ryanneedzhelp,
As i'm sure youve noticed by now, even when you are "up to date" on the latest hardware, it doesnt make choosing any easier....LOL
And of course, no matter which you choose, there always seems like theres a "catch", but thats what keeps the products competitive, they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Believe me we would ALL LOVE to have Intel Chipsets with SLi support!!
But Nvidia just wont let that happen yet, hopefully in the future. (knock on wood)
I figured i'd better point out that the Abit IP35 Pro mobo i suggested, does not support SLI.
I chose that motherboard because its known to hit 500fsb consistently.
And it has RAID , which you wanted.
And it is an Intel chipset, just like all my personal pcs are because the Intel chipsets seem a bit more stable than Nvidia's at high fsb bus speeds.
(i figured i'd better be clear on the no sli support just in case you werent aware)
And thats also why i chose the Gskill ddr2 1000 ram, because it will get you to 500fsb also.
That way the only thing holdng you back, would be the cpu because you'd have a motherboard and ram that both did 500fsb and wouldnt hold back your cpu overclock.
500fsb would get your cpu to 4.5ghz and the cpu is most likely to "top out" its overclock before 4.5ghz especially on air cooling.
(so you have "headroom" with the mobo and ram)
Anyway, if you choose Sli and the 780i motherboard, just be SURE you get ram thats KNOWN to work well with that board/nvidia chipset.
And be aware, that there will most likely be more "tweaking" / "troubleshooting" with the 780i/sli board.
But that doesnt mean i think its a its a bad choice, it just means that some people have no problems getting the 780i boards to a high fsb and others with the same hardware seem to have nothing but issues.
And nobody seems to know exactly why.
I do know its not user error or lack of knowledge, because ive seen some people who definitely know their hardware get frustrated and have no luck with the Nvidia boards.
Thats not meant to keep you from buying a 780i board, i just want you to be AWARE, that it could go smoothly or it could take some patience to tweak to get it stable at the speeds you want.
Your best bet, is if you want to go Sli / 780i, then ask in the motherboard forum, who has that 780i board and what other hardware they are running at a stable / high fsb and try to stick to the components that are already proven to work together with that motherboard.
That will definitely increase your chances of a high/stable overclock on a Nvidia board.
And look at what hardware the boutique pc shops use with the 780i boards in their HIGH END / OVERCLOCKED offerings. (like Falcon Northwest / Alienware / Hypersonic etc..etc..)
Because if they sell MANY systems that all are overclocked , then that proves the 780i board and components they use for thier overclocks produce consistant enough results to be repeated time and time again.
And good luck with your setup.
Hopefully us suggesting "back and forth" in this thread doesnt distract you from the best reason to build a pc.
Its just plain fun to put a pc together yourself and see how fast you can make it go...LOL
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