my old i7 920 w/ an HD 4850 512mb would noticeably start to lag and pause when i'd add too many script heavy mods. like randowm encounters, perk mods, overhauls ect. it would lag after doing something and you could tell the PC was trying to do "something".

i now have an i7 3770k on a ASUS Sabertooth z77 mobo, and gtx 670. so approximately how many script heavy mods could i expect to run before seeing lag? i know it'll be a guess but whatcha think. 20-30 scripty mods? thanks

I don't know about script heavy, but On my rig (see my sig) I run Skyrim maxed out with a [censored]load of mods (scripted and simple texture replacers) without any issues. I also run Fallout 3 with even more mods (over 160) , and with the proper load order, I can still run just fine...well, as well as Gamebryo allows.

It's a qualitative matter, not a quantitative one. Ten optimized mods might use less resources than one which is unoptimized, so it's really a matter of what you're running and not a matter of how many...