Intel E8500 + Asus Striker ll Formula 780i sli a good match ?

i have that setup, with an 8800 gts i play crysis on high at 1680x1050 native res or very high on 1027x768 res. and max out COD 4 episode 2 quake 4 assassins creed mass effect the witcher etc...

iv had no problems, i did have it up to 4 ghz overclock but i couldent get the stability to run it perminantly, but take nothing from that. i had no idia what i was doing, it was my first overclock.

i built the thing myself and its prety simple. 780 i's supposedly have some small kinks with stability (pirticaully on the evga moddle) but i had little to no problems with the asus, pirticularly since nvidia sent some updated sata controller drivers through windows update. and with heat, but i installed a zalman heatsink on the 8500 and the 780i copmes with a few auxiluary fans for placement in the case, relly quite nifty.

finally it comes with its own "highdef" soundcard, an above adverage 5.1 sound output that is about the level of about an xfi audio or basic modern creative card.(tho i upgradrd to an auzen x fi prelude)

all in all an excelent pairing.

Only if you are planning to SLI and you are ready to deal with the heat. If you aren't going to SLI, the Intel chipsets are a far better choice. For example, if you aren't going to SLI or you plan to use a X2 card (9800 X2) then it would be a much better choice to go with the Asus Rampage Formula. The ONLY reason to get a nvidia based board is to SLI, outside of that the intel chipsets are in a whole different league in every other aspect.therealFrek

QFT. I agree 100%