Will this give me the best bang for my buck?

cheaper memory will give virtualy the same performance.

a cheap quad may be better for you in the long run, and less expensive up front. but then you'll be buying more electricity to run it

Great choices for the CPU and GPU, ..... but instead of the:

Motherboard ... get the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ...$79 (newegg.com)

RAM ... get 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 Crucial Ballastix : 2 x $29 (buy.com)

That PSU is fine..but if you want to get a new one, the Corsair 550VX ($55 at buy.com) would be a good one

I forgot to mention they is a $25 MIR for the ram so it's actually $80 and the VC has a $20 rebate as well.

That MB is $104 in Canada so would lower costs a bit.

Ibeen thinking about the q6600 CPU would it be worth it now? It's $18 more.

All specs looks good. Q6600 is a better choice if you decide to keep the cpu for long term. For quad optimized programs, the performance difference between quad and dual is massive. But there aren't a lot of them out yet. E8400 will be faster for programs that don't use all 4 cores, because it can overclock better. But keep in mind, with your p35 motherboard's fsb limitations, the e8400 won't be able to oc as far as it should to shine over Q6600.

Is there a better MB for around the same price? Maybe one that I can get the most out of the CPU?

Since the 8800GT is SLI capable, what about this MB ASUS P5N-D 750I SLI LGA775 ATX DDR2 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 2PCI 1394A GBLAN Motherboard

Would this be a good option with the q6600 so maybe I can add a 2nd VC in 4-6 months and get about 3 years out of my system?

it makes sense to spend another $50 on a mobo if it gets you the equivialent of another $100 out of you CPU, but its a gamble. some CPUs are pooches, just as some bards are. you don't know for sure what you got untill you try it out for yourself.

in 6 months there will be a vid card that is of equivalent price of another 8800gt that you beat 2 8800GTs SLIed. maybe you can find one used for cheap, but don't count on it. lots of people have the same idea.

better to stick with one and get a new one in 9 months.

no computer can go a year w/o becoming outdated. upgrade can strech it out. after 3 years it will be obsolete.

try to think about the update path when you build. both AM2+ and 775 are scheduled to be obsolete. PCIe 2.0 will say in the race longer than regular PCIe. DDR2 is about to be oldschool, but it will be availiable for a long time. Mechanical HDDs may be nearing thier pinical, they haven't improved all that much in the last 5+ years, only got bigger and cheaper. don't know if DX10.1 will stay in the game longer than an equivalend DX10 card.

I'd say get a dual core, then upgrade to a quad at sometime. get your vid card, then upgrade it at some time. Get another 4+ gigs of ram at some time.

maybe keep an upgrade and repair fund going.

none of it will even outlast a cell phone contract, so remember that when your trying to decide if the $500 vid card is worth it.

Maybe I should get the gigabyte Mb which is about $20 less then the Asus MB and buying the quad core CPU would be more worth the ~$18 difference.

My current system has lasted almost 4 years, but it's pretty friggin slow when running dreamweaver, fireworks, firefox, thunderbird and itunes.

750i overclocks worse than the cheaper p35. The only advantage is it supports sli. x38 is a step up, but it cost $100 more than p35.

You are talking about this Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L? Any comments on my above message?

Not sure about the board, I haven't used it. But the p35 chipset in general oc better than 750i, while costing less. Ideally, x38/48 is best for oc, but it cost much more.

Ok I think I have my list sorted out now. After reading some more about the quad core I think I will go with that since I don't upgrade every year, and the difference is only $30 over the e8400.

1) Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box $245.99

2) Bfg Geforce 8800GT Oc 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I Hdcp Hdtv Out DIRECTX10 Video Card $179.99

3) Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ATX LGA775 P35 1333FSB 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN Motherboard $90.08

4) OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-6400 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-800 CL5-4-4-15 DDR2 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit $106.99

Knw that the E8400 is much better as of now. And it's going to take quite a long time till games/applications take advantage of the quads.

I'm trying to think a year or 2 ahead.

Then the smart bet is on quad.