My "January" build

I been thinking about this, around the end of january this:



E8400

ASUS P5E X38

Crossfire 3870's



That with all my current hardware, and will sell my current mobo/cpu



At the price and with that mobo, i'd love to have a set of 3870's



What do you think? either way, i am for sure upgrading to a E8400.. im still debating the pro's and con's between the 8800GT/680i and 3870/x38. Of course i still have roughly two months to decide, but im getting one GPU for christmas

I like the idea of a X38 chipset. It would probably better support a 45nm. Crossfired ATi cards - that's not a bad idea. <- Is that cheaper than 2X 8800 GT?

Yeah, its cheaper.. $220 a card at the moment, will probably be cheaper by the time i got around to buying another for CF. From every review i have seen, the 3870 has a better picture quality than the 8800.



When i do upgrade, i shouldn't have a problem re-activating windows, should i?

You'll have to call them. I did it the other day w/ XP. It takes like 10 minutes.

If you're just upgrading the video card, then you wont, however if you are changing out the motherboard or replacing multiple parts, then you most likely will.

Do you realy need two cards?

Also, does the Q9450 not interest you

I won't be getting two right away, it would be after i upgrade the mobo/cpu and get some more saved up.. and maybe by then the price will have dropped some more.



THe Q9450 does, but its also $316 as the E8400 will be $180. The E8400 will OC better too.

where are these prices ??

E8400: $180

3870 (1): $220 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...me=Video+Cards

X38: $230 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131219



45nm prices

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...yhm1/Peryn.png

Depends. On my OEM one, I can install it many times as much as I want. I've installed over 100 times (yeah, I'm restore happy )



Some will give you a number of times before you have to call them.



Others will make you call them every time you reformat.