Quote Originally Posted by 'Stormweasel',index.php?page=Thread&postID=79201#p ost79201
So, my questions are:

1) Is that power supply aqequate for the rig I´m planning?

2) Is that graphics card worth the upgrade from the 1024MB 8800GT or is the difference really not there atm?

3) I´m planning to put the OS on the 500GB hard drive and running two installations of WoW (one for the main, another for the slaves) on the Raptor drive. Is that the best idea for performance?

4) Processor wise am I seeing a worthwhile difference from the 6600 that´s recommended for multiboxing. The rig will be used not just for WoW but for future games/music processing apps so is it worth spending that extra for the difference?

5) I´ve read something about problems with SLI (not somethingI know much about) with Nvidia cards - am I affected by that or is it only if you try to run 2 cards in XP?

6) I was determined not to upgrade to Vista for a long time given how long it took for XP to get its act together but I understand there´s less driver support for XP64 and I want that 8GB - I also do some heavy audio processing so I can´t get enough RAM. Is Vista chugging along pretty well now or should I go the XP64 route regardless? (My spidey-sense tells me I´m opening a can of worms here, heh heh)
Quick answers:

1) Yes, *if* the specs on the amps on 12V rails are capable of handling that CPU & videocard. I wouldn't add too many more drives or push it overclocking on that PSU though. I was using a 620W Corsair (SeaSonic), Q6600 oc'd to 3.2GHz, 8800GTX, 2x Raptors, and 3 other drives.. power was fine because I was using about 10A less on max load than the 12V rail could support.

2) The 8800GT 512/1024 and 9600GT are very, very similar. I don't recall a manufacturer ever coming out with a 'next-gen' card that was nearly identical to an upper-mid level card like this. Stick with the 8800GT 1024.

3) No. You may load into a map a little faster with WoW on Raptors, but you want your OS on your fastest drives. (In fact, some large drives are faster than Raptors for sustained transfer rate anyway - that's what you'll be using WoW for.) I have my OS and main WoW install on my Raptor Raid0 array, and 4x WoW installs on a separate 500GB drive.

4) I'd always choose the latest generation for a CPU, especially when the price difference isn't terribly large. Personally, I'm waiting for the new Nehalem architecture CPUs until I upgrade again. I'm currently 5-boxing on an overclocked E6600, and it's fine.

5) Better to just use two separate cards to discreetly power each monitor.

6) Stick with Vista64 - it handles dual-view MUCH better in case you choose to run two displays from one videocard. Many people run it without major issues. Microsoft has too much invested in the OS to not continue to improve it.