I will also be doing a lot of gaming and after watching and reading about Linux gaming, it seems you will generally lose about 10% FPS compared to windows. I also heard that Arch is supposed to be one of the better distros for gaming.
I've tried installing Arch on a virtual machine before, so I am not completely new to it I suppose. I think I will be fine with the added complexity of Arch. Good advice to check out the Arch forums before updating, thanks!
No, I am not going to use RAID. The only reason I have two SSDs is just for the extra space for games and all my projects I work on. Drive encryption is not something I have thought about, not sure if it's beneficial for me.
Can you give some examples on how it's high maintenance? I am not afraid of tinkering with the computer to get what I want.
The reason I am interested in Arch Linux is because it's not bloated and I have full control over what I will have installed on my system.