Do I need a P35?

Hello and welcome to the forums mate  

ASUS P5K-E WIFI
GIGABYTE P35 DS3R
ABIT IP35 PRO

all of ^^ boards are rock solid boards

I have had the DS3R and the IP35 PRO, and I think the Abit is better. It will cost more (about $60 more) but you have 2 PCIe and a silent pipe cooler. The DS3R died on me about a month after installing. Looks like a nice board, but the IP35 PRO looks rock solid. Even booting both are different. The IP35 PRO boots with authority. My DS3R never booted that way (including some cold boot problems btw).

Of course, that will depend on the OC you want. If you go mild, then I guess the cheaper the better option. IF you are going high, then the Abit looks much better.

The Asus is a great board too (and the most costly of the 3 Maziar suggested) but never tested it myself.

You can do better:
1) The 2.66 c2d is the E6700 which costs $319. The E6850 is 3.0 and costs $279.
---edit: the E6750 is also 2.66, and at $190 is a good deal.-----
2) The 8800gts-512 is good, and is available at newegg for $360 including crysis.
3) DDR2 -800 is good. I suggest 4gb up front; it's cheap.
4) ocz 850 @ $175 is good, but is overkill. I suggest corsair hx520 @$100.
5) XP-pro(oem) costs $140. Vista home premium(oem) costs $110. Why buy an OS that is on it's way out for more?
6) Gigabyte and asus are good P35 boards. There is no need to spend more for the more expensive variants unless they have features you need. Gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l for $90 is good. no raid, no firewire, only 4 sata ports. Will that do?

If you have some extra money, spend it on a very good monitor that will be good for several generations of pc technology.

---good luck---

The gigabyte P35 DS3R or P35C DS3R are great boards at a reasonable price. I have one running a quad core Q6600 and 8800GT with 2gb of OCZ RAM, overclocks great and is stable

to geofelt, he is running windows XP, there's no need for 4gb, 2gb is enough. besides, 4gb wont even be used unless running 64bit, an even then its only really worthwhile with vista

@at0micsmurf: I still like 4gb. With a 32-bit os, you will see about 3.3gb, a 65% increase over 2gb. Some games can make use of additional memory, and if you do any multitasking at all, extra memory helps. It's cheap, and it can't hurt.

The RAM is so cheap now that is a waste not to go for 4Gb.

Thanks guys for the help.

I don't need Raid I'm just planning to have 1-2 HDs and a DVD writer that's all. I think 4 Sata ports are enough? aren't they for HDs only? I dont think I would go more than 2 HDs and I will definitely just have 1 DVD device. So, would the P35 GIGAbyte ds3l be good enough?

I had an idea that Windows XP can't use more than 2GB ram? so I just thought I'd stick to 2GB Ram. The Ram is indeed cheap I don't mind to pay $100 more for an obvious upgrade?

Windows XP 32 recognizes 3.25GB of RAM
Widows XP 64 recognizes 4GB RAM and more

P35 DS3L is a very good board and has a good price

Why do you want an 850W power supply for a system that won't use 400W?

Well i know that system can run with lower Power Supply too but more PSU is always better

P35 DS3L
E6X50 or E4X00 CPU
2GB Ram
HD 3870

For a great budget PC, that is the direction I would go. The 3870 costs almost $50 less and still has comparable performance.

Windows 32-bit and vista 32-bit have an addressing limitation of 4gb(2 to 32 power). Normally, 2gb is os common addressing and 2gb is available to the application. There are some fixes around to give the os less, and the application more. If you run more than one task, each additional task could use up to 2gb more. (This is a conceptual explanation) So yes, a 32 bit os can use more than 2gb, some for the os, and some for several tasks. If you are multitasking, this becomes more important.

New dvd burners can use a sata interface, and I recommend them. It makes for cleaner cabling. The 4 sata ports on the DS3L should be ok for you. If you ever need more, you can get a $20 pci sata controller card.

For the PSU, the $60 Antec Earthwatts 430w