Need some major help with this nice gaming machine.

[moogleslam]

It's been about 7 years since I've build a new system, and I've only casually been following hardware changes since then. I started putting the pieces together for a new gaming system I'm going to build, but quickly realized that being out of the loop for so long has left me with lots of questions.

I don't have a firm budget in mind. It's going to be pretty high end, but I'm not going to go crazy a buying i7-980 for instance. I'll be looking to overclock it of course.

Here's what I feel like I've made up my mind on so far:

ASUS VW266H Monitor
Intel Core i7-950
2 x Crucial Real SSD C300 128GB SATA-6GB/s (RAID 0)
Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB SATA-6GB/s HDD
Lite-On 12X Blu-ray Burner SATA Model iHBS112

So a lot of stuff missing still such as motherboard, memory, PSU, graphics card, etc.

Before I get to that, I have some questions:

With my 1920x1200 monitor, what is the best graphics solution? A single card, or SLI/Crossfire? I'm going to be playing pretty much everything....

I need a motherboard with 3 x SATA-6GB/s connectors for my 2 x SSD and HDD, right? Doesn't seem to be too many of those with this being the only one on newegg that matches my CPU socket as far as I can tell......

Memory recommendations? What's the fastest brands out there these days?

That'll do for now. Thanks

 

[moogleslam]

Will some of the new Sandy Bridge (1155) technology be comparable in speed to the current 1366 technology?

My thinking is I don't want to buy something that is soon to be outdated (1156), but I want something that is high end and fast, so if that's the new Sandy Bridge, I'll wait, otherwise, I'm just going to buy some current 1366 technology......

I supposed the answer is I should wait a couple of weeks for some 1155 reviews and benchmarks...... and I can do that.

 

[wasupmike]

ya, just wait... it's really not that far off

my guess for you would be to get a Sandy Bridge P67 / Core i5-2500K / R6990 GPU... overclock the CPU (ala - 'K' edition)... and you'll have a gaming monster that'll last you for years @ 1920 resolution gaming