Help building gaming rig

[Estraven]

Hi,
I have been researching how to put together a good gaming pc for a while now, and I finally have a list parts that I think I need.  Can anyone comment on anything I have overlooked, incompatabilities, bottlenecks in performance, etc? I am especially concerned about the compatability and how to go about adequately air cooling this rig (will the 2 graphics cards need their own cooling?). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Parts:
Motherboard:EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI
CPU:Core 2 Quad Q9450
Graphics cards: EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 512mb X2 in sli
RAM: G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB 7200 RPM X2 in raid 0
PSU:HIPER HPU-5K880 880W ATX12V v2.2 & EPS12V v2.91
Case: Antec P182 mid tower
CPU cooler: Scythe SCASM-1000 120mm Sleeve Andy Samurai Master CPU Cooler

[Calum]

Wow . . . that's a very nice rig.
It seems that a few fans are already fitted but you may want to max out the fans if you're worried about temperatures.  I believe the P182 can hold 5 120mm fans and comes fitted with (conflicting reviews) either 2 or 3.  For a system like that I would recommend at least 3 fans.
Are you planning on doing any overclocking?
If so, you may need some more fans and may also want to replace the standard fans with some that push more air.
I guess you're going to be running a 64-bit OS, right?  Otherwise around 5Gb of RAM will be wasted.
You've obviously thought this through very well, I'm impressed.

P.S. welcome to the forums.

[homer]

welcome to the forums estraven.

here are a couple things to consider...

1. motherboard- your spending quite a bit on this build, i would recommend spending the extra $80 and getting a 780i mobo. with the 780i you get 45nm processor support and PCI-E 2.0 technology... and not to mention the 3-way SLI.

2. CPU Heatsink- i recommend the thermalright ultra 120 extreme with a scythe kaze jyuni 120mm fan. the ultra 120 has been the top contender for CPU cooling for quite some time.

[Calum]

Do the 680i boards not support 45nm?
My E8200 worked fine with my (returned as it was faulty) XFX 680i SLI board, without even a BIOS update.
And 3-way SLI is not possible on the 8800GTS, it only supports 2-way.
PCIE 2.0 is also not that great, there's little to no difference in performance as the X16 gen 1 bus is not yet being used fully.

[Estraven]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome  . 
I will not be overclocking this pc, at least to start, but I would like room (power and cooling capacity) to do so if/when I choose to. I really don't know enough about overclocking to attempt it yet, and am not sure the benefits are worth the possible risks involved.  I will take your advice and install 3-4 non-standard 120mm fans in the case, would the scythe kaze jyuni 120mm fans recommended for the CPU cooler be fine for this as well? I am also aware of the 32-bit ram limit so I will be using the 64-bit vista, but is there really a great benefit in going from home premium to ultimate?

Homer, I will take your advice on the CPU heatsink and fan.  It was difficult for me to differentiate the 680i from the 780i motherboards other than the 3-way SLI and the PCI-E 2.0. I am going to give up the 3-way benefit by getting the GTS cards, so that isn't much of an issue.  If, as Calum says, the PCI-E 2.0 is not running very efficiently right now, would I really see a noticeable benefit in the upgrade from that standpoint? And does the limitation on PCI-E 2.0 stem from the software (easily upgradeable later) or hardware utilization? Also, I am now seeing that in most cases the 680i supports dual core 45nm but not quad core 45nm, so thank you for bringing that to my attention. I think that will be the deciding factor to get a 780i.

[Calum]

PCI-E 2.0 is a hardware, not software, specification/limitation.
It may become useful in the future, but personally I think that you'll be upgrading your motherboard before PCI-E 2.0 is necessary for graphics cards to work efficiently.
I wasn't aware that the 680i chipset didn't support quad core 45nm CPUs, in which case I would advise getting a 780/790i SLI board for upgradeability.  780i is basically just an update of 680i whilst 790i offers a 1600MHz FSB as standard so it's better in the long run, but more expensive too.
The Scythe fans should be fine for case fans as well as CPU fans.  I can cool my E8200 very well in a Coolermaster Elite 330 with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro and 2 120mm fans.  Even at 3.2GHz (the maximum it would post at due to my RAM) the temperature never went above 60C on a stress test.  You'll have no troubles cooling your system with a far better case and cooler.
I wouldn't recommend Vista Ultimate myself, Home Premium will be fine for most people.