A GTX660Ti  nVidia card which is going to be in SLI when he has the cash to buy the 2nd .. plus a shed load of HDDs - the difference between the originally planned TX/HX750 and the XFX 850W was under $20 so we got that instead .. ..

AM3 965BE / Corsair H70 / 4Gb Corsair XMS3 2000Mhz / GigaByte 990FXA-UD5 / Corsair Force3 90Gb / x2 HD3870 Atomic Edition / x4 1Tb Storage & Momentus XT 250Gb / Sony AD-7700 DVD-RW / Auzen X-Mystique / Enermax INFINITI 650W / Lian-Li PC-7FNWB / Logitech X-530 / Logitech KBoard & MX620 / Logitech C525 / Epson RX685 / DELL U2312HM

Ah, ya, always go bigger with the PSU if you can. That and the mobo determine your upgrade ceiling so you can't go wrong with extra money there. This a gaming rig or fancy rendering workstation?

It is going to be used for gaming and audio work, he's a professional musician .. I was blown away when I booted it up - W7 Ultimate x64 installation took under 5 minutes and the thing boots in under 10secs ..

AM3 965BE / Corsair H70 / 4Gb Corsair XMS3 2000Mhz / GigaByte 990FXA-UD5 / Corsair Force3 90Gb / x2 HD3870 Atomic Edition / x4 1Tb Storage & Momentus XT 250Gb / Sony AD-7700 DVD-RW / Auzen X-Mystique / Enermax INFINITI 650W / Lian-Li PC-7FNWB / Logitech X-530 / Logitech KBoard & MX620 / Logitech C525 / Epson RX685 / DELL U2312HM

All of the innards have arrived; the case will arrive Tuesday. A bench test shows that all is well and it idles in POST at 38 C. Is the stock heat spreader on the stock cooler sufficient or should I use gel? (I've never used a cooler with a heatpad, so I'm out of my realm.)

If I need gel, what would you recommend? I normally use Ceramique 2, and prefer nonconductive gels over conductive gels ever since I destroyed a 2002 Powermac G4 Dual 1GHz by unknowingly getting a miniscule strand of conductive CPU gel strung over the CPU daughterboard. I got a visit from the magic smoke that day.