This is my first time building a new computer. I have mostly everything picked out and my first question is that I'm not sure which graphics card to get. Im getting a Asus P5W DH-Deluxe Wi-Fi Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard, its Crossfire ready but I don't know if I should get 1 Radeon GPU, 2 Radeon GPUs, or get a Geforce. I am wondering what you would recomend and which card.

I am also going to get a Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 and want to know which fan you would recomend for it. Im getting a thermaltake armor case so Im pretty sure space wont be a huge problem.

If you want too use crossfire get 2 ATI cards, if you don't want too use crossfire get whatever you want, if you have a big budget, nvidia's 8800 serie is very good, AFAIK based on current benchmarks the 8800 serie by NVIDIA is outperforming ATI/AMD. If you want too use Crossfire, ATI HD2900XT is ok, if you don't want too use it crossfire, it's still a good card .

But as allways, it's all about what you want to do with the computer, if you are not going too play extensive games, don't buy a top of the line gfx card, it would be a waste of money.

So perhaps you could tell us more about what you want to do with the computer.

About the cpu cooler, i would look at some of scythe's , they are fine, and make little noice.

Well, I'm using a C2D 6600 right here with an Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro. It cools the CPU to about 28° C idle right after booting up and going up to 35° after ten minutes of idling (40 during hot days). That is inside an ANTEC Sonata III with the CPU fan at 400 RPM, the front chassis fan at 900RPM and the back fan at middle speed. Not a bad choice, I think, and this cooler does have a good reputation. It was an enormous discomfort at first, though, because my ASUS mobo was unable to pick up the fan speed unless I ran it full-speed (3000RPM); that left me stuck with a helicopter on my desk for several months until ASUS finally brought out a BIOS update that took care of this. Much quieter now, almost inaudible when running everything in silent mode.

As for graphics cards, I'll always recommend Nvidia if only because of ATI's open disregard for the Linux community. I used ATI for about a year, though, but I always found something wanting. Bugs, lack of AIGLX, fans being noticeably louder when using Linux rather than Windows, not to mention their refusal to make any driver whatsoever for FreeBSD or Solaris and then the lies... They were going to collaborate on open-source drivers but they haven't collaborated anything yet. In fact, they have recently come back to their old point of view, that we should be glad with what little we get. Their cards are still slightly better in the upper mid-range segment but the rest is dominated by Nvdia and to some extent Intel. Anyway, I got myself an ASUS geforce 7600 GS top; it cost about 100$ and it gives me nearly 9500fps with glxgears - nearly double what I could get from an ATI1600 that still costs about the same. Of course, getting an Nvidia 8800 will give you nearly three times those fps...But do you need them?

i want to be able to play games without having to deal with lag or discoloration or anything.

Well, nvidia 8800 would make a very good choice then, although I hear from many that nvidia 7900GS is still doing great as well. The most striking difference between those two is that the first supports DX10 and the latter doesn't. If you have a windows box or you're dual-booting, the 8800 is clearly more future-proof even though its performance under DX10 is pretty depressing at this time (nvidia is still struggling with implementing DX10 in its drivers). The other noticeable difference is a financial one: even the cheaper 8800 models are about twice as expensive as the 7900GS. ATI 1950 is about on a par with 7900GS, even slightly better under windows, but it doesn't implement DX10 either and, most importantly, ATI has never been the best choice for a Linux box (IMHO but I think that those who can compare will generally agree).