My system:

Athlon FX 64 X2 4200+ "Manchester"
MSI K8N-SLi MOBO
OCZ Platinum 400 DDR Dimms (2 Gigs)
650 Watt PSU
Western Digital "Caviar" 80 Gig HDDs (2)
Sony DUAL DVD/CD drives (2)
NVidi 7800 GT (ASUS Built)
Creative SF-Xi Card
3 - 120 mm BB Fans
3 - 80 mm BB Fans
ThermalTake Armor series VA8000 case
ThermalTake Big Typhoon CPU Cooler
Windows XP Professional edition
Logitech MX 5000 Gaming mouse
ZBoard Battlefield 2 Edition
Creative Acoustics 5.1 surround speaker system
NEC 19 inch CRT Monitor

Upgrade plans:

I want to replace the 2 Caviar HDDs with...4 Raptors in RAID 0+1 configuration

I have 2 so far, but at 160 bones per, I have a wife who is a firm believer in dont go to sleep near me when I'm in this mood...

I also want to switch from the Big Typhoon CPU cooler over to LIQUID, preferring the ThermalTake Big Water unit to be the winner, since the Armor series case I have is already pre-drilled and fitted for it...

I also want to expand the 2 Gigs of RAM to the maximum 4 Gigs...JUST BECAUSE I CAN!!!

Lastly, also hesitantly due to the horror stories I have heard around getting a solid working Quad SLI, I AM dancing around with th idea of adding a second 7800 GT (Cash and wife again both weigh HEAVILY on crossing that line!) to max out the QUAD SLI setup...Far as I'm concerned nothing wrong with the two of us living on oatmeal, mac & cheese, and rice for a couple of months

After that, I rely on driver updates, keeping the "VIRTUAL" house clean as a whistle, using tools like RegSeeker, Ad Aware, and Spybot, along with regularly defragging and so forth to keep it running at peak performance...

I had 1 reply on another forum where someone suggested going with Hitachi TH250K HDDs for the RAID array to max the throughput, saying they actually benchmarked faster then the Raptors, but, I also hear of several failures with this unit and dreadful reliability problems...I prefer to sacrifice some milliseconds for reliable performance...

Any other suggestions on how I can further take the rig from BLISTERING to HYPER-Transport, I welcome any such information...On a similar note...Thus far, I have relied on pure HARDWARE/SOFTWARE accelration...I have never dabbled in Overclocking and figured it was so particular that I would spend more time dinking with the settings, not ot mention recoveries if I am too borderline, then actually getting performance out of it...Total NOOB in that arena...

Lastly, an observation regarding one element of my current system...

I bought the Manchester, AMD FX 64 X2 4200+, because it was right at the top end tip of my designated rig fund for what I was going to buy for a processor...Had I not been such a Noob and done a bit more research, or, for someone else reading this thinking the same, for another 20 bones, I could have got the 4400+ Toledo model...Some say "What's the big deal?"...The difference is, the 4200+ is limited to 512 Megs of L2 Cache, while the next one up the evolutionary scale, the 4400+ is available with a 1 Gig L2 Cache...

I am unsure of the distinct technical explanation of that difference, but, as a World Class professional gamer, competing on a regular basis in this arena, that ever slight difference in responsiveness CAN mean the difference between first and second place at the Cyber games...Second place is the FIRST loser and may be a difference of $10,000 too...That's enough for me to have considered springing the extra 20 bones to move on up...Just a helpful hint for those who care...

Hope you like the system...

Quik

Brilliant system quik. You may have competition with garHar!

Thank you...HOWEVER (Read...Uh-oh!!! LOL) it is currently VERY ill...What a bummer...Check out the link below:

http://www.pchelpforum.com/pc-hardwa...ng-before.html

Definitely having PC withdrawals and an earful from my wife (She just can't get past the idea that, even with the $$$ I have in this (ALMOST) Dream rig of mine, It is possible to still get random failures...I told her it happens to the best of rigs at times...(Whispering) That didn't change her language much...

Quik

Ha im sure someone will make your pc feel better soon!