Will it be a Pure Vista build or will you install XP as well? (I just can't get excited about Vista builds)
I do love a bit of SLI though, Don't care how pointless it is in this day and age, having a pair (or more) GPU's working together is sexy!

Like all the other builds Im doing, I shall try all combinations of windows versions and driver versions to figure out which has the best proportion of game compatibility and performance, so, starting off with the oldest driver I could find that supported those cards, 97.44 released december 2006... for some reason only for winXP despite Vista being released already at that point, so odd. So starting off with XP then 😀

Removing the heatsinks on the two 8800gtx cards was surprisingly difficult, that paste is cement! Had to warm it up first as it just wouldnt come off even with some force applied. Those G80 processors are huge! Now learning that I actually need to de-lid them and repaste under the lid as well if I want them to keep working at least a while longer. So complicated...

I gave it a try, but I probably killed them in the process :x At least one smd component in the corner seems to be standing up, another looks a bit sus as well... next week gonna take them to the office to borrow the microscope and inspect my handywork 🙁

Id go with Core 2 Duo E8600

E8600 did not yet exist when the 8800gtx released, so it is more of a cpu to pair to a GTX 280.

Dayum, I really did mess one up. Turns out of those two cards actually one was DOA and I got a refund for it and bought a 3rd and I had totally forgotten about it. Bad news is the one with the broken smd cap is not the dead one. Good news is I can probably use the dead one as a donor. Assuming this card wont work fine without this cap?

Now will have to also delid the 3rd and hope I dont mess up again

P.S. replacing the broken smd component with the one from the donor card did the job, I tested it last night and it works fine, however its getting very toasty, I saw 90 deg celsius during unigine heaven, which is actually 10 deg hotter than the 3rd card that I have not tried to service yet... so something is wrong, probably ihs not making good contact with the silicone