New PC

The 960 is a waste of money. A 920 or 930 will net you the same overclocks at much cheaper prices.

If you're going to be doing large-file photoshop editing (and especially if you ever think you'll do video work in addition to still image work), I'd opt for a large secondary drive to store things on.

Getting an SSD as your primary drive (operating system, applications and maybe a few games) will help with boot speeds and you can keep whatever you are actively working on on the SSD to help with load/save/reversion times (and then save it to the large second drive for long term storage). If you are going to be sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time for work, you'll appreciate the difference in loading times that an SSD will give you.

The Killer Network cards are not worth the money. The latency improvements are MEASURABLE, but in the vast majority of situations, they aren't NOTICEABLE. The Pro that you selected helps latency but is pretty well documented to hurt other network speeds (such as downloading files etc). The 2100 is much better overall. But again, for the amount of money you spend on them, with little to no noticeable gains, makes them bad values in my opinion.

For your needs, liquid cooling is very much overkill. Get a good air cooler such as either Noctua.

Don't get the OS Boost. The gains in speed will not be even slightly noticeable but if you ever want/need one of the disabled features, it may be a pain to figure out how to re-enable it.

If you have any thoughts of adding in a second graphics card in the future, get a 1200 watt or higher power supply, otherwise 750 should be fine. I've always been a proponent of getting a quality name-brand power supply as many computer problems can be linked back to wonky power supplies. That said, there are definitely some people on the forums who think that the quality is there for the DS power supplies.

If you want the Assassin case, I'd go with something like this ($2922):


http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=427142

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Black OPS Assassin Edition
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 FTW3 Edition 3X SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 750W Corsair TX (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (160GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: X25-M MLC Edition) (Extreme Performance)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (2TB Hitachi/Seagate (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache)
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer (Play Blu-Ray and Burn DVDs)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 Extreme Performance (Does NOT fit on the regular EVGA X58 3X SLI)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: FREE: Hot-selling game with a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 or above graphics card
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Small)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty



EDIT:
Other things to consider: As you will be using this professionally, you need to consider some form of backup. I personally use Carbonite as offsite backup. It's great for disaster recovery (your house burns down in a fire), but is slow for simple backup recovery/recovery from hard drive failure. For local backup, I have my storage drive mirrored (RAID 1) onto a second drive (there are 3 hard drives in my system - the 160gb SSD on which I keep my operating system and applications, my large 1.5tb storage drive on which I keep games, videos, music etc, and a second 1.5tb storage drive in RAID 1 that mirrors the first). If one of the storage drives fails, all data is still intact on the second (mirrored) storage drive. You could go with some kind of external backup solution (USB hard drive, etc) instead. The point is, hard drives fail, make sure you have a plan to have a backup of your professional work if (when?) that happens.

Also, as mentioned below, depending on the size of files you are working with and how many large files you have opened at once, increasing the amount of RAM to 12gb may increase your performance some. Probably not an issue for still image work, but if you ever decide to move into video editing, it may help. This is an easy upgrade that anyone can do themselves if you ever decide to in the future so it's not something I'd worry about right now.

Edited by JJJJ_Shabadoo - 31 Jul 2010 at 2:40pm

Wow, thanks a ton for the helpful feedback!  I actually did no research on that network card I'll be honest, I've just seen a ton of ads around for them.  Likewise I was wondering about the SSD as a primary hard drive and thought it might not be worth the money.

I'll switch it over to a SSD drive but I have 2 of my own TB drives here with all my work stored on them that I'd just pop in once I got the system.

I do kind of want the Liquid Cooling for some reason and I'm not quite sure why.  Probably partially because I'm not planning on upgrading or replacing this for a while and just want to get as much longevity out of the system as possible.  It's also a hell of a lot quieter (at least my current desktop sounds like a jet engine next to my husbands).  If it's really really not worth (ie: price, and the free OC just doesn't warrent it) it I could just bump back down to your suggestion and use the extra cash to upgrade the PSU to the 1000W Corsair.  And yeah, at least that gives me the option of going SLI later if I want.  ...  I might have just convinced myself.  >_>

The file sizes I'm working with shouldn't be an issue that needs more than 6gb.  Some of the guys at the studio work with much bigger files and aren't running more than 6gb currently (I asked around).  And there isn't much chance of me doing any high end video editing.

I think the SSD is definitely worth it. The difference in boot speeds and loading of applications installed to it is really pretty impressive. Some people say the 80gb Intel is sufficient but I have only Win 7, a bunch of various applications and two games (WoW and Sins of a Solar Empire) installed to mine and I'm already at 62 gb of used space (WoW alone takes up almost 18gb). I'd recommend the Intel 160gb.

It's just my opinion, but I personally don't feel the LC is worth it, especially with the level of OC you're going with. I have a HAF 922 with the Noctua 120mm and it is extremely quiet. My old system's side panel fan was louder than the my entire new system and the Noctua itself is all but silent.

As far as RAM speeds go, you likely won't notice any difference. In my opinion going with the 2000 is a waste of money unless you simply want bragging rights. You can see a discussion of RAM speeds here:
https://www.digitalstormonline.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=11680&KW=
To quote justin.kerr (one of the most knowledgeable overclockers on these forums) from that thread:
"I did a RAM speed VS frames per second test in the past, and found that 1066Mhz RAM does slow the games FPS down, considerably. 1333Mhz slowed it some, 1600 Mhz for the most part allowed for full performance, and 2000Mhz RAM did not really add anything. this was done with a quad sli setup, to try o maximize the amount of bandwidth needed."

As far as the PSU - many on the boards here argue that 1000w isn't enough for two 480's and that you should go with the 1250 w Enermax if you think you'll drop in a second 480 in the future. That said, the 1000w Corsair is SLI certified for two 480's and I've seen multiple people on other techie forums who run two 480's in SLI on a 1000w Corsair and have had absolutely no problems.
I don't think I'd do it with a no-name 1000w PSU, but it seems like the Corsair handles it just fine. In fact, I'm strongly considering adding a second 480 to my system. If you can wait a bit, DS should be carrying the Corsair 1200w AX soon (I was told August when I was building my system - I don't know if that estimated date has changed - you may want to contact Sarah at DS to find out). That would be the ideal solution.

Edited by JJJJ_Shabadoo - 31 Jul 2010 at 8:15pm

No problem.