Advice: Stacking an uneven mountain

[Dark_Legacy]

Hey guys, it's me again and I've got a bit of a pleasant problem on my hands.

My 8800GTS recently gave up the ghost, and sent it in to be RMA'd, and they sent me back a GTX 260 Core 216. While the card was still in the process of being RMA'd, someone had gifted me a GTX 260, Core 216. I now have two of them, and I want to use them both, but I am pretty sure that the rest of my system is a bottleneck, I won't have enough space in my case for the second massive long card, and my PSU is lacking.

[Btw: The guys at EVGA totally rock. If anyone likes Nvidia-based cards, go with them. Lifetime warranty, step-up, RMA and excellent customer service.]

[H]ard|OCP is full of awesome people that haven't ever let me down with advice, so here I come asking for it again.

Specs:
Antec P180
Corsair HX520 Modular PSU (Assumed to be 520W)
EVGA nForce 4 680i SLI, 32X PCI-Express Motherboard (38C Idle)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.0GHz/Stock Voltage (45C Idle)
Corsair Dominator Series, 2GB DDR2 @ 1.0 GHz, timings reduced to 50% of stock
EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked (50C Idle)
4x Samsung/Hitachi SATA-2 7200RPM (1 TB, 1 TB, 500GB, 500GB) (49C Average Idle)
M-Audio Revolution 5.1 (AKA: VIA Envy24)
ASUS EP616 16x DVD-ROM
Pioneer DL-DVD+RW

^ All the above is currently running on the HX520 with no hics. Some PSU calc said that it used 498W/520W. My battery backup system meter reads power draw of the machine as: 189W on Idle currently.

I think, or rather have noticed the bottleneck in my system to be particularly not the speed but the -amount- of RAM. Windows 7 eats up 1364 MB just sitting at the desktop typing up this post, and uses 100% of my ram while playing Modern Warfare 2.

But being as I'm kind of on a budget, having not upgraded for around three years thanks to having to pay for college, I'm looking to work with what I already have.

What case do you guys recommend would be best for an SLI system, and what power supply?

I've looked at the Antec 1200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043

And the 850HX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011

But I've been stricken by the quiet beauty of the P180, and I'm not sure how going back to an enormous flashy and noisy case full of jet turbine-sounding fans and blue LEDs would be.

Any advice appreciated, thanks in advice!

 

[Dangman]

Well I'd try out the GTX 260 SLI first in that Antec P180 case and see what the noise and heat level will be. If it's too high, then get a new case like the Coolermaster RC-690 case. The Antec 1200 is a poor choice for the money as there are more roomier and equal quality cases for less or about the same price. Yes the RC-690 is a bit more roomier than the Antec 1200 case.

PSU wise, the Corsair 850HX is a good choice. I would not recommend any PSU below 850W for that kind of setup.

RAM wise, you're gonna have to pay the $100 for a 4GB DDR2 or $50 for 2GB DDR2 RAM.

Case wise, see if you can mod the lower hard drive bay to fit a 120mm fan in front of the drives. That'll drop your HDD temps quite a bit.

 

[dandragonrage]

That CPU isn't going to hold you back notably for gaming, but an upgrade to 4GB and a bigger power supply are in order.

 

[engiNURD]

The E6600 @ 3Ghz shouldn't hold you back at all for gaming unless the game is more CPU bound than GPU, which is uncommon. You could OC it a bit more if you feel its a bit sluggish -- if you notice it affects your performance, keep it. That chip should be able to reach 3.6Ghz with a nice cooler.