Need Help with final motherboard/cpu decision

[ironwarrior]

I was just curious as to how much overall performance would I gain going from DDR2 to DDR3. An example would be in playing games or viewing HD video. I am in a delima where I am trying to chose between (2) Gigabyte motherboards

1. EP45-UD3P (DDR2 support) 137.00
2. EP45T-UD3P (DDR3 Support) 150.00

It seems like an easy answer as there is little difference in price. I just haven't priced the DDR3 yet and wanted to know if there were any other issues with the DDR3 boards. I just wanted to pass this off to you guys to get some feedback on what you thought.

Now I was informed by some others that there is very little performance gain from the DDR3 memory, thus I would be best suited for picking
#1 (The Gigabyte DDR2 Motherboard) and running DDR2 ram. If you guys all agree with that then that leaves me with only one more question I have been pondering. Which CPU to go with? Well on that one I was told that the E8500 would provide the best performance for the money. Now it is like 3.16 Ghz Core 2 Duo for like $189.00. So here would be the 2 choices.

1. EP45-UD3P with E8500 Core 2 Duo 3.16Ghz = 326.00
2. EP45-UD3P with Q9550 2.83Ghz quad core = 426.00


Please help me make this decision... it is killing me

 

[ironwarrior]

Ok, I found my answer about the DDR3 here..
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/255414-30-ddr2-ddr3
I will be going with the DDR 2 motherboard..
Only have the last question... To go with the E8500 Core Duo or the Quad.
The quad is 100.00 more for the mb+cpu.

 

[Outlander_04]

ddr3 is not good value yet .

Gaming performance is likely to be better with the e8500. Most games cant use a quad effectively . ay ....

 

[mdma35]

Go for E8400 and Gigabyte DQ6 DDR2 version fsb 1600