I am building a system for a friend, and he is amandant about it being a somewhat future-proof kick ass dual 8800GTX SLI rig. I have the entire system planned out, but a few things are bothering me, and I need some advice. First, let me start off with the current list of hardware that I have compiled:

CPU: 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+
RAM: 2GB G.Skill PC 6400 DDR2-800
Motherboard: ASUS AM2 Crosshair SLI nForce 590 Chipset
Hard Drives: 2x 36GB Western Digital Raptor 10K rpm SATA in RAID 0
Optical Drive: Lite-On SATA 20x DVD+/-RW
Power Supply: Cooler Master 1000W Real Power RS-A00-EMBA
Graphics: 2x e-VGA nVidia 8800GTX 768MB in SLI mode
Case: Cooler Master Stacker RC-832b
Display: Samsung 244T-bk 24” Widescreen LCD

All in all, a pretty kickass rig. BUT; I was looking at it, and I read a few reviews saying that the AMD X2 6000+ was AMD's last hurrah with the AM2 socket until the Quad-core Barcelona comes out. I havent been able to find any info about it, but I think Barcelona will use a different socket than AM2. If this is true, there will be no upgrading the CPU on the Crosshair AM2 motherboard.
I then looked at the performance specs on the price-equivalent Intel CPU- the core 2 duo E6600, which is socket 775. I also noticed that the Quad-core 6800 uses the same 775 socket. If the AMD 6000+ is the end of the line for the AM2 socket, Shouldn't I go for the Core 2 Duo 6600, so he can upgrade to a quad processor once prices come down and new socket 775 models are introduced in a few years?
He doesn't want to spend more than $300 on a CPU right now since performance difference between the Quad 6800 and the X2 6000+ is not worth $600. Should I switch him to the Intel/socket 775 in the interest of upgradebility down the road? If so, what is a recommended sub $250 mobo for a socket 775 intel solution where he can start out using a C2D E6600? Thanks for any info you can give.

You should get a lot of replies to this one! I often recommend AMD for 2 reasons. For price/performance ratio (just a little better), and for upgradability (you can plug in the coming Agena Quad core cpu next year right into that AM2 motherboard without buying a new motherboard or new copy of OEM Windows (and that saves you money!)). These are my main considerations. Also I like AMD for power savings via the superior QuietN'Cool.

Future proof can mean 2 different things! Either that he does not want to ever upgrade anything yet have a great computer! OR....that he wants easy and efficient upgradability without paying for a whole new system! You could sound him out on it.


Intel is fine too, and better when someone wants quad core right now of course. Either AMD or Intel are good now. If he wants future proofing without upgrading, then a quad core is actually my choice then, and it's the cheaper Intel quad.

What I meant by future-proofing was simply replacing the CPU on the board. So the new AMD "true" quad core will be using the AM2 socket? If so, then I can just keep the plan as-is. BTW, if anyone is wondering why I selected that memory, I know it doesnt have the lowest latency, or is a good overclocker, my friend wont be overclocking. And the 36GB raptors are 36GB and not 74 or 150GB since he has another machine for a file server.

Yeah, just plug that new AMD quad core right into that AM2, yes, and probably with a MB bios update which isn't hard to do, if you read on the internet from the MB maker site for 3 minutes. Note that many MBs now come with utility software to make the bios updates just a mouse click effort.

everything is ok.. but i thought that maybe you could buy the Sony NEC Optiarc Black AD-7170S-0B 18X SATA that toms used on the recent tests instead of lite-on .

the x2 is slower than the high end core 2 duos, but with your great graphics cards and the resolutions you will be playing games,it will make no difference at all

you will be able to drop in AMD K10 architecture cpus in the Am2 socket with a bios update (its very easy with todays motherboards, just a few mouse clicks usually)