Advice on components for new gaming RIG!

Well it depends on how much you want to pay:
Do you want to overclock and to what extreme?
Do you want dual or single core?
Do you game more or multitask more?

Most common cpus bought is the 3700+ sandy (single core), 3200+ for tight budgets

Or

3800+ dual core

I recomend an X2 dual core or an Opty. Optys are supposedly good OCers, but I've heard good things about the 3800 and 4400 for OCability. I love my 3800, it gives great bang for the buck. Yesterday I was doing e-mail, web browsing, a virus scan, downloads, and a bunch of other thigns in the background, with no noticable slowdown on any of them. Definately quite nice.

Thanks for the help

BTY

PC mostly used to gameing and encoding DVDs etc.

But is the mobo good enought to overclock, cos getting an opty 165
is no problem.....

Its not going to be a top of the line ocing board, but people have been doing some nice overclocks on it.

I would look at the prices of the comparable x2 and opty and get which ever is cheaper. The asrock board prob wont take the full abuse you could give an opty so getting an x2 will be no loss.

both x2 and opty should overclock nicely

Your ASRock mobo is very good but it fails at OCing. Get a X2 or a 64 4000. Most people say dual core is future proof but i don't know of what time in the future are they talking about.
Could be tomorrow or 2 years from now. As it is now single cores do better in most games.

I guess the opty 165 wont work to well cos the mobo isnt that wonderfull,
but if I dont want to oc too much will the 165 be better than the
4200x2 or 4400x2?

or would it be a good idea then to go for the opty 150 single core?

I would stick with dual core.

All the chips will prob oc nicely, get the x2 as its faster out of the box than the opty. I would only go opty if you really want to push a chip.

thanks

I have decided to go for the x2 4400+ !

err...srry but u really should get a Opteron 165, its better especially if you are gonna overclock

No reason NOT to get a dual core. you made a good choice, the 4400 is a much better buy.

Best choice. You still can OC it a little (400mhz) but as far as i know on a AS Rock you have probs changing voltage. So you might try OCing a bit actually. And anyway at that frequency the 6800GT will be bottlenecking so consider a new GFX card as a future upgrade.

BTW There are still reasons not to go dual core. Not all of us multitask heavily you know and not all programs take advantage of this. I personaly would have gotten a OCing board and a 144/146 opty if i wanted a gaming rig. But anyway,i understand dual core is future proof.