About to order, last thoughts?

[gl600]

Hello,
I'm about to put in an order to build the following gaming awesomeness,
What do you think?

Motherboard ASUS Striker - nForce 680i; 1066/800/533; 4 x DDR2 800/Dual; 2 x PCI-Ex16; 2 PCI; 2 Exp; 1 x 133 + 6 x SATA; 8 ch. Audio; 2 x nvidia 1 Gig LAN; Raid; 4+6 USB

Processor Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4 ghz (LGA775); 1066 FSB; 8mb+ Zalman CNPS7500-CU LED CPU Fan

Memory 4 x 1 GB DDR2 800 Mhz

Graphics EVGA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Hard Drives 2 x 250 gb Western Digital 8 mb cache

Sound Card Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer series

DVDRW NEC 20x – SATA

Case Zalman Fatality FC-ZE1 pure aluminum (black)
+ 600 watt Zalman Power Supply

O/S XP Home

Monitor Samsung Syncmaster 24"

 

[veedubfreak]

Doesnt the striker already come with a pretty decent sound card? Also, what PSU are you getting.

get a 2x2 set of ocz reapers, instead of 4x1 memory.

 

[b1gapl]

Skip on the Zalman power supply. Look at brands, like Corsair, Silverstone, FSP (Fortron Source), Antec, PC Power & Cooling....Have a look at Ste's power supply guide for more suggested brands, or look at my Recommended PC Components guide, under my sig.

If you want XP to recognize all 4GB of RAM, get the 64bit version.

 

[gl600]

if i do not have the 64bit XP, it will not recognize 4GB of ram?

 

[AMDSCOrPiO]

no need for 4gb ram on xp, waste of money. Same with the sound card (imo). Then maybe put that money towards a 2nd vid card

 

[veedubfreak]

No, 32bit os will only see around 3.5gb of COMBINED system memory, this includes the video card.

 

[stalin90]

best buy has the fatality xfi card on sale for 99.99 i would get that over the xtreme gamer

Creative Labs - Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card - SB046B

 

[thirdshiftdj]

good choice on your case.

 

[gl600]

no need for 4gb ram on xp, waste of money. Same with the sound card (imo). Then maybe put that money towards a 2nd vid card

Why is the sound card a waste?

 

[Andyf]

I don't really see the need for the striker extreme. If you want SLI, I suppose its not a bad choice, although striker extreme + 4GB RAM is not a happy pairing.
so, my suggestions

-I would second the suggestion to get only 2GB RAM (make it a good brand. Crucial Ballistix is a good choice)

-PSU, I agree with whats said above

-Mobo. For SLI, consider that none of the 680i boards support the new 45nm processors, so you won't be able to upgrade in future. Also the EVGA NF-680i might be a better choice. Otherwise there is the new 780i with PCIe2.0 and 45nm compatibility. If you don't care about SLI, get a P35 board (e.g. GA-P35-DS3R, Abit IP35 or Asus P5k), or an X38 board (Asus P5E, Maximus formula).

-There are better CPU HSFs. maybe a Tuniq tower 120.

-Do you really need a soundcard?