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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?