I'd suggest not going for an i7 Extreme/Pro, in terms of cost/performance you'd be better of with a vanilla high-end i7.
i7 processors only take DDR3, so buying 12GB is extremely expensive. I'd suggest 8Gb, as that should be more than enough for anything.
nVidia cards from the GTX200 line have both Aegia PhysX hardware and CUDA acceleration built in, so I'd suggest a GTX285/290 over an HD 4850/4890.
Three monitors is really excessive, unless you have some sort of specialist interest (digital/3D arts, music composition) . I'd invest in two monitors and a sexy keyboard and mouse instead.
Watercooling is a bitch to set up and keep running, and it's also rather expensive. I'd invest in a good heatsink, as the i7 runs quite hot (up to 80C under load). Otherwise, you should really have no need for watercooling, as a good case with enough chassis fans will keep your components cool.
Some Asus motherboards come with a tiny linux distro loaded on EEPROM (I believe) so you can access the internet and the like without a running OS. Great feature, if you ask me.
Get a good headset rather than speakers if you are going to gaming, IMHO. Voice communication is nice, and speakers echo, so yeah. If you plan on using your PC in a home theater-like setup, invest in a good sound card and speakers.
EDIT: Looking at these i7 processors:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115212http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211The i7 extreme is over a thousand dollars, which buys you increased QPI speed and a small clockspeed increase. The QPI is essentially an FSB on roids. I have a friend that owns an i7 920 and he rarely, if ever, is above 40-50% total processor load, even while running UT3 on max settings. So really, there's no reason to buy an Extreme. You could probably get away with a 920, even.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 12 2009, 6:46 pm by Dr. Shotgun.
None.