Ok, thanks for the suggestions.

The hard drive I only need for system files and such. I'm getting a 1TB drive for storage.

glad to help.

Hm, I was just reading about the VisionTek card and it says this in one of the customer reviews:

"too expensive for what you get . i contacted ati as my card only read 512mb . this is not right as it is a 1gb card . they are claiming that crossfire needs to be enabled in order to operate the other gpu in the card . but those drivers that enable crossfire will not be available until march . ati released this card pre-maturely . they should have waited until the drivers worked . but they didnt . and instead you are buying a 3870x2 that runs as a 3870 for 200 extra buck. that makes no sense . i purchased mine at my local electronics store and returned it for a regular 3870 . there was no difference . infact i got better fps on the regular 3870 with gddr4 ."

Is that true? Do I have to wait until March just to run it to it's full potential?

No. I dont know what ATi is tellling them that for. It is shown in benchmarks that the bridge chip allows the computer to see it as a seperate card. InsideHW - ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 1 GB

read for yourself. The bridge chip that connects the 2 3870 cores allows the computer to see it as a single card, so crossfire drivers are not required.

Ok. About the motherboard, the one you picked out supports DDR2 1066 RAM, but the RAM you picked out is DDR2 800.

Doesn't that mean it won't work?

nope. Those are speeds. They are still 240pin DDR2. That means the motherboard supports RAM speeds up to 1066Mhz. you can use DDR2-533, DDR2-667, DDR2-800, DDR2-1066, and all will work. But you wont see much performance improvment with 800mhz over 1066.