oh yeah, sweet specs ~ if you are able to up the CPU like SchmilK recommended that would be excellent.

and yeah, Vista is much less crash prone than XP and modern drivers are automatically found ~ if you plan on running it, I recommend more RAM just in case. [I run Vista Ultimate with 3GB RAM - 71% used]

The reason for multiple harddrives is multifold.

First you want raid0 from 2 small drives...prefferably 40gb each, but those are exrtremely hard to find and end up being more expensive than 80gb...so 2x80gb boot drive in raid0  Less data to seek through = faster reading and random access.

Second you want to keep all of your important data OFF OF YOUR WINDOWS DRIVE (redirection of your My Documents/Favorites/Desktop/Even the whole user profile folder to another drive is possible)...why?  Well, windows tends to be the most unstable component of computers these days.  When windows fails, and you have to format your c: drive, would you rather A) boot from a live cd and copy all your files somewhere  or B) say GOOD RIDDENS...windows was getting slow, so format away and start installing...OR if you are like me, you will have a ghost image on one of your data drives (or similar) that has only windows and all the drivers installed so you can be back into a CLEAN system in 15 minutes.  You can also modify your performance by taking yur windows swap file and putting that on one of your data drives so that your c: handsl all windows and programs, and scratch space is on another drive.

Ok...time to go to work.

Yeah, Well I'm certain I'm running XP, can't put up with Vista.
As for the multiple HDDs, i was planning on getting a small HDD just for windows  to stay on. And that Ghost image is a great idea, SchmilK.

I already upgraded to the CPU that you recommended, thanks!

sounds great :)

Vista realy is not as bad as people say!  Just like everything else new, it takes some getting used to, and the one thing that i got used to real quick was the speed!

Even if yuo've tried it in the past, a setup like this is what vista WANTS to run on in 64bits!  Turn off the data execute protection and user access control and its a real great operating system!

I still don't like it, i don't know, i just don't see what's so amazing about it.
I'd rather stick with XP which i know and love and does everything i want it to.
Can't wait for the Next windows.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of RAID0, since I'm running one right now.  The primary slowdown factor in HDDs is seek time, and RAID0 doesn't really improve on that.  Also, if you're using an onboard RAID controller, it's typically not a "true" RAID => you need drivers to run the thing, which slightly taxes your CPU a bit.  Also it's more difficult to install some OSes using a software RAID.  There's also the possibility of a drive failing, but I really don't think that occurs terribly often on a personal computer.

Having a separate HDD for Windows is interesting, though a partition should be able to do the job too.  As for reliability, it's a little debatable I guess...

Maybe i should just partition? I'm not sure..

Any further opinions? I'll be ordering tomorrow!