[alnorth]

Thanks for the feedback!

I also just got some good feedback from a huge message board filled with fanatical overclocking nerds. They concur with your comment on the graphics cards, SLI is apparently a huge waste of money that sounds cool but doesnt deliver much in the way of FPS. I do run at 1600x1200, but I think I will go with 1 card that is close to the best on the market (maybe a 7800 GTX) rather than dual 7800 GT's. Like you, they also hated my CPU fan choice, I'll look into your recommendations. As for the CPU, they also suggest going with a dual core Opteron. I'll look into that as well, maybe a 175 Denmark since I've likely saved money from dumping the extra video card.

Since I'm not using SLI anymore, the ASUS board has to go. Any thoughts on a new Opteron motherboard that can overclock reasonable well? I prefer stable overclock > better overclock that is not stable.

I've heard that my hard drive choice isnt good, and RAID 0 is overrated anyway, so I am replacing the hard drives with a WD 73GB Raptor for the OS and most-used programs, along with some slower huge storage drive. Also replacing Power supply with an OCZ powerstream. Last time I built a computer, Antec was the best PSU, but apparently they arent anymore. I am leaning towards replacing the memory with 2GB (2x 1GB) Crucial Ballistix. Last time I built a computer, 2 GB from any manufacturer wasnt much of an improvement and didnt overclock very well at all, but apparently things have changed there too.