Best Processor?

[TexasState]

Some of the stuff in my system won't be fully optimized & taken advantage of for awhile:
SATA vs. the old IDE (PATA) hard drive
PCI-Express vs. the decade old AGP
Not too many system / hard drive brand today come with true NCQ / SATA interface.

[Ram_Puppy]

I don't think RAID will be an urban legend, RAID is a PROVEN force in the server class systems, what the real question is, are you running programs that will tax your system to the point of needing to access RAID that fast? just because you own a ferrari doesn't mean you drive it at 200 MPH all the time. I don't have any benchmarks, but I can tell you I feel that my system does operate faster than when it was running a single drive, I really like RAID, and as long as it's a viable option, it will be included in all of my future systems.

Also, another thing to consider if you are a ludicrously rich individual who just has to eek out that one extra mb per second... Rocketdrive... do a search, that is all I will say.

[TexasState]

Here's a dumb question:
How do you defrag a Raid 0?

[Ram_Puppy]

I use NOrton Speedisk to defrag my system, but like Joshua said, it's not really neccessary. I think I see my greatest speed benefit when I am playing game like Unreal Tournament that use the swap file like mad, I load faster in that game than anyone I know. RAID 5 is designed for redundancy and security, Raid 0 - 2 are designed for speed.