That all looks like a pretty good set of components to me. Every so often, I put together a trial/sample configuration of what I'd buy as a "one back" system. That is, rather than buy the absolute fastest and most expensive components, I pick ones near the top, but just below the point where the price curve jumps up significantly. I did one yesterday (using Newegg as the source) and the CPU and video card you chose match the ones I'd picked. You also matched on the disk drives and DVD-RW drive, but that's more a personal preference rather than just price. I'm hooked on Seagate drives and have been for the last couple years. There's lots of disk drives and DVD-RW drives within a few dollars of those though.
I was trying to create a build much like you state. Not the best of the best but one step below the best, as well as maintaining the ability to upgrade certain parts (CPU, etc.) as needed in the coming years.
I did have a few thoughts. I'm assuming that you're planning on using the onboard audio, which I think is fine. I've been doing the same with the build I did in January. That said, my prior build used a Creative Audigy card - the one with the external box. My new build didn't have the space for the two card slot configuration of that setup, so I went with the onboard sound. The audio from the onboard sound chip (ADI AD1988B in my case) is just not as good at the old Audigy card's was. (I'm using the same speaker setup.) I guess if I were you, I'd start with the onboard audio and see what you think. That doesn't cost you anything. I know in my case, there's some version of Sound Blaster X-Fi in my future.
The way I see it is I am playing games for the grafix. The MMOs I play we are usually runnin ventrilo or teamspeak so I have the sound turned down low or off all together. I may end up picking up a sound card in the future, but it wasn't a need as I can and have been content with the the onboard sound card.
I'm guessing since you're buying two disk drives, you're planning on RAID 0 or 1 in the new system (with no other drives). If so, you're going to need to buy or borrow a floppy to install the RAID drivers during your Windows XP install. (If someone's found a way to do this with the drivers on CD, great, but please respond with how.) I only see the option to install 3rd party drivers from floppy during the initial install. You won't need it after the install is complete, so borrowing one from any old system you have is fine. (I'm hoping Vista is a little smarter here.)
I had thought about it. Then I was actually thinking of using one hd for the OS and OS related applications and using the other hd for my gaming and other files. I was going to check into the stability of RAID 0 or 1 and see whether it was recommended to use that or wait for 2 more hd's and setup a RAID 5. Any thoughts about this?
As for the disk, would it not be possible to load the required files on a thumb drive and use the thumb drive as a floppy drive? I know I have ued this for many situations where some computers at work did not have floppy drives and the only thing we had was a thumb drive. I would be willing to bet thatwe could get around he floppydisk using that method.
I'll keep in mind the fact that I should use the older RAID drivers.
I'm sure you're aware the retail version of the Intel E6600 comes with a heatsink and fan. The Arctic Cooling one you're buying is almost certainly better than that, but you don't feel you have to buy a separate one. I'm using the retail fan and heatsink on my current build and my idle temperatures are 36C and fully loaded only goes to 40 or 41C. Compare that to the Athlon 64 it replaced that idled at 49C and went to 53C under load. (I reused my existing case, so the fan setup is the same between the two.) The Core 2 duos run amazingly cool. If you're planning on doing some heavy overclocking, maybe the 3rd party one is a good idea. The reason I chose retail was to get the 3-year (versus 1-year) warranty. I'm almost certain using a 3rd party heatsink & fan does not violate the warranty. Almost. I know the warranty covers the fan and heatsink, but it doesn't say you have to use it.
Actually, I did not know that the retail came with it's own heatsink and fan. But, even armed with this knowledge I think I'll use the Arctic Cooling with Arctic Silver 5 just because I have read that it is a very good CPU cooler. I was planning on doing the OCing to 3.2 ish once I figure out how to do that (yes I'll be reading more in this forum about how to do that).
I appreciate you taking the time to mention a few things that I may have or may not have known regarding my upcoming build. It gave me a few things to keep in mind while I learn more about this building hobby I have now.
If you or anyone else thinks of something else that I may have missed or not thought about please don't hesitate to mention it.