Close to pulling the trigger...

 

This is what I have now:

Case: Digital Storm Twister ULTRA (Black Anodized Aluminum Finish)
Power Supply: 1000W Thermaltake (8800 GTX SLI Compatible) (Silent Toughpower Edition)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (1066MHz FSB) (8MB Cache)
Motherboard: nVidia 680i Core 2 Quad (By: eVGA) (nForce 680i SLI) (A1 Revision)
Memory: 4GB DDR2 Corsair at 1066MHz Dominator (Dual Channel) (Extreme-Performance)
Floppy / Media: Digital Media Card Reader (Black)
Hard Drive 1: 150GB Western Digital Raptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Hard Drive 2: 500GB (Western Digital / Seagate) (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Optical Drive 1: DVD-ROM/CD-ROM (DVD Reader 16x / CD Reader 40x)
Optical Drive 2: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition)
Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (nVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB (By: eVGA) (PCI-Express)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS (Up to 7.1 Channel) (Includes I/O Unit)
Cooling: Air Cooled Stage 2 (Silent Artic Cooling Heat-sink (Copper Heatpipes)
Case Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Blue Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes)
Round Cables: Enhanced Interior Air Flow (Optical Drive & Floppy Cables (Blue Edition)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
Office: Microsoft Office 2007 Basic (Word Excel Outlook)

The main use will be for gaming (of course) - WoW, Hellgate: London, and the occasional FPS (like Crysis, until I give up) - but also listening to music, as I have a relatively sizable collection.

 

I am not a super user by any stretch of the imagination, and unfortunately I think that I know just enough to be dangerous (i.e. spend more than I need to).  I am struggling on a few facets, all of which I have read what I have time to read on but am still unsure:

- Is 4gb RAM worth it on a 32bit OS?

- Based on the expected use, is the Quad going to provide any more bang for my buck than the Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00GHz?

- Is the sound card I selected going to provide that much of a FPS increase that it is worth the dollars.  I think I saw somewhere that it is a nominal increase, and maybe the dollars are better spent somewhere else (like flowers for my wife after I buy this thing )...

 

At the end of the day, I really don't want to be in a position where I need to upgrade components in a year or so - this was hard enough to get through the finance committee (i.e. my wife)!

 

Thanks in advance for the help, and I look forward to joining the community of loyal DS fans soon!

With the money you saved, go with Stage 3 cooling (we will overclock your CPU to 3.0GHz+ and go with a more high-end video card setup).

 

Then you will have a great system that you wont need to upgrade in the future for.

 

Case: Digital Storm Twister ULTRA (Black Anodized Aluminum Finish)
Power Supply: 850W Thermaltake (8800 GTX SLI Compatible) (Silent Toughpower Edition)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz (1066MHz FSB) (8MB Cache)
Motherboard: nVidia 680i Core 2 Quad (By: eVGA) (nForce 680i SLI) (A1 Revision)
Memory: 2GB DDR2 Corsair at 1066MHz Dominator (Dual Channel) (Extreme-Performance)
Floppy / Media: Digital Media Card Reader (Black)
Hard Drive 1: 150GB Western Digital Raptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Hard Drive 2: 500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Optical Drive 1: DVD-ROM/CD-ROM (DVD Reader 16x / CD Reader 40x)
Optical Drive 2: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition)
Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (nVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB (By: eVGA) (PCI-Express)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer (Up to 7.1 Channel) (Recommended)
Cooling: Air Cooled Stage 3 (Silent Artic Cooling (TwisterBoost Overclocked)
Case Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Blue Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes)
Round Cables: Enhanced Interior Air Flow (Optical Drive & Floppy Cables (Blue Edition)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
Office: Microsoft Office 2007 Basic (Word Excel Outlook)

I think this looks pretty solid, but am still open to additional suggestions.  One item I am still toying with is the digital media reader, which I don't really use so it may make more sense to go with a floppy, or leave it blank, and save the USB hubs...

 

Oh, and since I only live about 30 miles north of San Jose in San Ramon, anyone know if I can come pick this up rather than having it shipped?

 

Thanks for your help gang - this nub was flying blind ...

 

Regardless, this has been a great experience and I can't wait to spend this weekend giving this rig a run!

 

 

FAST!  Runs great - quiet, cool and very smooth.   But OMG, it is huge .  I wasn't able to do that much gaming on it, as by the time my wife freed me from the honey-do list this weekend it wasn't until Saturday afternoon that I got to set it up.  Simply getting all of my music and the other programs on it took the evening (as well as getting up to speed with the nuances of Vista), but yesterday...  Oh boy - once I got my UI set, WoW ran like a dream.  All settings maxed and running heroics and no lag at all (even with iTunes running in the background).  I know that isn't a big test, but it was very noticable to me how different it ran.  All the while, still cool and quiet - after using this rig for a day, I have come to realize that my old computer was moonlighting as a space heater.

 

I know it has only been a day or so of use, but I am really happy with my purchase.  I will post some pictures if anyone is interested...