See, me personally, I'm actually building a system with I believe, the same motherboard, chip, but better RAM. Personally, I don't mind paying more for the brands I trust. If I just so happen to trust the cheaper brands with everything I've got, I always buy from them. All comes down to preference, really. My system all-in-all will be about $2000, including 24in LCD, EVGA 8800GT, Intel Q9450, 8GB of RAM, and every other necessary component. (I'm not migrating anything from my previous system, save the power supply that's somewhat newer).
Do I really want to spend $2000 on the whole system? Probably not, but am I willing to do so to do what lovely calls "future-proofing"? You betcha.
Now, whether I think any person should have to take the hit to their wallet to buy two 9800 GX2's? Definitely not. I'd personally rather Tri-SLI 8800 GT's, than shell out almost $1000 alone, on two cards. Kinda seems ridiculous, really. The reason I'd go for the Tri'd 8800's, is because most games these days that actually utilize SLI, are capable of running Tri, if not out of the box, with a bit of tweaking.
