No budget multimedia/gaming rig build.

[Viceroy]

One of my biggest questions is if everything will fit into my case of choice, especially with the rather large video card I will be using. Does anyone know for certain?

[Sowser]

As a point of reference I can tell you that I put a Sapphire 4850x2 in my Antec 1200 and with the hard drives installed it just barely fits. The video card you want to use is about the same size as mine I think but your case is a couple inches smaller. You should be ok if you can squeeze your HD in somewhere else.

[Viceroy]

Gave a little update to the OP. I exchanged my PSU for a nicer one, nabbed a Caviar Green instead of a Spinpoint since Amazon was running a special, changed my ODD again and got rid of the peripheral purchases I made since the people I bought it from never sent the items. I did get my money back, though.

Let me know what you think.

[Viceroy]

Quick update: I made a mistake by buying the Caviar Green. I was cripplingly sick that day and was not thinking clearly and ended up making a dumb decision. I'll be trying to RMA this one or sell it and go back to my previous idea of a Spinpoint F3. The OP will be changed to reflect this.

Totally kicking myself for doing that btw.

[Sowser]

You could always just turn it into an external drive.

[Viceroy]

I've had my eye on the XCLIO Windtunnel Full Tower Case for a while now and it just went on discount. I'm looking at $125 taxed and shipped, 40 bucks more than my OP case. Considering that it should completely eliminate any question of whether or not everything will fit in the case, and the fact that it looks kick-ass, that 40 extra dollars can blow me. Should I switch cases?

Also, the http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDeal ... Hard Drive dropped down to $230, and comes with a free PSU, which I could sell to some sap on Ebay for 70 bucks or so. I'm thinking shoo-in. You?

[Major_A]

RAID 0 two 1TB drives (Samsung Spinpoint F3 or WD Caviar Blacks) for less than $230 and get better performance.

Get the case you like. I think of cases like a pair of shoes. What you might like I may hate, and vice versa.

[DaddyRabbit]

Agree 100% with Major_A on both counts. The Velociraptor is fast I'll give you but IMHO too noisy, hot, and pricey. Two of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

will run you half the cost for about 90% of the performance and lot more storage.

The second point is on cases. This is a highly subjective thang. I was a "full tower with bling" type, then went SFF for a long time, now into the mid tower (though some of those are really "full" sized these days). I liked my last two cases (P-180 and current Storm Sniper) very much so IMO pick what works for you. BTW I saw the case you mentioned this AM on the Egg for $89.xx.

[Viceroy]

Two of these will run you half the cost for about 90% of the performance and lot more storage.

Thank you for the tip. But if I don't need 2 tb of storage, could I run, say, 4 smaller drives in RAID x, and have it be even faster? I don't know much about RAIDing, but I know there are several different ways to do it and as I recall running a larger number of smaller drives will make stuff respond faster if run in a compatible RAID x.

[Viceroy]

Just updated the OP. Just bought a case and put up some additional options for your judgements. Check up on it.

[Major_A]

More drives in RAID 0 will be faster but also more prone to failure. Also any combination over 2TB of space in RAID will not be bootable in Windows. So you can run 6 X 320GB drives in RAID 0 but I wouldn't recommend that. If you plan on overclocking your PC do so outside of a RAID environment. If you get a hard failure due to overclocking you are taking a serious chance of screwing up your array. Best advice, overclock with a single drive and find the stable clock. Once stable then add the other drives and build your array.

More info on RAID here:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=830