blackwater11 :
10,000rpm SATA HD: This is an absolute must. There is a world of difference between a 7200 and 10,000 rpm drive and don't let anyone tell you different. Your HD is the most important component of your system in my opinion and your selection here simply should not afford any compromises. How fast your system boots, copies files, downloads and uploads information, shuts down, paging file access, data retrieval.. etc.. is all HD. I had no idea how crucial it was until after I hooked up the Western Digital.
BW11
Six months ago, I would have agreed with you, not now. The Raptor's 87 MB/s Max DTR is a bit paltry compared to todays hi density drives in the 120 MB/sec neighborhood. The Raptor may regain its crown when and if WD puts it's hi density platters from the WD6400 in the 10k mechanics but this hasn't happened yet. Of course all your reasons for going to 10k would also apply to going further to 15k and there are still some real advantages to be had in that arena. Going to 150 GB 15k SCSI ($230) has a price impact from the $175 10k Raptor, but no where near as much as going from 7200 $45) to 10k ($175) but the rotational speed advantage compared to 7200 is 2.08 versus 1.39
Two things the Raptor is still good at:
1. Bootup Time - During bootup, the OS laods and that means accessing mucho small files. The Raptors access time helps a lot here.
2. Small File Database Access - For the reasons above, the Raptor is great at accessing lots of small files.
HD speed is affected by several factors.
1. Cache size - the larger the cache, the less the thing has to resort to actually reading the disk.
2. RPM - the faster it rotates, the more area of diosk can pass under the heads per revolution.
3. Areal Density - the tighter the data is packed on the disk, the more data gets read ina single resolution
How fast data comes off the disk = rpm x areal density
It's hard to judge the Raptor's areal density because they don't use a full size platter. The 150/160GB Raptors have only 75/80 GB per platter. The Samsung F1 / WD6400 have 320-334 GB per platter. So in one revolution, a lot more data passes under the heads on these hi density platters than passes under the heads of the Raptor. It's not four times as much cause WD doesn't use a full size platter but it's well above 2. This compares with the Raptor's 39% advantage in rotational speed. Most of the hi density drives also have a 2:1 cache size advantage over the Raptor .
Well all is said and done, the hi density platter drives move data under the heads about 36% faster than the Raptor.
As for the rest, two points are relevant:
1. The OP was ready to spend $5k on a "hot shop" prebuilt system.
2. I get the impression the box gonna be around longer than 2 years.
For a box to be kept for 2 years, I'd be "spot on" with everything you said about technology maturation and bang for buck. But for a system which will be kept for 3-5 years, I am more inclined to agree w/ the folks at Anandtech.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3283&p=21
"If you're still buying DDR2 and you're serious about overclocking, you're buying yesterday's technology. That might be fine for the price-conscious enthusiasts, but if you're considering the purchase of a $300+ motherboard and $1000 CPU we have to strongly recommend making the move to DDR3. It's also worth noting that once Intel's Nehalem architecture hits the market - which should occur later this year - you can kiss DDR2 compatibility on the latest Intel platforms goodbye. "
There's two points worth noting in that article:
1. If you are building a system with DDR2, they are essentially "throw aways" since this is the last build you will get to use them on. Nehalem is only months away.
2. If you are building a double, triple or quad SLI solution, DDR3 really gets a chance to "show it's stuff".
So to my mind "2" is an important number:
- 2 or more video cards and you do see a performance boost, so the price premium for DDR3 may be worth considering
- 2 or more years of intended use for your new build, the price premium for DDR3 may be worth considering
It's not gonna be for everyone, but for those keeping their systems a long time or with an inclination to go for the best performance regardless of cost, DDR3 seems worthy of consideration.
Of course, on the other side.....
With Nehalem around the corner, if ya wanna spend all that money, maybe you wanna wait a few more months. I am more inclined to buy at the end of a socket lifecycle as new socket's don't get maxed out for a while. While the option to upgrade a processor has always seemed a good idea to me, in practice I have only done it once as usually when I want a new processor, there's something else I want that requires a new MoBo.
All 790i boards have a BIOS / base driver issue ATM whereby some overclocks are just "quirky" and wind up trashing your disk image . Go higher or lower and no problem but soem combos at this time just seem to go nuts. nVidia is working with MoBo vendors to work it out.
.... of three 9800GTX's 
in the face. Aftermarket cooler is a must. Zalman's 9700 perhaps.
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