$500-650

[polishshark]

so I'm looking to spend 500-650 on mother board, CPU, video card, and memory. I already have hard drive, case, and optical drive, and the keyboard etc.

Now I have not been following up with the hardware development since my lat system (about 5 years) and here is what I'm thinking..

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R ; Q6600 ; G.SKILL PI Black 4GB DDR2 800 PC2 6400 ; some 4850 video card

I am planning on overclocking the system, and the reason I am going with quad is that I will not see the difference in 100fps with quad vs. 120fps with dual. The rig will mostly be used for gaming, but also for other things and I read that quad is better if you use many applications at once, and I do.

Another question, is it worth it to get Q9450? it's $100 more than Q6600 but can it be overclocked as far? Just how much money would it save me in energy (lets say in a year)? Or would it be better to invest in a better video card?

Please explain you answers/choices
thanks

 

[megamanx00]

Well you're definitely going to need to overclock that 6600 so I recommend also getting a good aftermarket cooler like this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233014

with it's retention bracket

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233020

I'm not sure where you plan to get the Q9450 since Intel phased em out, but the 12MB of cache will help it preform better than the Q6600 and the Q9450 can be overclocked farther. If gaming is your primary concern then you will find it worthwhile to spend the extra money towards a Radeon 4870. If you are more concerned about daily productivity tasks and are unwilling to overclock then you will appreciate the extra performance of the Q9450.

 

[polishshark]

I'm not sure where you plan to get the Q9450 since Intel phased em out, but the 12MB of cache will help it preform better than the Q6600 and the Q9450 can be overclocked farther. If gaming is your primary concern then you will find it worthwhile to spend the extra money towards a Radeon 4870. If you are more concerned about daily productivity tasks and are unwilling to overclock then you will appreciate the extra performance of the Q9450.

bunch of places still sell them... like this one

http://www.buy.com/prod/core-2-quad-q9450-2-66ghz-processor-2-66ghz-1333mhz-fsb-core-2-quad/q/loc/101/206698241.html

 

[lunyone]

Generally this is how I see gaming systems:
* C2D's > C2Q's when matching like prices.
* >GPU = better gaming!! Especially in higher resolutions!!
* Multi-tasking is common and quads are good with them, IF the applications are threaded for them!! A 4 gHz C2D is going to be faster than a 3.6 gHz C2Q, if the programs aren't threaded for quad cores!! C2Q's might survive longer, but I'm betting in 2-3 years your going to be building a different build from the ground up!