Decided to do some upgrading to my main computer after the hard disk started acting up. Did the following to "beef" it up some.

Installed a 150GByte Raptor (10,000 rpm) drive and re-installed XP on it.

Installed Vista Ultimate on a secondary drive in the system.

but the most significant was having finally received my XFX GeForce 8800GT Alpha Dog Edition (factory overclocked) and installing it.

First test was installing Call of Duty 4. On my previous card, 6600GTX, it played but not smooth enough and medium settings. On the 8800GT, smooth as silk with all settings set to their maximum. Might say I'm very happy with the results.

Next will be installing Crysis under Vista to try the DX10 and see it's performance levels.

Specs on my existing system:

ASUS P5BE-Plus

2GB Corsair XMS memory

550W Cooler Master True Power power supply

E6600 core 2 duo CPU

Approximately 2 Terabytes of combined internal and external drive space.

Waiting until next year for the Intel 45 nm quad core releases for the next stage in upgrading.

Did Vista's "WGA" routine require you to re-activate Vista?

I replaced my mobo and processor and the magic combo required me to re-activate. I've heard that if you only change one thing, you can use Windows Update with no reactivation required, but if you change two or more things, the reactivation kicks in, so just wondering how it went with your two replaced items.

Do you overclock your Core2Duo? I have an E6750 which at stock settings is 2.66Ghz, but run it overclocked at 3.2Ghz (20% o/c) with stock Intel heatsink and fan. I have 4GB of 800mhz DDR2 RAM so it matches the processor speed (400mhz speed x 8x multiplier). I did this with a slightly *reduced* CPU voltage. I ran extensive Orthos stress tests and it's solid and runs cool (32-36° C).

I just finished the install a short time ago and haven't even got the networking configured on it yet to verify WGA. Was in a hurry to try gaming on the new card under XP.

I haven't overclocked yet but planning on it shortly to bring it up to 3.0 GHz. Do you use the BIOS for overclocking or software? The NOS that comes with the ASUS mainboard doesn't appear to be very good for that.

As for reactivation, I believe the same parameters that are used under XP for hardware changes are the same under Vista. This is an article on activation/reactivation under XP: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windowsxp/activation.html

In my case I changed the hard disk and the video card which would not fall under the reactivation requirements.

I was also considering the 8800GT for the next upgrade for my computer... but there is something that's really bothering me. Nvidia was promising Purevideo HD drivers for the 8500/8600 series for XP (not Vista, as Vista already has it) since July. They still haven't delivered, and give no deadline for it (it used to be "July", now it's "soon"). I don't like this kind of service, and even though ATI is lagging in the performance department, at least they give driver support.

I haven't overclocked yet but planning on it shortly to bring it up to 3.0 GHz. Do you use the BIOS for overclocking or software? The NOS that comes with the ASUS mainboard doesn't appear to be very good for that.

I overclock directly in the BIOS. After years of using ASUS mobos, I ended up with a Gigabyte board (GA-P35C-DS3R) because it was bundled with the Intel processor for about $80 more than processor alone in a Fry's promotion. Whenever I fly into LAX to drive to visit my folks, I stop by the Fry's by the airport. :-)

I found a thread on the Anandtech forums about the exact mobo and processor combo as I got, and found great info there about how to tweak the system. One oddity with my system is that I *reduced* the CPU voltage and am stable, whereas everyone else had to *increase* voltage to be stable.

Good luck and have fun with your "new" computer.

BTW, re-activating Vista was no problem. I was happy to find there is a 24-hour toll-free Thai number, and the Microsoft rep was friendly and cooperative.

I don't like this kind of service, and even though ATI is lagging in the performance department, at least they give driver support.

ATI does frequently release driver updates, but I have found that about every other update (meaning skipping every other one) "breaks" my Samsung monitor-pivot software. Of the last four ATI driver updates, two (#2 and #4) would not work with the pivot software, but two (#1 and #3) would. Go figure.

I operate my 20" wide-screen LCD screen in portrait mode (1050 x 1400) when reading forums -- much less scrolling!

Bugs in a driver, I can live with, as they're common to every driver out there. What I don't like is them promising to deliver a feature that's extremely important (one that prompted many people to buy the 8500/8600 series) half a year ago and not deliver. Not only that, they're not giving any deadline for it, either. I'm thinking that it will probably just be put on hold until XP is killed sometime in the next few years.