

After reading some very mixed reviews on the Thermaltake PSU's, however (including one fellow that apparently almost set his pad on fire ), and positively glowing reviews on the Corsair PSU, I am looking for a way to squeeze in under my 1600 dollar wire and still keep the 620W Corsair.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated .

Well SkyR, it's probably important to understand I'll be upgrading from a P4 @1.59Ghz, 1Gig PC230 DDR2 RAM and X700Pro Radeon 256MB AGP graphics card. I could be way off in my estimation of the 8600GTS' graphics power, but I am assuming it's more powerful than the card I'm squeeking by on right now.

I take it from the configuration you posted that the cabling is an easy cut in your opinion?

Also, do you feel the 600W Thermaltake is getting a bad rap? Will it allow for the wiggle room I need throughout a 4 year expected use? I got the impression it was a bit weak (and might explode ).

I have read many of your posts, and I understand your affinity for the 8800 series card. That 320MB card was my first choice when assembling the system. I do not see any benchmark for the 8600 GTS 512MB  in any of the chart's at Tom's Hardware. The DS Pro series default is 2x 8600 512MB. Does this offer less performance than the single 320 MB 8800GTS series?

Price over time is less of an issue than what I can budget in at the time of purchase. I understand that purchasing 2 512MB cards is less cost effective over time, but it would allow for a functional system to use in the imeadiate future for me until I could drop in another card.

Between removing the improved cabling job, removing the floppy (someone told me w/ Vista I will no longer need this floppy for any reason including restore and other bootdisk functions) and a downsize of HDD I can meet the required figure and still keep the Corsair PSU in the build.

Thanks for taking the time to load in that bare essentials configuration. It was nice to have a clean slate to walk through all of the decisions I had made to reach the build I posted, and revisit the "why's".

All good points Bill.

I think right now, the E6750 overclock offered by DS is probably the best bang for the buck, and maybe one of the best values offered by any company I looked over.... for current games.  The Quads will. I think, start to see wider use as both Vista and DX10 mature, so while that 6750 would be my top pick if my upgrade cycle were once every 2 years, but that is not the case.

 You're quite correct on my willingness/ability to build a system on my own. If I were willing to seat a new CPU to a MoBo, mount aftermarket cooling options or able to overclock myself, I'd be elbow deep in my own build right now. Given that, I'm looking to the Quad as the basis for a system that may have an additional year of use I could squeeze from it before having to do this again (cross fingers).

After looking over everything yet again, one of the easiest cuts for me to make turned out to be the Vista Home Premium. I have no doubt that once service pack 1 is released, Vista will improve greatly, but in the here and now, XP is still a better OS performance wise.

If I follow correctly the previous comments on multipliers, the 1066 FSB on the Q6600 and the 667 RAM are the same base speed, so they should work fine together. Guess I'll have to wait and see what comments DS has on that specifically.

after reading this review

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTMwMiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

I'm sure I'll quickly be over all of those hits when I boot up for the first time on a system that is not close to 7 years old .