I have $500 to spend on CPU, MB + Memory, and a graphics card. If you had this to spend, what would you get? I don't game heavily but would like to be able to play some games. My friend is a diehard AMD fan and and wants me to buy that platform. So maybe some suggestions with that in mind would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

I would recommend to him the Intel Platform instead. I could of made some recommendations for an AMD platform but I know that you'll be Much happier with the Intel Platform.

1: Mobo: The DFI LANPARTY DK P35-T2RS has good reviews and only cost $130.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813136043


2: CPU: The Core 2 Duo E7200 is good CPU and is clocked at 2.5ghz. Its a based on the new 45nm penryn process. Its been overclocked up to speeds of 3.5ghz on air cooling and ran stable.
it costs $130.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115052


3: RAM: 4gb's of Corsair XMS ram (2x 2gb sticks) cost around $80. You could get another good brand like G.skill too. They are both good Brands for RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145184


4: Graphics: If you want to stay right under that $500 mark you could get a 9600 GT. A stock speed version cost $150. Its a good card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130334


BUT if you can afford to pay an extra $10- $15 bucks i highly recommend you get a 8800GT. It gives better performance than a 9600GT because it has double the stream processors and it only costs around 15 bucks more.
heres the EVGA 8800GT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130318

This is nice system for 500 bucks. with the 8800 GT you only go over your $500 budget by 10-15 bucks. I think you should spend the extra bucks because it will give a good performance boost.

Sorry if you Really wanted a AMD system but the intel platform will easily beat the AMD system. the E7200 can easily beat and amd cpu. it can easily beat there dual cores and even beat there tri or quads. I recommend the intel platform instead of the AMD to you.

All solid deals. But instead of the $130 p35 motherboard, get this $99.99 p45 board instead. It overclocks a lot better than p35, almost as well as x38/48, which cost $200.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813130181

Instead of the 8800gt for $159.99 after mir, get this g92 8800gts for the same $159.99 after mir. It comes with dual slot cooler, 128 stream processors instead of 112, performs 10% better at stock, and 50% better after overclocking.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814134037

Consider a q6600 for $198.99. It cost $69 more than e7200, but comes with 4 cores instead of 2, and easily oc to 3.6ghz. You'll have an easier time ocing q6600 than e7200 because it use higher multiplier, thus putting less stress on motherboard fsb and memory. Plus, quad core multithreading application is the future. It will have a longer useful lifetime.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115018

AMD is losing out to Intel for performance cpu's...they have been now for the past two years.. Quads are a waste of money unless you work with photo shop and 3dmax studios for a living. By the time any games or more programs actually start using the quads 4 cores, those quads will be half the price they are going for now, and Intel or AMD will have come up with something better. Not only that, but a E7200 will clock to 4.0 or better seeing how it uses a mulitplier of 9.5. But no need to push that cpu that high...you only gain so much when you OC to the max. The E7200 will do a simple overclock to 3.16GH (9.5x333) just by moving up the FSB and you won't have to up the voltage on it with that overclock.

http://z3.invisionfree.com/kips_co [...] owtopic=48 <---Check out the mobo, cpu, and vid card on that build there for consideration.

That vid card is factory overclocked, and has a great cooling system. The mobo also has a great cooling system for the north bridge and south bridge on that board, and the cpu speaks for itself.

I gotta know, what power supply are you going to use? I'm on the fence about the P45 mobo. The P35 has matured very nicely and the jury is still out on the P45's. I used this board in a budget build a few months back and it's doing fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813130098

I used that board in my last build...infact it's the same board I have in my above link on that last build. The Gigabyte boards are nice, but they have crap cooling for their cheaper P35 boards ...the North Bridge tends to get hot and sometimes over heat. The MSI board has a way better cooling system.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] gy%2c+Inc. <---OCZ PSU's. Not too expensive and decent specs on em.

That's a very nice build!

If he had the extra money I would of recommended a E8400 instead of the Q6600 that you recommended.
BUT. If he were to buy the parts you said he would go over his budget by $100. you forgot about his $500 budget.

Coupled with the p45 motherboard, which actually cost less than the p35 one, it's only around $50 over budget, for a quad that gives about 2 more years of useful lifetime after applications go multithread. E8400 would just be more expensive, and giving almost no additional useful lifetime, as it's still a dual core that will struggle with future heavily multithreaded programs.