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[Magusigne]

CPU: Q6600
CPU Fan: Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Mobo: ASUS P5N-E SLI
Memory=(used)
Video Card= (used) eventually an 8800 GT
Hard Drive: 250gb Maxtor 7200rpm SATA2 UDMA 300 16m Cache
CD/DVD Drive: Samsung 16x
DVD Recorder: Lightscribe Dual layer
Sound card: Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1
On board Ethernet Card
Case: Antec P180B
PSU: Earthwatts 500w

Final Price ~1000
(this is minus the memory and FX card)


Sound about right?
or could I do MUCH better with that price.

I am an amateur and this is my first build. I will be dabbling in some Ocing

 

[DSF]

CPU: Good choice, if you can actually use four cores. What is the machine's purpose?

Mobo: Get a motherboard with a P35 chipset, not nForce 650i.

 

[Magusigne]

Originally posted by: DSF
CPU: Good choice, if you can actually use four cores. What is the machine's purpose?

Mobo: Get a motherboard with a P35 chipset, not nForce 650i.

Kinda thought about that. It will be a higher end gaming computer.

My pentium D 820 just isn't cutting it anymore and is severely bottlenecking me

I figured pay same price for an E6850 or overclock a 2.4 Quad?

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: Powernick50

Originally posted by: DSF
CPU: Good choice, if you can actually use four cores. What is the machine's purpose?

Mobo: Get a motherboard with a P35 chipset, not nForce 650i.

Kinda thought about that. It will be a higher end gaming computer.

My pentium D 820 just isn't cutting it anymore and is severely bottlenecking me

I figured pay same price for an E6850 or overclock a 2.4 Quad?

The vast majority of games don't really use four cores right now, so my main question would be how long do you plan to go without an upgrade?

For what it's worth, I bought an E4500 that I'm going to overclock for the time being. These chips are regularly hitting 3Ghz, and at that speed they're pretty close to the performance of an E6850. Some people are even overclocking E21x0 chips to that level and beyond. If and when four cores become a gaming necessity down the road (which I doubt in the next couple years) I'll buy a 45nm quad-core to upgrade.

 

[Magusigne]

[/quote]

The vast majority of games don't really use four cores right now, so my main question would be how long do you plan to go without an upgrade?

For what it's worth, I bought an E4500 that I'm going to overclock for the time being. These chips are regularly hitting 3Ghz, and at that speed they're pretty close to the performance of an E6850. Some people are even overclocking E21x0 chips to that level and beyond. If and when four cores become a gaming necessity down the road (which I doubt in the next couple years) I'll buy a 45nm quad-core to upgrade.[/quote]

This is true, I can upgrade chips later I suppose.

Basically I want a good mobo that will last awhile when it comes to upgrading the CPU. I got shafted with my dell as the D series and Core 2 duos are quite different.

I could be persuaded to step down a little and just get a lower C2D. As long as I can upgrade later.

How did everything else look?
Was the price on target?
I want to go 3-4 years with just a CPU upgrade probably, (maybe a video card)

Recommend a good mobo that will last that long?

 

[Nurn]

For a mobo with upgrade potential, you could consider the X38. It will allow you to move up to Penryn CPU in the future, and lets you use the cheaper DDR2 memory (e.g. ASUS Maximus Formula). For you and your 8800 GT, the possible downside might be lack of SLI support (its good for Crossfire, though). But if you figure you will only run one video card anyways, its a good solution.

 

[Magusigne]

Originally posted by: Nurn
For a mobo with upgrade potential, you could consider the X38. It will allow you to move up to Penryn CPU in the future, and lets you use the cheaper DDR2 memory (e.g. ASUS Maximus Formula). For you and your 8800 GT, the possible downside might be lack of SLI support (its good for Crossfire, though). But if you figure you will only run one video card anyways, its a good solution.

The Asus Maximus Formula x38?

It is Crossfire, but does that mean I can't put an Nvidia in it? Or does it just mean it doesn't support an SLI configuration? I don't plan on using 2 cards...just 1 overpowered beast card.

 

[Nurn]

Yes that's right.. the ASUS Maximus Formula is X38. It will handle any single Nvidia or ATI video card (including the 512 meg 8800GT or more powerful GTS that you are interested in). It's only an issue if you wanted to add a second card to your rig... the X38 will handle two ATI cards in Crossfire mode, but it does not handle two Nvidia cards in SLI mode.

This is an excellent board, with tons of overclocking potential. Lots of good reviews on line, and I know from personal experience. I have bumped up my Q6600 to 3 GHz (9 x 333 - a 25% overclock) with just a miniscule amount of additional voltage to the CPU. Lots of folks hit 3.6 GHz with their Q6600 on air cooling, if you have a good cooler like a thermalright ultima90 or a 120 extreme that will let you bump up the volts to apx. 1.4 and stay within the 71 degrees Celsius upper end for core temps (GO stepping).