New Gaming Rig!

[squ1rr3l]

I'm looking to buy some new hardware for my gaming rig. First my setup now:

C2D E6600 @ Stock
Asus Striker Extreme
8GB DDR2 Corsair PC6400 CL4
3x Asus 8800GTX TRi-SLi
850W Cooler Master Modulair
2x 150GB Raptor RAID0
3007WFP Dell

All I want is a better performance in games. I have more rigs that I use for my work or other stuff. What i'm looking for now is:

C2D E8400 @ ?
Asus Striker Extreme 2
4GB DDR3 Corsair PC10666 CL9
3x Asus 8800GTX TRi-SLi ( Switch to G200 when it's out )
850W Cooler Master Modulair
2x 150GB Raptor RAID0
3007WFP Dell

I have some questions tho:

- I'm gaming at the resolution of 2560x1600. I know GPU is more important than the CPU, but yet I don't feel the 8800GTX's runs at full speed. I believe the E6600 is the bottleneck even on that resolution? The E6600 doesn't OC that much to check this out for me. When I could run it at 3.6GHz I could check if this boost my FPS.

- I have some doubts getting the CL9 PC10666 mem. Please advice?

- The PSU is brand new but I had some problems with it. It looks that the USB ports on my mainboard gives me 0.3 volt to much. Some devices died within the first week I had this PSU. So i'm getting a new one, but since I use triple GPU's I need one with 6x PCI-e. Unfortunally I don't have much choice here in Holland. Don't now wich I will get?

- I change my gaming rig every 6 - 12 months. So the E8400 is a good choice for now isn't it since quad cores wouldn't give me a boost in FPS? Except Crysis, but it sucks

Games I play is ... Shitloads, but Counter-Strike:Source mainly!

 

[dhc014]

Since it sounds like you have a fairly hefty budget, maybe an E8500 (3.16ghz stock) would be a better choice. I'd say just keep your current memory and motherboard since your current DDR2-800 RAM could theoretically take an E8500 to 3.8ghz.