New NLE Build Specs I've Selected for My Client - Comments?

Question

OK, after mucho work, I've come up with what seems to be the best bang for the buck for my video conversion client who needs new systems.
Here's what I selected:
Antec DF-85 Black ATX Full Tower Computer Case (tons of space, USB 3.0 ports, CPU cooler cutout, 9 internal 3.5" drives, 7 fans, long video cards fit) - $156
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W Power Supply  (any chance I need more than 1000W?) - $230
ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (Note: only available board supported by BlackMagic for their DeckLink/IntensityPro video capture cards, so this is pretty much it unless I want to chance a non-supported board with equivalent specs) - $290
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950 (I intend to overclock to some degree, probably under 4GHz) - $270
Prolimatech Armageddon CPU Cooler - Intel Socket LGA 775/1156/1366 Heatsink, 140mm Fan Compatible  (Selected this one because one Web site review of the ASUS board specifically used this cooler which fit nicely without covering up the 6 RAM slots; also this one gets good reviews everywhere) - $65
XIGMATEK eXTREME SILENT Series XSF-F1452 140mm Case Fan x 2  (for the above cooler to improve cooling) - $20
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 24GB (6 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9T2-24GBRL - $285
Palit NE5X56T01142-1041F GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card  (lots of DDR5 RAM, 384 cores, 256-bit memory path, well reviewed) - $280
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD322GJ/U 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (for OS and programs) - $43
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive x 4 (for RAID 0) - $260
SONY Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 8X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM 8MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner Blu-ray Burner BD-5300S-0B - OEM - $110
Link Depot 39.37" SATA II Cable with Locking Latch Model LD-SATA-1 $4 X 5 Drives + DVD Burner - $24
Total Cost:  $2033.00
With Windows 7 Professional OEM and an Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 upgrade, that adds another $434 making a total of $2,467. I think the client can handle that. He will also probably get a Matrox MX02 Mini or a BlackMagic DeckLink/IntensityPro card to handle video capture. I'm leaving that decision up to his tech. If he needs to go to a full CS5 Production Suite, then he needs to tack on another $500-600 over the Premiere Pro upgrade price which will bring him up to $3,000 for the whole system.
He needs to replace three machines in the video department, but my guess is we'll start with one, maybe two, and the productivity improvement over the crap he's using now may mean he doesn't need a third one. Considering he's upgrading from six-year-old+ Pentium 4 machines with 2GB RAM, no RAID, Adobe Premiere 1.5, these new systems should come as a shock. Hopefully the price for the upgrade won't be as big a shock.
I welcome any comments on the system laid out above, positive or negative.
I know I could improve this slightly with say, 10,000 RPM Velociraptors for the OS drive, and stuff like that, but I've tried to keep this pretty vanilla to hold the cost down.
Let me know what you guys think.

Answer 1

On the other hand, I just found this Tom's Hardware memory benchmark article which shows the difference between various RAM speeds and timings while doing video editing with Adobe Premiere CS4. The differences are minimal at best maybe 2-3 percent.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-i7,2325-10.html
It's not clear to me that the difference is worth either the difference in cost or more importantly how much work it might take to get a stable system.
In the last half hour I've looked up a LOT of Web postings about the ASUS P6X58D Premium and 1600 memory. It's all over the place as to whether the issues people have had are with the RAM, the CPU memory controller, or their memory settings. I don't want to go through a couple weeks of RMAing memory back and forth to get it right. I need to have this machine up within the next 6 weeks and the client isn't going to be able to order for another two weeks.
For one thing, if I decide to go with the 970, I'll have less need to overclock. I was not intending to overclock the 950 that high anyway, and if I go to the 970, I can overclock even less. So whether the RAM can be speeded up may not matter as much.
I definitely won't buy multiple sets like you did, I've heard too many warnings about that not being guaranteed by the vendors.
I also just found this Adobe Hardware Forum post which addresses this issue:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/695662?tstart=60
I quote Mr. Bowen:
Quote
When  the I7 platform released, Intel's official supported specs were really  low. They only officially supported DDR3 1333 and that was with 3 sticks  of ram only. If you had 6 sticks then the supported clock speed of the  ram was 1066. Intel also only supported a QPI of 4.8 on most cpu's  accept for the top 1 or 2 which had a QPI support of 6.4. The  Motherboard manufacturers decided to go well beyond those specs because  they were way to conservative and to push their products. The  manufacturers like ASUS supported DDR3 1600 or even DDR2000 but only in 3  stick configurations. If you had any problems with 6 stick  configurations at DDR3 1600 or higher, they would respond they only  supported specs greater than Intel's with 3 stick configurations( I was  surprised they hid behind that back then when I talked to the engineers  of one of the companies). This does not mean that it will not work. It  just means you wont get support from the motherboard manufacturer if you  have problems. It really was a joke. So much so one of the companies I  can't name here changed their website to reflect that just because I  brought the subject up and told them this policy was no where on their  website at all when we tested their board.
So  what does this all mean. The QVL is the Qualified Vendor List. This is  the hardware officially tested by the motherboard manufacturer's R&D  or tech support. This hardware is approved to work without issues and  will be fully supported by their tech support. The caveat is though only  in the officially supported configuration. Normally as long as you buy  ram off the QVL list, you can run those in 6 stick configurations and  you likely wont have problems as long as you set the bios up right. If  you buy ram that is not listed on the QVL now days with DDR3 then it's a  gamble on whether it will work or not without issues unless you have  some company like us that tests all of this and works with the Ram  company's engineering to fix any problems. So the best advice here for  DYI is stick to the QVL but remember you are not locked into the  official supported config. That is way to conservative. I hope that  helps.
End Quote
It's that "as long as you set the bios right" bit that concerns me. I don't want to spend two days tweaking the RAM settings as well as the CPU overclock considering the performance gain is likely to be less than 5%.
Further comments on this?