System Build Critique

[Tristor]

Alright, well, I've been reading the forums for quite awhile and finally joined up because I am presented with a conundrum of sorts and I can't make a decision. I recently got on scholarship so I'm going to spend my financial aid for fall semester to do a much needed upgrade to my desktop. At any rate, I can't decide on two things, which mobo/gfx combo to go with and which cpu cooler to go with. I'm an experienced system builder, but I'm not very decisive, but I figured you guys would know. At the moment my parts list is as follows:
<snip>
My main tasks are going to be gaming, watching HD movies, browsing porn, and encoding HD video in x264. I plan to OC the Q6600 to 3.2GHz. Basically, I had some concerns because I heard the 680i was not a stable OCer and that it had issues OCing with all 4 DIMM slots filled. I've heard several people say the P35 chipset is better, and that losing SLI isn't a big deal, so that's my conundrum there. My other issue is that I don't really like tower coolers and the Gemini2 seems superb, but I also am a Thermalright fanboy and have heard wonderous things about the Ultra120 Extreme. I'm not sure which route will produce better results and have the best mobo compatibility with whichever board I go with. It also might be worth noting that RAID is important to me, and I've heard of issues using RAID on all the P35 boards.

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE:

My new build, based on this advice is as follows:

Case: Cooler Master Stacker II
PSU: Enermax Infinity 720W (already purchased)
Mobo: See below
CPU: Q6600 (G0)
RAM: 2x Crucial Ballistix DDR21066 DC Kit
GFX: Geforce 8800GTX
System Drive: 150GB WD Raptor
Storage Drives: 4x Samsung Spinpoint T 500GB (in RAID 5?)
Optical Drive: Samsung 18x SATA DVD burner
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (w/ 120mm hi-speed Panaflo)
Thermal Paste: Masscool Shin-Etsu

Okay, so I've gotten everything figured out but the mobo, and I have dropped my price down to just under my budget BR right now (which means it will be way under-budget by the time I build). I'm really leaning towards the Asus P5K Deluxe but I've also heard really good things about Gigabyte P35-DQ6. I'm a little concerned about the heatpiping on the mobo and whether that would block my cooler, which makes me also interested in the Gigabyte P35-DS3P which has a little more conservative heatpiping but the same featureset otherwise.

I'm not going to RAID the raptors anymore, instead opting for a larger single raptor, and I may still raid the 500giggers, but maybe not. At any rate, either way that eliminates any worries about the quality or usage of onboard RAID, which means I don't have to worry about finding a decent RAID controller that can handle both the subsystem and the internal drives. So, as soon as I figure out which mobo I'm using, I'm pretty much set.

 

[KoolDrew]

nvm

 

[Engraver]

I have SLi and I regret doing it now. Unless the game has an optimized profile it usually doesn't work very well, and optimizing it yourself can be a pain in the ass. Also, I tink two 8600 GTS in SLi is probably about the same as 1 8800 GTX.

Don't really know much about tower coolers and such, but the Thermalright one looks like it has a better design.

For the motherboard, I've heard good things about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...3128048&Tpk=13-128-048
I ordered one a couple days ago for a new computer at work, but haven't received it yet so can't go into much detail. Only real drawback it would seem is that it has no firewire ports, and you might use those for video editing devices.

If you are going to use that many drives in RAID you'll need a decent RAID controller card or you won't get any performance boost at all.

Also, for the case, if you are a neat freak like me, anodized cases are so easy to scuff and they attract dust like mad.

This stacker case is pretty nice, and I don't believe it has a brushed anodized finish. It also has a bottom mount bay for the PSU, which some people prefer.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...1119042&Tpk=11-119-042

 

[Sinn707]

Forget SLI. You'll be better off without it, take my word on this. Go with Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R, ABIT IP35 Pro or ASUS P5K Deluxe. These are the only 3 you should consider, imo. Single 8800 GTX is a great choice. Save some money on the PSU and go with Corsair 620HX, if you are worried that 620W won't be enough to run 6 HDD's and the rest of the stuff you have, you shouldn't be. Corsair 620HX is an amazing piece of hardware, also it's cheaper to get it from buy.com. In terms of cooling I suggest you go with Thermalright 120 Ultra combined with a quality fan like Scythe S-flex and good thermal paste, MASSCOOL G751 Shin-Etsu is among the best. That should get you above 3.2Ghz easily. Good luck and thanks for being honest about computer use, sure brought a smile to my face

 

[Tristor]

Okay, I switched to the Stacker for my case, using the Shin-Etsu for the paste, and I'm going to go with a P35 board with the 8800GTX. But which P35 board should I pick? I'm sort of attached to the P5K Deluxe, but the DS3R looks really nice too. The main reason I'm attracted to the P5K Deluxe is it has Firewire and dual PCI-E 16 (so I can put a PCI-E RAID card in the second slot). My big issue with RAID though is I am going to /have/ to to use onboard unless I can find a PCI-E 1x RAID controller that's decent because I'll shortly be putting a http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16816133006 in to the second PCI-E slot in order to connect up a 12TB RAID subsystem via 4 eSATA channels.

EDIT:

I "fixed" the RAID problem and updated the OP to reflect this. No worries about that, just need to figure out which P35 mobo to go with.

 

[Tristor]

Any ideas?

 

[Tristor]

bump

 

[tjaisv]

Originally posted by: Sinn707
Go with Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R, ABIT IP35 Pro or ASUS P5K Deluxe.

Can't go wrong with any of these. I plan on getting the ASUS P5K (non-deluxe version) myself.