Thanks for the replies.... do you think the ballistix 8000 will hit cas 3 on my current board (ABit AW9D)? Got some OCZ PC8500 Sli a few weeks ago and that couldn't manage it, but I did read on these boards that that RAM had trouble with tight timings... suppose it doesn't matter too much as performance won't be much different, just can't get too high an OC on current board because of 975 chipset.