I have everything ordered with the exception of either the SSD or HD and Windows 7 64.

I would pair it with either a 450 or a 550ti honestly, there are a couple of things that are note worthy though, screen resolution and the kinds of games that she'll be playing. I'm just gonna take a stab at it and guess 1920 x 1080 and it won't be anything like Metro or Crysis?

rz22g

_Bathory

I would pair it with either a 450 or a 550ti honestly, there are a couple of things that are note worthy though, screen resolution and the kinds of games that she'll be playing. I'm just gonna take a stab at it and guess 1920 x 1080 and it won't be anything like Metro or Crysis?

1680x1050  and she may play Crysis.  Mostly Skyrim for a while and she likes L4D series and Boredlands.

 
Well either will easily max out L4D and Borderlands. A 550 ti will give you around 28 fps in Crysis on gamer dx10 and around 27 fps on skyrim maxed out. 
 
http://guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-550-ti-review-msi-cyclone-ii-oc/13
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-8.html
 
If you scale down the settings a little those numbers become more reasonable. I'm assuming she doesn't need to play on max settings? it's difficult to get a whole lot of performance out of lower cards with games like that unfortunatly..
 

rz22g

I think someone, may have been you, recommended the 460 as well.  Do you think the 460, at $70 more than what I paid for the 450, would be $70 more difference or would the CPU pretty much balance them out ?

 
With that cpu, there will be a bottleneck on both, so no it's not $70 difference in performance. When the 400 series came out there was little reason to buy anything less than a 460 due to pricing, much like the 500 series with the 560ti. My best guess is that there will be very little difference when it comes to fps due to the bottleneck so I would save those $70 and grab a 450 honestly.
 
Yeah it was me that recommended a 460, but if there's a $70 difference between them now then it makes little sense to get the 460 contra the 450. 
 
 

rz22g

Ok I have stuff arriving today, tomorrow and Friday. I will actually be able to start my new computer build tomorrow while I have to wait for other items coming to complete my daughters system.

Anyway..  I chose the Corsair Force GT 120 SSD as my main drive. Today Im considering grabbing another SSD as a secondary and want to make sure I choose wisely.

Do I need to match the drives on a performance level ?
If I get a smaller 64 drive would it be best to use it as main and move the 120 to secondary?
I don't know about RAID at all. Should I considering another 120 and set up RAID configuration ?
If I get a 240 SSD should I leave the 120 as main and put the 240 as secondary? 

 
You don't need to match the drives, It'll be just like if you were using a 7200 rpm HDD and a 10k rpm, whatever is on the 10k obviously will be quicker to load ect. So in this situation I would put the OS and whatever you use most on a daily basis on the faster of the drives.
 
People's opinions will differ on what to use an SSD for, my personal opinion is that you should put the OS and a few crucial programs (antivirus ect) on the smaller drive and use it as a main. That way you have the bigger drive to store all your other important things, because the 64GB drive will easily cover the OS and a few programs. 
 
SSDs in a Raid 0 array is a touchy subject, yes you will get faster performance out of them, but from my understanding the real world difference is minimal outside of things like editing and huge game level loading. Aside from this is the fact that if one of the SSDs goes down, you lose all your information stored on both drives since it's stripped across both of them. Granted this isn't really an issue if you have a diligent data backup schedule. 
 
If you choose to get a 240GB SSD, I would use the 120GB for a main drive (OS, ect) and use it as your secondary drive yes.
 

Right now I am torn between another 120 Force GT SSD or the Black Caviar 750 gb.  The first reason being that most of my games are steam games and second because I am currently using 500 gb of a 1TB  5400 drive. 
 
Now I could get another 120 Force GT and put my OS on one along with pictures, etc.   On the other I could put just steam games and games in general.  I could use my current 1TB 5400 for backup.
 
The next alternative is just the single Force GT 120 and order the 750 Caviar Black. It will be faster than my current HD.
 
Thanks for opinions...

So which one did you choose?  I probably would have gone for the Corsair Force GT, although the lack of TRIM support in RAID might bug me.

I might have to go with the Vertex 3 120. I don't think any deals are coming for the Corsair Force GT anytime soon. Im also restricted to Amazon when I purchase so the deal has to be through them.

rz22g

I might have to go with the Vertex 3 120. I don't think any deals are coming for the Corsair Force GT anytime soon. Im also restricted to Amazon when I purchase so the deal has to be through them.

 
That's a good choice.  I have the 60GB model and it made a very nice difference...

There is a huge gap between a GTS 450 and GTX 580.  What is the price range exactly?  AMD's 6800 cards have a great value, or one of the GTX 560 Ti cards.

Ok so my daughter is on her new "my old" system and running Skyrim on the GTS 450.  Not quite happy with the 450 performance.  Would a GTX 460 be a noticable improvement or do I need to look a bit higher ?  

Its playing on high with some of the settings turned down. It is very playable but I know it can be improved. I just wonder how much difference is there between a GTS 450 and GTX 460.