Laps, Naka, just wanna say thanks again for the help. Its all finally setup but not using the 10k HDD, instead got 2x320gb WD @7200rpm. Set them up in RAID 0, so far so good . Ran the 3DMark06 and got 12010. I'm hoping that's not the final score cos I think I have some driver issues here. Once I get all the drivers updated I'll run another one. Did run the 3DMark Vantage before that, didn't record down the scores (silly me) so I'll have to do it again. But it was kinda dissapointing. I remember it was around 8000+, didnt reach 9000 at all .

If you find some test programs that measure hdd speed, you will must get around 2X70 =140Mbytes/Sec sustained transfer (for reading).

Tested it on HD Tune v2.55 and I got these results. HDD is 2 Western Digital Caviar 7200rpm 16MB buffer 320GB setup in RAID0. I partitioned it into 2 parts, 500GB is used for the OS and programs. Remaining is empty.

nice. i think you made the right choice. no contest really. wd '*raptors': hot noisy gimmick 10k drives, four times the price and about the same speed.

if the wd drives cost half as much as they do now, i would still buy 7,200's

Grats on your new system raden. . . I am envious

I did some tweaking on my Q6600 pc....will post them in the old pC Section(offtopic)--Please post some of your results. I want to see what that thing can do . I am not Raided & I am still running a single vid card-Hope to change to Crossfire later.

Thanks Vike, your posts on your pc were my inspiration and got me started building this one. I'm planning on adding a second graphic card and xfiring them. About yr suggestions for a good card to xfire, its the ATI4850 cos its reasonably priced but if u can, go for the current ultimate xfire, which is the ATI4870X2. In between these two, there is the 4870 series which i hv and plan to xfire. If u wanna get the 4870, then I suggest getting the 1GB version, and one with an aftermarket fan, like the one I have, its an ASUS 1GB HD4870 Dark Knight version.

As for my benchmarking results I posted them on your post. Somehow the CPU results were very dissapointing. I think its got something to do with the L2 cache only being 1MB in size. The L3 cache however is 8MB in size.

Thanks for the tips on the graphics cards Raden(Will check them out). There will be ongoing updates for your new PC build Raden;I am still updating things as new drivers come available. I am still very grateful to all that helped me out on my PC build. There are a lot of pc wise people in this community. I received a bunch of great tips & words of wisdom. Don't be bummed out about your #'s......new drivers will come out

You're welcome Vike, and thanks to u too for the reassuring words on the drivers . and the tips and help I got from the guys in the scorching community really helped too. Cheers Vike.