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[MonkeyFiend]

Am finally planning on upgrading the computers in the next couple of months..

So far the systems I have in mind are:

Mobo: Me: Asus Rampage II Gene, Tess: Maybe a gene II, might look at the cheaper gigabyte x58 models.
CPU: I7 nahalem, probably 2.6, but 3.06 if I can get them cheap
Memory: 6gb corsair 1600 ddr3
Gfx: Me: gtx295, Tess: 8800gt (not changing gfx cards yet)
PSU: Me Hiper 880W, Tess Corsair 650W
HDD: Me: velociraptor system disk + raid storage, Tess: Raptor system disk + sata storage

Although the Rampage extreme seems like an obvious choice instead of a mATX geneII board, the gene has either matched or beaten the extreme in various reviews. The only real difference I've seen is slots and as long as I can fit the barracuda and the 295 I should be set, I would not expect to run 2x295's in SLI; it's more likely I'll replace the 295 with a faster card in the future and move the 295 to tesses. The gene being cheaper and having the same performance makes sense.

HDD: Now that SSD's are cheaper I did look into these, however for the price of a decent capacity SSD, I can get a pair of velociraptors in a striped array (raid 1) + backup or Raid 10 array. Velociraptors vs ssds are still comparable on the reads and better on the writes.

PSU, I've checked a watt monitor on Tesses computer, technically speaking you can power an i7, 2 hdds, a dvdrom and an 8800/295 on a 500w psu. The whole 1kw psu fad is a bit on the overkill side

Not currently looking to change gfx, monitors, mouse/keyboard, just the core system.

Any thoughts on the above?

[MonkeyFiend]

fair points.. although I already have an external raid card, so that covers that base

probably want the i7 on mine at least, the way things progress it's nice to 'hand me down' certain bits to tesses computer and if I get an I7 (1366) and she gets an i5 (1156) then it limits that. Also in the the long run it makes sense to use the 1366 chips are upgrades are more possible in a couple of years to faster chips, if I got an i3/5 then i'd probably be buying the upper end therefore limiting upgrades