Newegg.com stuff:

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
$149.99
Any better choice for cooling/space? I hear the zerotherm takes up a ton of room.

EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
$259.99

MSI NX8800GTS 512M OC GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
$224.99

PC Power & Cooling S610EPS EPS12V 610W Continuous @ 40°C Power Supply - Retail
$109.99

2x Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail
2x $60.99 = $121.99
My question is, should I get only 1 2GB package (2 x 1GB) of dual channel, and then get 2x 2GB of non-dual channel. I figure (without much knowledge on it) that the dual channel can handle the stuff that dual channel would be needed for, and then I have 6GB instead of 4GB for the most intense applications. Or am I wrong and should keep it how it is with 2x the 2 x 1 GB so 4 1GB sticks of dual channel?

2x Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
2x $169.99 = $339.98
In a raid-0 for loading times/data accessing, will have games/photoshop/3DS Max on this. Is it worth the money?

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
$129.99
HD for media

ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T OEM - OEM
$31.99

ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 120mm 2-ball UFO Bearing / Transparent CPU Cooler - Retail
$49.99

Buy.com stuff:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz Processor - 1333MHz FSB - 6MB L2 - 775-pin LGA Socket T
$288.99

Lenovo ThinkVision L220X Widescreen LCD Monitor - 22" - 1920 x 1200 @ 60Hz - 6ms - 1200:1 - Black
$469.99

TOTAL COST: $2177.87

System intended for gaming and some graphics work with 3DS Max/Photoshop/Illustrator. So I think thats about it, thanks for looking.

What about this RAM instead?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145176

You would still get 4GB, but only two sticks that would leave space for upgrading in the future.

On my build (a little more modest), I am looking at this for $62 after MIR:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220227

With 3 HHDs, a burner, a high end GPU with the potential for more stuff down the road, you might also want to consider a better PSU like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703009

Depends. If you work in 3dsmax more than you game, you might want to consider a Quadra FX card which is designed for precision. Especially if your job is 3d artist. A gaming gpu is designed for speed.

Again, more work, get a quad cpu. More game, go dualie.

You're wanting to mix and match memory? Know that dual channel is NOT built into memory. It's the mobo that decides whether to run in dual channel or not. The memory kits make your job easy to find identical ram sticks for a d/c setup. Look at the memory section of the mobo manual.

I just had this RAM recommended to me, and I think it is the stuff I am going to go with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220269

Crucial Ballistix is great memory. Overclocks good too.
I suggest you buy your aftermarket cooler after you build your system. It is very difficult to judge how much room you have before hand.
Check the Storage charts before buying the Raptors. There are some hard disks that compete or win over those Raptors.
For optical drive I recommend Samsung SH-203B or N.

Unless you're going to get a 64 bit OS, anything over 4GB is overkill and with a 512 Mb vid card, you will only be able to use 3.5Gb or less

Using 3 sticks will kill dual channel. You need 2 or 4, otherwise dual channel will not work.

You can get a better monitor for $200 cheaper.

I looked on the 3.5" Hard Drive charts,
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] %2C%2C1784
there, and there are some hard drivers that beat the raptors, but a lot of newegg reviews say they're having like 3 DOA barracuda's in a row.

I suppose the reasons the 7200 barracuda is scoring better then the Raptor is the 32mb cache?

If I were to go with barracuda's what should I do as far as my system now of having a raid-0 with OS and applications and a drive for storage? Buy 3 500GB Barracuda's? Price would be about the same but that storage amount is insane.

Which monitor would that be? I was told that this monitor is superior due to it using some different system of display WUXGA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WUXGA

So I'm beginning to understand, I thought it was the RAM and thought that dual channel RAM only came in 1gb sticks, because on newegg some RAM is listed as "dual channel" and only comes in 1gb sticks.

2 sticks of RAM is generally more stable than 4 sticks and especially over 6. Tom's did a test on dual vs. non-dual channel mode RAM a few months ago; they found basically no difference in performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 05-11.html

About the hard drives: the WD6400AAKS is a great choice IMO. The Raptors not so much. I'd get a WD6400AAKS now and add a VelociRaptor later. It's supposed to be available in May, around $300. I expect the demand will be big at first and prices will go up, but that should be fixed by June, I think.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=548
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1914.html

The problem with this is that Windows will be on the 640GB disk rather than the Raptor, but you can just leave it there or reinstall, your choice. I think the new Raptor will be better value for the money than the RaptorX.

I learned something today. Thank you Mrsbytch. Sitched one of my sticks that I thought was single into the dual slot on mobo, and CPU-Z confirmed its now runnin 2g dual channel. I bet it scores 5.9 in Vista now.

+1 for the 6400AAKS
+1 for the 2x2GB suggestion (2x 2x2GB in the case of 64-bit OS, because ram is rediculously cheap right now)

Why the 780i motherboard if you're only going to run one video card? Do you plan on adding a 2nd in the future? If not then ditch the nvidia board and go P35 or X38.

I agree with all the above posters on the 2x2gb ram kit.

I have 2x150gb raptors in raid 0 and I really don't think it's a huge difference over the 7200.11 drive I have in my other PC. They're probably not worth the money.

Does that monitor have a S-PVA panel? If so that's not a bad price. I've been looking for a decent 22" monitor myself for some time.