http://www.amazon.com/MSI-K9N2-SLI-GeFo ... 279&sr=8-1

I'm looking at this motherboard, and this hard drive.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-I ... 221&sr=1-1

MSI is a brand I almost bought instead of Asus a few times. I think you could buy a cheaper motherboard. This supports SLI and you most likely won't use it unless you buy 2 video cards.

I would look at something like this, assuming it supports your CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131391
http://ca.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=YPZrr3KRcW3MBX5G

I bought a 60$ Asus motherboard years ago and as long as you keep to the right brand, you shouldn't have problems regardless of price. The MSI board you picked is kind of more interesting for your video card as it has more room to breath, while the Asus one, the video card will lean over the first PCI slot which is not a problem so long as you don't need to add a PCI card, which you shouldn't need to with the current setup you told us about. This note regarding the Asus board "*Due to the chipset limitation, the AM3/AM2+ CPU runs at HT1 (1000MHz). " as me thinking more research would be needed to know if this is a problem. Regardless, I think you could save a good extra 20$ with a different motherboard that doesn't come with SLI support.

Igoo - just say no to the GX2 and back away slowly.

Too big, too noisy - it's essentially two 8800GTS cards built into one big case doing SLI and pretending to be one card - it was a beast when it was released in March 2008. But that was a long time ago (graphics card wise anyway). It's no longer sold at Newegg and I wouldn't recommend you buying one.

Try this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127453

Pretty much the performance, DX10.1 support, cheaper, uses less power and has fewer SLI induced issues - I have a 4890 (though I paid a fair bit more for it).

Seriously - check out those budget gaming box guides I posted. They won't put you too far wrong.

He won't have enough money to do anything until after Christmas, and I will be sure to look over this thread before he actually buys anything. Thx for the advice, Loren and Rav and RM and Rebel.

Also, Loren, does ATI have any better driver support than they had.... say about 4 years ago?

Yes.

ATI is providing very good value, and creating a lot of consumer friendly competition.

NVidia on the otherhand are continuing to deny that they had / have serious manufacturing problems (that have plagued a lot of their cards and XBox 360 gpus) and are still doing weird things like "launching" a "new" card which is the same as an old card updating it with a bigger model number and a new sticker.

Ok, then ATI it will be, I guess.

On the bright side, the card you gave me is doing just fine.

Cool.

http://www.amazon.com/Cyclone-OC-880MHz ... =8-1-fkmr0 '

So would this card be better than this card,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814195048

The FireGL card is a workstation card - which means that it's designed for 3D programs and other graphics-intensive software(not video games).