Ok i dont really have time to go into everything you have listed there but.... spending $200 on a case is just nuts unless you plan on taking it to lan parties. And for $470 you can get 4 gigs of ram instead of 2 and you wouldnt ever notice the diffrence in it unless you planned to overclock it. and if this is your first build you shouldnt be overclocking. For the hard drives... just get one raptor install games you need to load fast on that then get one or two huge but slower hard drives and save yourself alot of cash to spend somewhere else. you wont ever notice the diffrence. that soundcard is overkill and putting a $200 soundcard to $80 speakers isnt the best idea. While i love creative speakers and have a set myself you wont notice the diffrence from that sound card to one of the less expensive soundcards Save yourself $50 and find a cheaper one unless that one has some feature your just dying for. the Asus mb is great btw but picking what one they make is all up to what features you think you will use. Basicly dont pay for anything you dont plan to use and you will be happy with it.
Im not a fan of lcd moniters The quality isnt any better then a crt and they cost alot more with less performance so unless you need to save room i would go crt. At the very least go to a store that has them on display and look at the lcd screens see if you can get someone at the store to run a game or something threw it so you can see what the performance is like. I have seen some lcd moniters get all sorts of praise then i go to look at them and find out they are just ugly as hell compaired to most crt screens. As a alterinitive idea for about the same amount of money why not get 4 crt screens side by side curved around you. Seen a few game rigs set up like that and its pretty damn wild. if your getting 2 video cards most of the better cards can handle 2 moniters each. Just an idea to look into. I wouldnt bother with the sata dvd drive Just no point really and if you have the ide slots you might as well use them. Theres no advantage in using sata over ide for dvd drives. At least not yet. Its not always a good idea to get the newest most fancy stuff out just because alot of the time its totaly pointless and way overpriced. For stuff like dvd drives hard drives ram and power source you should stick with stuff thats well tested and prooven. Newegg.com has customer reviews right on the site for each item. you should read those for anything you plan to buy. alot of the time they will tell you stuff about the hardware that you wouldnt ever read about in a online review from a prosite or whatever.
Ok thats my thoughts on the hardware.
Dont forget the little details. Might want to get a round ide cable for your dvd drive just makes things in the case a bit cleaner and has better airflow. You will also need thermal paste to put between the processor and heatsink for it. Might just want to get a keyboard and a really nice mouse. Cant have a good gaming rig without a hell of a nice mouse. logitech has some real nice ones out. Buy a few fans while your ordering your stuff. even if your case comes with fans. Most of the time the fans they come with suck. would be useful to have a couple 120mm and a couple 80mm fans. They are cheap enough so even if you dont use them all you will at least have a backup if a fan ever goes out.
As far as heat goes thats all up to you and how you have the cables routed in the case what fans you use and where you have the fans and what way they are pointed. Personaly i like having a 80mm intake fan in the front lower part of the case. Then a 120mm intake fan on the side of the case blowing fresh cool air right at the processors fan and heatsink along with the motherboard. Then a 120mm exhaust fan near the top of the case in the back. then of corse the fans flowing air from inside the case threw the power sorce and out the back.
I have a amd 3700+ geforce 7800 vid card and a couple gig of ram being cooled by this setup and my processor temp never goes over 35C and the motherboard never goes over 32C Both well below the Max temp they can handle of about 80C And the fans are almost silent. And thats in a $50 coolermaster case that i absolutely love. very easy to work in all tooless and good airflow.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119068 Thats the case i use.