And probably into 2006; Chipzilla still hasn't fielded a working, fully operative 64 bit chip, even on paper, for X86 code. The Nocona CPU they've been babbling about is a pseudo 64 bit puppy (it only has a 40 bit bus). And right now, Dell is the only system builder that is still Intel exclusive. IBM, Gateway, HP-Compaq, all have gotten the hint in one way or another. If it wasn't for it's -past- reputation, Dell would be either going or gone, because they are nowhere near their past levels of quality and service. If you want an SLI capable card, go for it, but there really isn't anything on paper that could require it (SLI is scanline interleaving; Nvidia bought out the IP of 3DFX. Remember the good old Voodoo 2, and its ability to have you plug in a second one, and connect them together, allowing for them to tag team in rendering frames? This is being resurrected due to the newest bus structure being fielded). SLI is a gamer's toy, not a production feature....unless someone codes a real time renderer for Vue. PCI-Express is the new bus, and it is supposed to be what PCI was when it first came out. Feed the masses, raise the dead, rape the sheep, etc. I'd do some personal research into it before even considering it at this time. The -very- few cards available have price tags that start at 'ouch!' and very quickly climb into 'OMFG!!!' territory. There's no backwards compatibility with anything, AGP isn't a part of the PCI-E specification. A few companies are working on bastard boards, with both PCI-AGP and PCI-E slots....but if you aren't building a gaming box, it isn't a feature that has enough support at the moment to bother with. That will have changed in 6-9 months (if it hasn't, then there's a problem), but right now, there are maybe 4 video cards that can be found in PCI-E format, and all of them have a steep $$$. Think about the good old ISA bus; it's only in the last year or so that motherboards with at least one card slot for it completely disappeared, a decade after being declared 'dead'. It will take years to kill off the good ol' PCI bus, and if that does the job, then that is a cost you aren't paying...