Well, I've never seen a brownout last more the a few seconds where I live. Today's lasted like two seconds, but it was long enough to blow my PSU. In the last three years the power has gone out once. So I'm not really looking for something that will actually keep my computer running for any length of time, just protect it from a brief brownout.

But if I do get a smaller UPS, when it switches on is it effectively browningout my computer? In other words, if it's rated at 450 watts and my computer's pulling 600 watts, will it get cut back to 450 watts and possibly damage the computer like a brownout? Do I need to spend $200+ on one that's rated higher?

I suffered a brownout today which fried my power supply. Luckly it didn't damage the rest of my PC (which is only 7 days old...) and I got the PSU replaced under warrenty. I'm looking into a UPS, but damn those are expensive...

My PSU is an 850 watt Antec, though I think the actual draw at full load is closer to 600 watts (one 9800 GX2, 750i mobo, E8400 CPU). I'm not planning on running my monitor through it. What UPS should I be looking at? Does the wattage rating on the UPS have to exceed the computer's draw, or would a UPS with a lower rating still provide brownout protection?

Ferret: Huh... Interesting. Best Buy also has the 9800 GX2s listed at $650, so I assumed the 9800 and 280 were about the same price. Might as well save the couple hundred then...

X360: I'd like to it play current games in high settings in at least 1600 by 1200. I figure that means by the end of next year they'll be playable at medium settings, and 2010 games will still be playable after adding a second graphics card. Basically I'm looking for it to last two or three years.

Well, I did some more reading. Apparently the EVGA 680i has dual-channel support for memory and tri-sli and is only $10 more than the XFX 680i LT.

I think I found a better option though--an EVGA 750i ($190) and a E8400.

Another question though... Anyone know why there's such a price difference on the 9800 GX2s? On Newegg PNY 9800 GX2s are $270 (@ 675 MHz) while te BFG 9800 GX2s are $550 (@ 600 MHz)... WTF?

After stringing it out for the last year my motherboard is taking a dump. Since the 939 socket boards aren't made anymore I need to replace the CPU and memory as well. I can salvage some of the components, including the power supply (Antec TruePower Treo 650W), soundcard (X-FI XtremeGamer Fatal1ty), hard-drives, case, etc. Since my graphics cards are woefully outdated (two 6800s running in SLI) I plan on replacing them too.

I want to have room for future upgrades (ex, second video card in SLI, a slot for a dedicated PhysX GPU, etc.). I'd like to keep the upgrade to under $1,000 and for it to run games like Crysis in at least 1600 x 1200 on max settings. To saving on a cooling system I don't plan on overclocking right away.

I was looking at a GTX280 and two 2 GB sticks (OCZ ReaperX HPC PC2-6400).

After a CPU fan that leaves me with about $400 for the motherboard and CPU.

I was thinking either a XFX 680i LT ($110) with a Q6700 ($270), a EVGA 780i ($220) with either a Q6600 ($190) or a E8400 ($170), or a XFX 680i with a Q6600 and saving the $80 to $110.

Any thoughts on this? Is the PCIe 2.0 and dual-channel support worth the money for the 780i? Will there really be a real-world difference between the motherboard/CPU builds or is the bottleneck in the GPU.

Thanks.