crossfire or no crossfire? Need advice choosing some parts 4 new build

I would wait until Nehalem comes out. Price seems to be an issue here and you can be current stuff will be a lot cheaper when Nehalem comes around.

If you wait for prices to drop or not, I think you should get a q6600 and OC it.

This motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128345

This case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119068


Total comes to roughly $675 if I add my parts to your parts (and subtract the Phenom). Throw in a Xigamatek aftermarket cooler and you are running sweet at about $700

MA-770-DS3 works with Phenom and is very good.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128081

RC-690 case

WD6400AAKS instead of that 500GB - faster

Save $1 after rebate and shipping and get the OCZ StealthXstream 600W instead of that HEC 500W. It's got better reviews and more power.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341010

Edit: forget Crossfire. Tight budget, remember? For Crossfire you'd need a $200+ motherboard, a second $200+ video card, a more expensive PSU too, and it would not make sense on a 19" monitor anyway.

Even if you are using a lower res, wouldn't it help on the really demanding games (crysis) ?

Don't go with that memory... too expensive for nothing... go for a kit of 4gb ddr2-800, 1066 mhz are just OC'ed version of the 800 most of the time... get good 800 mhz and OC it.
G.Skill, Patriot extreme, Crucial ballistix are very good memory, make sure you get the 4-4-4-12 timing version.

Like that memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220269

I have the exact set of memory that you showed there aevm ( the mushkin one ) and I am not recommending them.

This is not possible to make them run at 4-4-4-12 even with an high voltage and even if i drop the mhz to around 700 i wasn't able with 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 or even 2.3 volt to make them run at 4-4-4-12.

I am stuck at using them at ddr- 900 mhz ( 450mhz FSB ) with latency of 5-4-4-12.

Mushkin is great memory, but pay a little more and get Patriot memory or anything else that are able to run 1050+ mhz on 4-4-4-12 latency.

thx everyone...guess imma have to revamp my wishlist...I'll drop the 1066 ram to get the 800

Was looking at this ram set...it has a great mail in rebate...but the latency is 4-4-4-15...dont know if thats good or bad...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227267

Stick with the Mushkin memory. I'm using two of those 4GB kits for a total of 8GB and they worked great. Not one problem getting the four sticks working in dual channel mode. Even Vista 64 Ultimate installed on four of these without a single problem.

I think imma go with the DS3....mainly because I cant afford the DS5

Alright...so I'm probably gonna disappoint a lot of you guys, but I ended up getting the following items (due to a combination of combo offers and promo discounts, I spent only $470...and thats not including the $60-70 imma be getting back from mail in rebates...btw, I got $380 for my old desktop so I ended up not spending very much at all for the build)

Mobo:
I ordered this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813138106

but got this one is the mail...newegg must have ran out of version I ordered GO NEWEGG!!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813138102

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811133048

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231121 (got it cuz ppl said I could set it to 4-4-4-12...and cuz i couldnt afford 4gb)

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817152028

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103773

Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814125224

Hard drive: using old WD 200gb IDE HDD...I've got a 500gb external and another 250gb external...

I've received everything except the processor and the video card...which are shipping from California for some reason...w/e...hopefully you guys approve this build and everything works perfectly...

Well, you have to install something.

If you have XP already use it, it will be fine. It's just that some games will look better in Vista because of DirectX 10.

If you don't have any kind of Windows yet I recommend Vista Home Premium 64-bit.

You've only got 2 GB of RAM, so the 32-bit systems are fine. I'd install Vista Ultimate 32-bit, just for DX10. Mind you, in some games like BioShock DX10 makes no visible difference. But, in others, like Crysis, DX10 does improve the graphics.

XP Pro 64 bit is the last one I'd use for gaming. I use it at work and I had some issues on it with applications that used to work fine on the 32-bit XP.

Well, if you do want Vista you can always add another 2GB for $40 or whatever.

In Microsoft's defense - apparently Vista will load all sorts of things in RAM in the hope that you will need them. The idea is if you do need them they will be available faster that way. If you don't need them, and the RAM is needed for something else, that RAM is freed and made accessible to whatever app needs it. That is, Vista only looks like a memory hog, but in fact it's not. It just tries to find an intelligent use for RAM that would sit idle under XP.

No idea if this is actually working or how well. I just read about it somewhere on a Microsoft page long ago.

YAY!! so i finally finished my build! I installed vista even though I only have 2gb...I can tell that it is a bit slow sometimes, so i definitely look forward to getting another stick...Thx everyone for your help! everything worked just as planned and fortunately didnt run into any problems...now i just have to go through the hassle of sending in mail in rebates...this has been by far the cheapest build I've ever done and I still cant believe how much performance I'm getting for what I payed for

hey guys...I had a quick question...I've been running Vista 32bit for several days now and really haven't been too pleased with it...I really can tell it is a lot slower...and I also finally decided to get crysis to check it out on the comp...after installing the game and playing it, I noticed I really couldn't achieve very good performance (have the settings mixed between high and very high running at 1280x1024)...I'm thinking (and praying) its the 2gigs of ram...what do u guys think?