Scan?  :shock:

How about a Raptor or two?

The newer MS wireless mice have months of battery life.

Yeah, Scan, best prices I could find and never had issues with them before.  74GB raptors cost too much and 36GB ones arent all that fast.  500GB will come in handy too

i wouldnt go for the deathstar drives walrus :shock:

i built a new machine over chrimbo, x2 4400 ect and im running 2x80gb seagate 7200.9 drives and its fast! plus i NEVER hear a noise from them, even when working hard  :mrgreen:

Ive been running some HGST recent spec drives for a year or two now (only just got a bigger Seagate), theyve been fine. They make a funny eeeh-ooooh-eeeh noise regularly now and then

A few points (Hi Will!)

First off, theres nothing wrong at all with IBM drives these days, although the Seagate drives would be quieter but thats about it.

Second, DFI LanParty boards are stil the daddies to my knowledge, the SLI-DR being the best of the bunch.

Thirdly, yes the XtremeMusic is probably the best gaming soundcard out if you dont want to buy the Elite, the op amps are more favourable.

Nice choice of kit  

I have a 4400+ running at 2400MHz on very quiet air 24/7 very impressed and well worth the money IMO

I would go for DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR, avoid the Expert it has major issues.

Thermaltake Big Typhoon is the best cooler at the mo and only 16dB, but seeing noise isnt a issue swap it for a higher flow fan  

Big Typhoon, yeah, read a 30 heatsink review and that one looked favourable, so will probably go for that if I do go aircooling.  Cant make my mind up.

New PC ordered

Hopefully itll be here this week, just depends on how quick Scan get their 512mb NV7900GTX stocks in

^^^

1.) balls, they prove how fast your system preforms in comparison to another system running the same benchmark, and depending on what there testing they prove a whole lot (like a full system test)

2.) balls. how will it make your box slower ? running raid 0 *can* increase the load on the CPU very slightly, but thats normally down to the fact that it is/can process a lot more to/from the disk than a non raid 0 system

3.) balls. why ? faster access to needed OS files, faster loading times, faster swap file, i cant see any reason it would be slower ? and having run a few systems normally then in riad0, in my experience it sped things up, a lot

4.) balls. how did you work that out ? no its not.

5,) balls. they might die, something bad might happen, but your in just the same boat as if you have 1 drive, 2 x 200 gig drives are better than 1 400 gig drive for speed, and drives dieing is pretty rare these days, especially without warning, as always back up your important data.