hi everyone,

I've been using Tom's HW website for a long time but this is actually my first post on in so I would like to say hello to everyone first.

As I said in the title my current pc can't handle some of the applications I need to use anymore and my main deal is with Zbrush. for that reason I've been taking a look at shops, lists, prices, websites and this is what I've got so far.

ThermalTake CASE MAMBO VC2000BNS BLK
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (4 x 2.66 GHZ) 1333FSB - 12 MB
ASUS SKT-775 STRIKER II FORMULA S/L 1333FSB
GEIL 8GB DDR2 800 CL5.0 QUAD CHANNEL BLACK DRAGON RET
ASUS 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX 2xDVI PCI-E SLI
600W PSU
500 GB SATA HDD UDMA 300 7200 16MB
ASUS DVD±RW 20x S-ATA DRW-2014L1T BLACK LIGHTSCRIBE (SATA)
Motherboard Integrated 5.1 Sound
Fast 10/100 Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
4 X USB 2.0 Ports
Speeze QuadroFlow VIII - Low Noise

my main doubts are about the motherboard, I chose that one since I saw good reviews of it but I would like to know if I could go for something cheaper; the cpu, I went for the most expensive one within the non extreme versions but I've heard good things about the Q6600 and next ones although maybe it is a little bit obsolete; and the graphics card since I don't know if I should go for ASUS 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX PCI-E 2.0 or ASUS 1GB RADEON HD 3850 X2 PCI-E 2.0 or something above the nvidia 8 series in general. I could have this config for £898 and although I had thought spending around £800 that price is something I could go for.

An that would be all. This is my first post finishes I hope you can help me a bit to make the final decision and I'll reallu appreciate any kind of tip.

thanks a lot to everyone guys!! see you around!

Welcome k3lk0m to the Tom's Hardware Forums

If your looking for a good motherboard, that's not to expensive, the ASUS P5K-E is a particularly good one. Especially for overclocking.

Your choice of CPU will depend if you plan on overclocking. If you do, your best bang for your buck is the Q6600. Otherwise the one you've chosen will do you better, since the 45nm processors perform a little better at the same clock speed as the 65nm processors.

Now i'm not sure what Zbrush is, and what kind of resources it needs, but from a gaming standpoint the G92 8800gts 512mb is "THE" videocard for a great price. It performs extremely close to the 9800gtx for about $80 cheaper. Going for the 8800gts over the 9800gtx on it's own should put you at your preferred 800 budget.

Hope that helps

thanks for your answer Lucuis!!

I'm pretty sure about the graphics card and the motherboard (although I am also considering the one you said and the premium one since it would save me £60-80) but regarding the cpu i've been checking what you said about the OC. the 6600 seems pretty good for that option and it really makes a difference in terms of price so I would like to ask a little bit for advise about what you guys think about it, how dangerous it is taking on count the mother board I am thinking on count and also what you think about the 6700 since it seems there is no a unic opinion about it and I'm a little bit confused about all this FSB issue.

thanks again!!