Also, I want to buy the quietest PS I can find, and it must support Crossfire & SLI:New Parts:CPU: QX9650 or Q6600 (leaning towards QX9650 OMG!)MEM: Crucial DDR2-800 x 2 1G DIMMS, to 4 when have 64bit VistaMOBO: ASUS Maximus Formula: does it support .5 multipliers?Old Parts:4x Seagate Cheetah 15K.3-5 drivesLian Li aluminum casem-audio Delta Audiophile 2496 sound (need it for Gigastudio)LSI U160 SCSI controllerI will need two regular (dunno the spec) PCI slots for the LSI & m-audio.Would really like to get as quiet as possible on the PS. I need enough horsepower for SLI or crossfire should I some day go that route.I haven't chosen a graphics card yet, but would want to get one that could do SLI or crossfire down the road. Suggestions on graphics cards would be much appreciated. I'm still not in a hurry to get FSX, but if I do, are the 8800GTX's working ok now?Noel

> are the 8800GTX's working ok>now?Never knew the 8800GTX's were not working. Mine has always worked fine with FSX.I would not get anything smaller than 700 watts if you plan on going SLI or Crossfire. It's best to error on the side of too much power vice too little power.Most power supplies in general these days are quite. The majority of noise generated within a computer nowadays is caused by case fans and CPU coolers.

This Power Supply Calculator should be useful in nailing down your power needs. Don't be surprised to see that the power you'll need is less than you expected.

Wow, thanks that was very comprehensive. Actually, I amazingly guessed right on the money. For 100% power load of all components, which would be 750W. They recommend using 90% of full load as the benchmark, which for my machine is 670W. Probably should just go for the 750W and call it . . . 10%+ overkill. Better high than low tho.Greg do you know much about what amperage rating needs to on the 12v rail(s) for a highest end ATI or nV card? As I mentioned the Corsair PS touted a 52A single rail so I dunno. The Zalman 750W looks attractive, but has 4x 20A 12v rails. I not totally sure it's an issue, as I don't know why any new PS models coming out would shortchange this area, esp when they are supposed to be "SLI and Xfire Ready"

Greg do you know much about what amperage rating needs to on the 12v rail(s) for a highest end ATI or nV card?Not offhand, Noel, but I do know things are getting better. The previous gen cards (high end... 8800GTX/2900) required alot more power than the current cards (mid range, but super performers...8800GT/3870). I'm curious to see how the new dual GPU cards will do in the next few weeks (performance/power/heat).

Greg, do you know are the new nV cards supposed to be a die shrink over the current 8800's? I am very tempted to wait for the new dual GPU cards will go--they sound very decent. The alledged 30% perf boost seems quite significant as the cards they are superceding are as you say, pretty super performers already.

No die shrink on the new nVidia dual GPU. The cards will use two G92's.I'm looking forward to these new cards. Of course, back in the day I owned 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP (when AGP was new technology :-) ). Then nVidia bought out 3dfx... and now many years later they are finally bringing us dual GPU cards. After who knows how many folks bought into the SLI/Crossfire lines from both nVidia and ATI. Kaching!!!

Because there is some SLI going on with these, will their performance depend in part on what you are running them with, ie, be application-dependent? My impression is that SLI doesn't always show benefits for all games etc.