[mistawiskas]

The final specs.
already recieved:
*Ultra Grid case. (great looking, kinda flimsy but wtf, it was free)
*Ultra Xconnect VS 700w psu
*Ultra MD2 MultiMedia dashboard.
*Asus DVD burner (silver, so that not everything is black)
shipped yesterday:
*Asus p5n-e sli (tricky board, but I'm up for a challenge)
*Mushkin Xp6400 2 gig DDR2
*Conroe e6700
*MS WIN VISTA 64BT ULT oem
*Yet to order:
*Seagate baracuda SATA 500gb 7200/16mb (they're cheap enough, I may get two =1tb )
*evga GFfx8800gs/640mb-320bit
*Aerocool 120mm fan (to fancy up the front of case w/some blue backlighting )

I don't plan on OC'ing or anything like that. Got the case and PSU on a BOGO deal. Didn't know what to think about the case....until I unpacked it, then I fell in luv with it. I've been putting this build off long enough. In the space of one year, the component prices have gone from 1800 bux down to less than
1300. I know...."if you'd wait a bit longer, the price'll drop more'. But that's always going to be the case and I'd never get a build done.

[WoodButcher]

I was a little sceptical of the ultra products until about a month ago. I got a 600w psu, free after rebate. (rebate's on it's way so they say) After testing I found all the volages to be on the plus side of tolerances, it has real nice cables and limited lifetime warranty. So far works great, the 2 80mm fans are more noisy than I really like but this build is for the kid, he won't notice.
I liked it so much I got another 600w modular $29 AR.
You may want to look into this for the vid card.
What makes you say it's a tricky board?, I have seen a post recently at anandtech about nvidia chipets and vista having problems but otherwise nothing but good from that board.

[mistawiskas]

Many user reviews....many many, I read 315 reviews the other day. Most negative experiences were from noobs that couldn't get what it took to change ram voltages and timings. the next ordeal noobs had was flashing the bios ( boards ship with old bios) and the fact they tried to get ahold of asustech support, which is notoriously lousy. if you discount the 20 percent of bad experiences attributed to those items, the rest are awesome reviews on this board. The complaints i do worry about are the ones involving bad ddr2 banks and faulty bios, but the percentage of those are under par when concidering the same complaint on other mobo make/models. I like the price point of this board and the fact that, with the proper bios, it's penryn ready. oh yeah, another complaint was that you need vista 64 to go over 3gigs of ddr2....got it covered.

[Lord Kain]

By the way, Vista ultimate is a big waste. My buddy got it and for domestic uses, I don't see the point over Home Premium.

I have Home Premium 64 btw

my 2c

EDIT: sorry, I just saw that Vista isn't in the "yet to order category"

[mistawiskas]

I just slapped this thing together yesterday. I'm short the sata500gig and the 8800gs, but had a 7300gs and a 120gig to use temporarily. I'd have to say, it was the most sweat-free build to date. I nervously reached out to push the power button and instant post! Yesss! Setting up windows vista was as much a pain in the ass as the other windows variants....at least MS is consistent. Played around with the aero and within Vista ultimate for 2 hours....it's pretty neat.

[WoodButcher]

Happy Days! Always nice when they actually work.
UPS came tonight to deliver my "free after rebate", Ultra wizard case. I got it for the parts, mobo tray, back plane front panel switches, etc. Figured it worth the $8 shipping to have the parts for my next abor er, ah,, inspiration. This case is obviously the bottom of the ultra line, yours has the fp audio and tooless bays, 2, 120 fans and a window, (did you get the windowed model or non?) Mine is none of the above, and the tin is thin. Thin tin. any thinner and it would come on a roll. funny thing though, I like it. Many of the parts and the integration of them shows it was well thought out. I may just keep the bitch as is.....

[mistawiskas]

I didn't know what I'd think of the "free" grid case. But I like it. Only gripe is the direction of the front panel door swing. It came with a window, but I'd have been happy without one. I put a 80mm sythe blue led fan in the side air duct and the proc runs at 30-32c with the pos stock intel hsf. havent done burn-in yet or benching. Trying to get to that today.

[MaesterB]

Nice. I so want to upgrade. Not that I would ever make that good of use of the computer because I'm on the road so much, but...it's the thought I guess.

[mistawiskas]

I still can't believe the difference of core2 duo over the prescott for doing multiplr operations simultaneously. At any given moment, i was running up to five instalss at the same time and it didn't even bog the processor down any. The beauty of the p5n-e sli is that it's penryn ready for the next tme.