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.

@ nightsurge: I don't see what's illegal about his OS recommendations.

He said:

"I would bet almost everyone on this forum can get their hands on a copy of Vista or XP that will validate.  I have an OEM of Vista left over from installing it on my laptop that validates if you call for instance"

That kind of implies doing something illegal.  OEM licensed copies of Windows can only be used on one machine, ever.  They cannot be transfered legally.  Sure you can just call them and get it working as I've done the same with XP, but it is still not legal to do with an OEM copy.

Sure you can use Windows 7, but again you are making crappy suggestions.  If they want a permanent solution, they will need Windows OS legally obtained for $100 minimum.  Sure they can use Linux, but that's always a pain, and will not be able to play their games very well, even with Wine.  Sure they can use Windows 7 Beta, but that does not work with every game, and is only good for a few more months.  I'm simply saying you are making some rather ridiculous suggestions just to try and avoid a "windows tax" when it is almost always required.  You are also saying we should sacrifice on our very important Case choice, destroying our cooling options, and go with a sub-par $30 power supply just to get the price down.  If you want a Core i7 rig and you want it done right, it HAS to be around the $1100-1300 minimum for a decent rig.  Anything less would be wasting the new technology in my opinion.  If you really want an $800 rig that blows away a PS3 or a 360, just get a Q9650 rig.  It's almost as good as the Core i7's and will come in much cheaper using DDR2 and an LGA775 motherboard.

Isn't it one machine ... at a time? So if I rip a license out of an old machine getting trashed anyway, it's fine?

Well, a brief search reveals that I'm wrong, but seriously, Microsoft DOES NOT CARE about individuals doing this. They will jump on any business they find out is doing this I'm sure, but I just don't believe they will ever go after any private person who moves an OEM license to a new PC.

In any case, aside from the bad suggestions he does point out that he knows someone with a couple spare licenses, and I bet you do too.

i have the same build as you except for the gfx card mine is 260 gtx more than enough for me now .. i tryed oblivion on it and man man its far better than any console in graphics .. its a crystal clear graphics and it can run on 60fps at 1080p with 16aa and zero jag easily.

WTF? Optimised for i7? Games are NOT optimised for different CPUs (it does happen with GPUs due to drivers). On CPUs, as long as the instruction set remains the same (which Penryn -> i7 did), it runs the same code on all chips. So performance won't increase at all in the long run; ask Intel and they will say the same.

Sure, you can OC an i7. 3.5GHz with realistic cooling. But you can OC an E8600 to 4.0GHz with the same cooling, and it will be just as stable and still faster. The E8600 is more OC-able than i7, due to

Yes, the reason those benchmarks were at low-res was to seperate out CPUs. Any higher, and it would gave been entirely GPU-limited, giving the same perf regardless of CPU - an argument against ALL high-end CPUs, in fact a cheap E7xxx runs all modern games at max res good enough anyway. The i7 does NOT stand out or improve against the E8600 as you change the resolution.

OEM licenses are not.  It is one machine. Period.  Non-transferrable.  OEM is for the individual system it was made for and that is it.  Retail licenses are the only ones that can legally be moved when another system has been recycled or discontinued use.

I'm going about this from a system builder perspective, as I am one.  I'm just trying to get him to not suggest such actions just to try and make this build look cheaper/better than it is.

   Games ARE optimized for new processors, especially multi core innovations and hyperthreading.

   Here's an example.  Until recently Everquest 2, an older MMO, only used one core no matter how many you had.  It was made when the Pentium 4 model was really the only model (you have one chip, get the Ghz as high as possible and that's that) and so never really had anything built in for multiple cores since only servers had such set ups.

   Recently, since almost everyone has a Core 2 or better by now, EQ2 uses multiple cores so you get much better performance with Core 2s and even better performance with Quad Cores and i7s.

   Now as to optimizing for i7, it only has a big boost if games can efficiently utilize up to 8 processing units instead of 2 or 4 (as is common for a lot of games made under the core 2 paradigm).  If whatever you're using can't use 8 Processing Units then the i7 won't give a huge boost over a chip with less multi thread support.  If I were to use Everquest 2 in the old version for instance it wouldn't matter whether I had a Core 2, a Quad Core or an i7, it would be functionally the same.

   Benchmarks DO use multiple cores to the fullest which is why the i7 blows away all the old style chips, what I'm saying is eventually games will catch up to benchmarks in that respect (will use all 8 processing units at the same time and have a big boost in performance).  Clearly if fully utilized the i7 is vastly superior to the old architecture, though that will be more the case going forward then looking backward.

  Also if you use the processor for anything other then straight gaming the i7 vs the old style quad cores isn't even much of a contest.  Using Premire for video editing the render time with the i7 (at the same 2.66 clock speed as my old 2.66 quad core) is about half what it was even with the same 8800GT GPU put back in.  The i7 is vastly faster, its not immaginarry, it just needs the software to catch up to the new hardware which it will.

  You're basically making the arguement "don't go with the core duo processor since no games use multiple cores anyway just get a faster pentium 4 for 100 bucks less", only you're making the arguement with a different change a few years later.

   Reusing OEM licenses (especially system builder OEM licenses) is a grey area.  Using it on 2 computers is black and white illegal (only retail licenses can legally be on 3 computers) but if you uninstall it on computer A and reinstall it on computer B it is not clearly illegal at all.  You have one license for your computer, you are using said license on only one computer, you are technically abiding by the agreement even if not to the letter. 

      The chance of Microsoft A) coming after you and B) having any kind of case is almost nil, they are really infringing on your fair use of the software you purchased legally by claiming that because you changed motherboards you no longer should be able to use the OEM copy you legally purchased. 

   I am not suggesting torrenting it after finding a copy from an OEM vendor that doesn't require validation from say pirates who work out of a bay somewhere, I would NEVER suggest that.

   Personally the furthest into the grey waters I go is reusing my OEM licence for Ultimate more then once, which I feel fine about since I only use it on one machine at a time; how far anyone else wants to go into those waters is a personal decision as far as I'm concerned, and unlike with pirating games which I abhor, I would never judge anyone on how they got a working OS on their system (especially since Microsoft takes as many steps as they can to make other often better OSes unusable with so many games through their direct X, ActiveX and ASP/.net arms).