id appreciate some help on some key points please =)

hey guys i have several questions regarding my new build that im planing on getting in the next week or so. im wanting this build to be a bit of a bridge for either upgrading to a quad core way down the line or taking existing parts and putting them into a nehalem system way down the line if at all possible.

so i wanted to get a basic 2160 cpu and overclock it. . . can i get a decent overclock on air with the stock fan? and if i brought a new fan would it fit into a nehalem system in a few years? i have brought fans in the past for both graphic cards and cpus only to find that they did not fit into my next generation hardware =(

also i am wanting to add in single 2gb sticks to the system so that i will eventually have a total of eight gb of ram. is the full 8gb going to be used with a budget 2160? also can i buy a single 2gb stick to start off with? (my friend said that with his 3800 am2 system he made it would only start up with 2 or more ram sticks in it because of dual core). and finally with the ram will ddr2 be compatiable with a nehalem system?

what mother board do you guys rekon for overclocking this cpu as well as managing the ram well? (iv heard that some motherboards dont like more that 2 sticks in them?) also im geusing that intel arnt going to be like amd and let their customers drop in a new nehalem cpu model into an exting motherboard like with the am2+ and phenom?

o and btw the shop i was going to buy the parts from only sells kingston ram. . . iv read reviews on the brand and it seems fine =) what do u think? and will it work well with the motherboard?

thanks very much to everyone that reads through this and the people that reply and help me out =)

1. You should get very decent overclock from E2160. I've heard people getting 3.0Ghz with stock fan. However, your result may vary, and I personally strongly recommend an aftermarket fan (40~50USD) if you're thinking about overclocking.

2. In the event that you buy an aftermarket cooler, chances are you won't be able to put that into the Nehalem build. The sockets are completely different, and the size of the cooler would be definitely different.

3. If you want 8Gb of RAM, you need to make sure your software is 64bit capable. E2160 does support 64bit, so you need to find an OS that also runs at 64bit (preferably Vista 64bit if you're one Windows user, or Ubuntu for linux).

4. Dual cores does not affect the number of RAM stick. You can have a single core with 4 RAM sticks, or quad core with 1 RAM stick. It doesn't matter. What matters is the capacity of RAM. If you're going 64bit, at least 3Gb is recommended.

5. For motherboards, if you're not going multi-GPU setup (Xfire or SLI, and they can be used in your Nehalem machine), then P35 should be sufficient. They are very decent chipset, at a very reasonable price. Gigabyte P35 only cost about 100 bucks. However, if you do plan to go multi-GPU, then you should be looking at X38 (for Xfire), or 780i/750i (for SLI).

5. Kingston has a very decent reputation of being a good memory chip manufacturer. You should be fine using them. It should work well with your motherboard (unless you bought a motherboard that is completely incompatible with it. DDR2 vs. DDR3)

Hope these help.