am I compatible and do i have enough power and cooling??

[bc165]

i need the ability to support up to 4 monitors and streaming/downloading from multiple sites at the same time

Case:Antec Sonata III 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply 109.99
PSU:???
Motherboard:GIGABYTE GA-MA790GPT-UD3H AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - 114.99
CPU:AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor 175.00
RAM:Crucial Ballistix 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL3KIT25664TB1608 - OEM $164.00
Graphics card:EVGA 512-P3-1153-TR GeForce GTS 250 512MB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail - $125.00
x2 to support up to 4 monitors
Sound card: mother board
Hard Drive(s):Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $159.00
Optical Drive(s):

Monitor:
Speakers:

Operating System:windows 7 64 bit

do i need raid capability (not sure what it even is)??

[RickyTick]

This is all wrong.

You need two video cards in order to run 4 monitors and that motherboard does not support SLI. You could run crossfire with two ATI cards though.

Plus you have 3 sticks of ram for a dual channel motherboard.

I'm not so sure that a velociraptor is a good choice here either.

[bc165]

not 100% sure if the MOBO will support SLI but I think so. If I am off track, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Case:Antec Nine Hundred + EA650 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 650W Power Supply - Retail

Motherboard:ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD - Retail

CPU:AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDZ955FBGIBOX - Retail

ram:Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT25664BN1608 - Retail x2 for 8g total

Graphics card(x2):EVGA 01G-P3-N981-TR GeForce 9800 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Hard Drive(x2):Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3320418AS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (2 for raid)

Optical Drive(s)Sony Optiarc DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model AD-7241S-0B LightScribe Support - OEM

[RickyTick]

100% sure it does not support SLI, so you can't use the 2 nvidia video cards. It does support Crossfire though, so you could pick out 2 ATI cards.
A couple of these would be nice.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858

[bc165]

would this one work?

MSI NF980-G65 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

also is the SLI easy to set up for the multiple monitors

thinking about switching to intel I7, any thoughts pros/cons

[The Wise Monkey]

You don't need SLI to use more than two monitors - the cards will need to work independently of each other anyway.

[bc165]

am i still ok with what i have though?
any thoughts on going the AMD route.