New Super awesome sub 900 dollar i7 build

[Impulsivity]

how is using the Windows 7 beta illegal? How is using the 2nd license included in a 3 license retail pack illegal?

Worst case you can buy the upgrade version of home premium for 79 dollars as a student, would that make you happier? Still puts the orig config right at the 1000 dollar mark and the lower config under 900 bucks. If you've already bought an OS once should you have to buy it again for each and every computer you build? I've gone through 4 computers since Vista has come out, and spending 600 dollars to buy a new copy of OEM ultimate with every new box just sounds like lunacy to me, sorry if it offends your sensibilities that I might delete vista from one computer when I sell it and install it on another.

And I don't recommend going low with the motherboard and case, I, in fact, did not (even though it pushed the total cost to about 1,100 to go with the Cosmos case and much better EVGA motherboard with 3x SLI).

I only DO recommend going lower with the MB and case if cost is a huge issue and you can't go over 800 or 900 dollars in your total budget. For reference if you buy the same system I made from ibuypower.com which is pretty reasonable compared with buying a prebuilt dell or something, the system costs over 1300 dollars (mainly due to their very high GPU prices). They don't even offer the rather incredible Cosmos case (only the vastly inferior Coolermaster HAF full tower) which is what sent me to building again in the first place.

Also how is the OCZ power supply I built in there low end? I mean there were no name 750 watt supplies I could have picked for 40 bucks, but an OCZ is very solid and only that cheap because of a rebate/amazon discount. You can get a very competent 550 power supply for 40 bucks if thats all you need, PSU prices increase very fast about the 600 watt threshold so if you don't plan to need more then 600, you can save a lot of money (and the 260 is a rather efficient card for the performance you get).

   Also Amazon has no tax and free shipping (ground without prime, 2nd day with prime) so the tax/shipping cost part is kind of irrelevant.  The costs on the site are the costs in the cart.