Double check my about to be system

looks great.

Might want to switch to the WD Caviar Black series (AALS), it will be a bit faster than the one you have picked (AAKS).

That's just nitpicking though.

Do you need that mb?

Feature wise its a great AM2+ mb and would let you crossfire a second gfx card . But you wont need to do that any time soon with a 4890 and a 22 inch monitor .

If you are not intending to add a second gfx card you could move to an all AM3 build for about the same price

With a Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P $189.96

G.SKILL 4GB kit (2GB x 2) DDR3-1333 (PC-10600) CL8-8-8-21 MEMORY $155.21

I think thats a little bit cheaper than your am2 build, and should have a longer working life with more parts support . Performance will be very similar

You do lose the second gfx card slot on the mb though

Ram is cheap so grab as much as you can. I like velociraptors because they're fast but I also use Seagate .12 drives because they're very cheap, big and fast. One of each

Is there any MBs that you would recommend that support Crossfire and DDR3?
I looked at the MB you mentioned and apparently needs VRM heatsinks if you are planning to OC and trying to find heatsinks in NZ is a nightmare and the Asus MBs look alright but it seems a bit of -tive and +tive comments.

Ideas?

And reason for Crossfire is that I plan to keep this system for over a year so would like the option of crossfire.

I dont think you will need to crossfire a pair of 4890's when you have a screen resolution of 1680 x 1050

It might let you turn gfx quality up but you dont get a whole lot extra out the experience and it costs a lot .

This is a review of the GA-MA770T-UD3P
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/985/1/
They get fairly decent OC's on a 720 be
But it is a budget board and you do lose out on gfx expansion

There arent a huge range of AM3 boards available here yet
The ASUS M4A78T-E is a nice board and reasonably priced but its a 790 g which means you only get 8x/8x pci-e slots in crossfire mode
Same with the Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P

The only AM3 booards that available that have 16 x/ 16 x slots are
Microstar 790FX-GD70
and
Asustek M4A79T-Deluxe AM3 790FX
The 8x slots would be limiting a 4890 so you'd want one of those boards if you went AM3 . How is the budget holding up?

^ you also have the crosshair III and one by DFI.

Hmm, I'm liking the looks of the Microstar, not to expensive either. Reason for crossfire is just future proof really. Technology likes to move fast and I like to play games at max.

The microstar is probably the most I'd spend really, I'm pushing my budget getting it as it is.

bump