Another useful resource might be Ars Technica's latest builder's guide http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200803.ars For their "Hot Rod" they recommend a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R and Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 > Sonar seems to have some periodic issues and the first thing > support and others say is "Intel works for me" That sounds like a cop-out to me. -Brian