My first time building gaming system

Whats your budget ? What operating system ?

The closest thing AMD currently has to the Q6600 is the 9950. I believe they are priced about the same. Most go with the Q6600, as it has much better overclocking potential. Only get the 9950 if you already have an AM2 motherboard that can run the hot 9950. (I think thats a 125TDW chip.)

Why only two gigs? The best deal out there right now is 2x2GBs of DDR2-800MHz. If you want fast, get the ram with CL timings of 4. If you don't worry about it that much, CL5 will do fine. I have a set of 2x2GB CL5 DDR2-800MHz ram from G.Skill in my machine right now, and I couldn't be happier. Because I have 32bit windows it reports 3.25GBs of ram, but thats ok with me.

Floppy drive? Really? This is my second computer that doesn't have a floppy. If your worried about SATA drivers, don't be. Make sure in the bios they are set for IDE emulation, then you won't have to worry about it. If you want to use the more advanced SATA features, just upgrade the drivers from within windows.

I wouldn't get the 9800GT either. For just a bit more, you can get the 9800GTX/4850, which is a much better card. Unless this puts you overbudget, try to get one of these cards.

700W from whom? Not all PSUs are equals. Make sure you get a quality unit, don't just get the big number.

22" monitor? I'm assuming you are talking about LCDs. If so, they don't really have refresh rates, at least not like your talking about. They will all be 60hz. For LCDs, you need to pay attention to response time, contrast ratio, brightness, and possibly viewing angle if you won't spend all your time right in front of it. If you are hardcore about your viewing on LCDs, try to figure out if its a 6 or 8bit panel, though most couldn't care.

Good luck!

I can show you 600 and 700W PSUs that have less 12V power then some 500W PSUs. The 12V is important as thats where the CPU and GPU get their power from. Watts isn't everything, the Amps and the name also matter.

Crysis runs like a B!tch on most hardware. I wouldn't build a system just for Crysis. The GTX is better then the 9800GT because it has more stream processors. The GT has 112, while the GTX has 128. This makes it more powerful, even if the clock speeds are the same.

AMD might own ATI, but it really doesn't matter. The cards plug into the slot, they are CPU agnostic. All you need is a CPU powerful enough to send information to the card fast enough.

"the video card needs its own power supply" - LOL, did the guy at Future Shop actually say that, no chance you may have misunderstood? It's scary, the kind of people they hire these days. In fact, most gaming PCs have one power supply that handles the video card and CPU and motherboard and disks and everything else. I'm guessing less than 1% actually have a second power supply.

If the Future Shop guy told you to buy the P5Q SE and two video cards then he should be fired. That motherboard does not have a second physical slot where you could install the second video card.

I suggest you keep the motherboard, return the 9800GT, then buy a GTX 260 Core 216 or a HD 4870 1GB. The HD 4870 1GB is a little better

eVGA GTX 260 Core 216 $250, includes Far Cry 2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130398

HIS HD 4870 1GB $230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161247

The HD 4870 1GB will get 3 fps more on a 22" monitor (39.8 vs 37.1) and it's $20 less, but the GTX 260 comes with a free game Either will be quite playable at 37 or 40 fps IMO.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] i=3415&p=4

Your power supply is plenty for either of those cards.

Your third option is to return the motherboard, get a SLI motherboard instead, buy a second 9800GT. The 4th option is to return the MB and 9800GT, get a GA-EP45-UD3P and a pair of HD 4850 cards, etc etc. Probably best to just buy the best single video card you can afford and avoid SLI/Crossfire.

There's a GTX 280 1GB, but that costs even more than the HD 4870. It's around $350 at Newegg.

Then there's an 8600GT with 1 GB, but that's just a stupid joke. No idea why they put so much RAM on a non-gaming card. It will stink in games.

Anyway, the amount of RAM is not really that important, especially on a 22" monitor. It matters a lot more on 24" monitor s or larger (1920x1200 or more).

All right, if the GTX 260 and HD 4870 are out of your price range, your next best choices are HD 4850, 9800GTX+, HD 4830, 9800GT.