Hi all. My creaking system is due an upgrade now, I managed to wring some life from it by putting a decent graphics card but the processor is the bottleneck now.

Here's the specs, and for the upgraded components I've listed the scan.co.uk part numbers.

Current system;
P3500+ (replacing)
ASUS AN8-SLi Deluxe (replacing)
8800GTS (320Mb)
2Gb Corsair low-latency matched in 4x512Mb modules (replacing)

Looking to buy;
LN21760 Gigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R Intel-based Motherboard
LN22021 4GB (2x2GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10600 (1333MHz), 240 Pin, Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, DHX
LN21683 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.5 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB L2 Cache, Retail (includes heatsink)

What do you think?

DDR2 is still by far the best bang for the buck memory with close performance to DDR3. You might check out the new P43/P45 motherboards that came out last week. Hard to beat the price/performance of the Q6600

You can get the same features and speed for much less money, with GA-EP35-DS3R and 4GB of DDR2-800.

Also, I'd prefer a Q6600 and a good cooler instead of a Q9300. With a little overclocking, the Q6600 can become faster than the Q9300.

Move to the Asus P5Q Pro (for 2x PCI-E x16) or MSI Neo-F (if you only need 1)

P35 is on the way out- P45 is the way to go now.

Or the GA-EP45-DS3R, if you decided you like Gigabyte more this year.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128344

Edit: oops, you're in the UK, no Newegg for you.
There's a GA-EP45-DS4 for example at Scan:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=823723

Another nice Crossfire board.

Ok - I'm really not sure, these don't really mean much to me.

Can someone show me a mobo/processor/RAM thats better than I suggested at the same price but ALSO the product pages?

Ta

Tell you what: you tell us the total price you are willing to pay for mobo, processor and RAM together, and we'll see what we can do.

I'm guessing you want links from scan.co.uk or ebuyer or other UK-based places, right?

I think the total came to about £420 (inc VAT).

Hmm... I tried to edit this post but I got "You are not allowed to edit this message!". Not allowed to edit my own message?

I wanted to add that I chose that specific motherboard because it won awards in PCPro for value and performance - also it accepts a wide variety of memory.

Yeah, the P35C accepts both DDR2 and DDR3. But, it doesn't accept them at the same time, which makes it rather pointless. Plus, DDR3 is still very expensive.

£398 buys you this combination, for example:

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4 £117
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=823723

Q9450 £211, includes stock cooler and Assassin's Creed
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=743028

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800MHz), Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, DHX, £70
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=766626

You save £22, get a faster CPU, get a game too, and the MB has a newer chipset. For example it has PCI-E 2.0 and Firewire and Crossfire, which you didn't get with the GA-EP35-DS3R. The disadvantage is you get only one PCI slot instead of two, and 6 SATA ports instead of 8. If that matters to you, you can get the GA-EP45-DS5 for £135, and you get 2 PCI slots and 10 SATA ports. http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=823724 The disadvantage here is that the DS5 is not in stock yet.

Edit: I'm a bit of a Gigabyte fanboi, I'm afraid. OK, just to be fair, I also like the P5Q Deluxe based on reviews and features. I just haven't tried one yet. Check it out too.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=818509

Thanks - very useful. I have a PCI card which is just another few USB slots, the graphics card is of course PCI-E.

I see the Gigabyte motherboard you list supports Crossfire. I assume this won't have any detrimental effect on my nVidia 8800GTS?

I realise I wouldn't be able to use Crossfire but I wouldn't anyway for the same reasons I don't use SLi.

No worries, there won't be any detrimental effect at all.