Is the pairing of this cpu with this gpu ridiculous?

I am pairing a AMD 64 x2 5800+ Brisbane @ 3.085 with an ATI 4850 x2 on a 770a-UD3 gigabyte motherboard. Can any of you hardware gurus please weigh in?

1920x1080, 24" dell w2409. (I sold my samsung 1920x1200 24", I just like 16:9 so much more) and games like cod5, crysis, warhead, UT3, Fallout 3, and I want it to be forward compatible, as in not have to buy new hardware for about 18 mos. I already oc'd from 3-3.085, but im using a best buy hsf cpu cooler. I got 4gb of ddr2 1066 ram. also I have a 500w and a 480w psu, so if i cant get the 500w to work alone, I'm using the 500w for the 4850x2 and sata drives, and the 480w for the MB, and 1 IDE drive, that should work right?

There really isn't any significant difference between 800mhz DDR2 and 1066mhz DDR2.

Your PSU might not be enough for 4850x2. The 4850 uses about the same power as two 4850s in crossfire. Try getting a good 600-700watt PSU (or 750 watt unknown brand) with enough amps on the 12v rails.

I personally get a pretty decent performance boost between 800mhz and 1104Mhz ram speed. Enough that its worth having. I agree the performance boost over 800mhz is less than the same increase under that threshold.

as for the power issue, vista will clock the card down (and it informs you) when it does so. You can check this with GPU-Z. If all looks well, you have to assume the PSU is doing its job.

That PII X3 is a great, it must be the best upgrade option with out spending alot for a top intel chip.

He asked if it was a ridiculous pairing.

It's not quite that bad, but the Athlon will bottleneck the 4850 X2 in most games.

I actually read that clock for clock the intels were faster, but the price of the mb + cpu was about 2x as much for a 3ghz.