C2D Build???

[Rumple]

Ok so far i have the following parts:

Thermaltake Armor Series Case with 25cm side fan
Evga 8800GTS 640mb
Enermax Liberty 500watt PSU
Samsung Syncmaster 225bw 22inch Widescreen Monitor
Western Digital 250GB 16mb Buffer Hard Drive
X-fi Extreme Gamer Sound Card

I will be buying one of these 2 motherboards any help on them would be appreciated i know the P35-DS3R is an excellent board but the P35-DS3L is much cheaper. I cant decide which one to go with. The only difference i see is less Sata ports and a different audio chipset.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128059

or

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128050

I really like the fact i can save almost 40 bucks and not really lose anything that i care about.

I am 99% sure on the following parts:

Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800. I will buy a 2nd kit in the future if i need to.
http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16820146565

Windows Vista 64bit Home Premium. I also have a copy of Windows XP Home that i may use and dual boot. Not to familiar with dual booting but if i dont like Vista i can always save it for later!
http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16832116204

Samsung 18x DVD burner with Lightscribe
http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16827151141

One of the following CPUs
Q6600 / E6750 / E6700 / E6600
I have a friend who works at Intel and will be getting me a CPU from them. They dont have the 50s in stock yet but i can grab the 6700 for $168 or a 6600 for $124 or the Q6600 for $272. Id like to go quad core but dont know if i can really afford it.


So basically what im asking is if the PSU is good enough? Which motherboard should i choose? Should i go Vista or stick with XP? Im trying to future proof myself as much as possible. That is the main reason im planning on buying Vista 64bit. Should i fork over the extra cash and go quad or just stick with a dual core? 99% of the time i am gaming with this PC. I dont do ANY photoshopping. I do convert videos to DVD and stuff but that works fine on the rig i have now so that shouldnt matter. Basically it is strictly a gaming rig.

I would have no problem using a dual core for now and upgrading to a quad next year when games actually start using them. Will the next batch of quads use the same motherboards? Or will i have to upgrade that too?

 

[airhendrix13]

Alright lets walk through this.

Mobo: I would go with the cheaper option. You will be using your sound card so the upgraded audio chipset won't be necessary. Also, unless you plan on having more than 4 HDD's in your PC, the extra SATA ports won't be necessary either.

Memory: Good choice.

OS: If you are going to get Vista, I wouldn't installl the 64bit version. 64bit OS's have compatibility issues with a lot of software, and quite frankly, isn't worth it at this time. If you are a gamer, then the only real forseeable reason to buy Vista is to take advantage of DX10. As of right now, DX10 hasn't made any real major improvements, in fact, it lowers FPS by an average of 3-5% only to receive small graphical improvements. On the other hand though, I do believe DX10 will improve. So basically, if you have the money and you are getting a fair price, then buy it.

DVD Drive: Fine.

CPU: Alright, this is gonna take a little explaining. Games today mostly run on a single thread, meaning it only takes advantage of a single core, but there are a few exceptions to this, for example, Supreme Commander, Cell Factor: Revolution, Steam will soon be updated to use multiple cores, UT2007 will when it is released, and so will Crysis.

To give you an idea of how much multiple cores help multi-threaded games, I use to own a P4 OC'd to 3.8ghz. Now, when the Cellfactor demo was released, it was very physics weighted, so a lot of processing power was needed to run it. With a GF8800 GTS 640MB, 2 gigs or RAM, and my P4, my FPS was averaging at around 18, yeah...pretty crumby. Today I own a Q6600 OC'd to 2.9ghz, and I now run at a nice 50FPS. The extra cores provided HUGE improvements, and I'm willing to bet that this will be the case with other multi-threaded games in the future.

So to swiftly answer your question about the CPU, for single threaded games higher clocks is king, so obviously the e6750 would be the best choice, but with multi-threaded, physics and AI intense games (which seems to be the focal point of game developement now in days), quad-core is the way to go hands down.

Now to answer your questions. My system currently runs a 420W PSU with a 8800GTS, Q6600, 2 HDD's, 1 media card reader, 1 floppy drive, 1 sound card, and at least 6 fans all packed into the same case as you have. So yes, it will be enough power, but won't leave you a lot of head room for other upgrades.

The next batch of quads are the Penryns. Lucky for you, the P35 mobos will support Penryn. As for performance difference between the quads of today and the Penryns of tomorrow, there has been little said. I expect the Penryns to run cooler and have a bit more OCing room due to the 45nm architecture. Ultimately, I think you should go quad. Whether you go duo now then go Penryn later, or go C2Q now, you will be happy with a quad I expect.

I hope this helped you out. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Ryan