I also wanted a silent card and eyed the XFX 7950GT for awhile but I went with the silent 7600GT instead. It's more than enough to drive my 1440x900 monitor. Will I SLI it? I doubt it. I plan to get a larger monitor eventually, and by then you'll have even more powerful silent cards to choose...
Pretty hot, considering what RAM is going for these days. Also, check out ZZF's sold out RAM, and auto-notify it. They have some cheap, but good stuff there.
Instead of saying 'out the door' you could say 'out the window'! :p
I wouldn't do it myself. It's true that the P180's panel has soundproofing properties. Just tap it, anywhere, and it's a dead thud sound. I can understand the enthusiast mindset of admiring the innards, but even that gets old...
Actually, someone makes a custom P180 with side panel.
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3304&zenid=e0dbd93d37cb8a1161f57cf48c59efff
I dunno if they sell the panels alone. You may have to ask.
I'm also in the same boat as the OP...
You're on the right track. You might want to consider this HDD
Seagate 7200.10 400GB SATAII 16mb $110 - 26 MIR = $84 AR
People are reporting to get 7200.10's in a .9 box. If that doesn't matter much to you, and don't mind doing a MIR, it's worth the try.
There's another good deal here...
I took care of the HDD part, see the first post. Great link there, enginurd. It cleared up all my questions about today's RAM. :)
I'm looking forward to order all the parts by the weekend, and hopefully we'll see some deals on RAM, but I doubt it.
I threw that Asrock in there because it seems relatively cheap for its feature set, but I'm still leaning on AM2.
RAM prices suck right now. Sadly, that Ballistix is actually the cheapest pair that turns up on Dealram. There are some OCZs on newegg for a little less, but even those are...
Already have:
19" WS 1440x900 LCD
Antec P180B ($99 shipped at Outpost!)
Lite-On DVD burner
Seagate 7200.10 400GB SATAII 16mb $110 - 26 MIR = $84 AR, not too shabby (people are reporting to get 7200.10's in a .9 box, luck of the draw, I guess..)
GeIL GX22GB6400DC 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400...