The last two pieces finally came in.  The new Sapphire HD3870 is a very nice single-slot card that looks great and performs well.  Haven't had a chance to really stretch its legs yet.  Will do that this weekend.

And the Scythe Ninja "Mini" is here.  There is nothing mini about it.  It's HUGE!  I will install it tonight.  I hope.  It may be a tight fit on a Maximus Formula motherboard.  I will update this thread with those results later.

Then its migration of systems.  Not the fun part.  Reinstall Vista, reactivate, reinstall apps, load games, restore backups.  The drudgery of the upgrade....  But it's all worth it! 

UPDATE:  I got the cooler in.  It was the hardest part of the build.  The 775 cooler mounting specs are not easy to deal with.  But it's all together.   Had a moment there when I thought I broke something, but turned out to be a loose connection on the monitor extension cable I was using.  whew. 

I am going to tweak the build a bit later.  Different cooler fan, maybe different case fans that can attach to the motherboard for variable control and maybe an forced intake fan as well.  But not for a while.  I am full concerning the build hunger.