P-55 UD4P

What graphic card will you be using ? Are you planning to run SLI/ Crossfire?

If you have not planned for SLI/ Crossfire, then even the UD3R would suffice...But the UD4P is a better choice...Even you can check out the UD4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submi...

Right now I am thinking of Geforce GTX 275 896 MB GDDR3 PCIe 2.0 (seems like biggest bang for buck and is relatively powerful). I just recently became aware of SLI. I had been thinking about dual graphics cards but I elected not to do it for now. I may in the near future when more games and programs are designed to make use of it (if they already are then I am way out of touch...;-). And when I have more money. I take it from your comments (and from the fact that the UD4P has 2 PCIe 2.0 slots) that the UD4P is SLI/Crossfire capable. Which would answer one of my other questions about the card.

Right now my planned processor is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I have read benchmarks that says it outperforms the i7 920 in all areas and even the i7 940 in some areas and is at a good price.

And the memory would be:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I can't find any 2200 memory, maybe I am not looking hard enough. The motherboard has set memory standards of 2200/1333/1066/800, but people seem to have had little trouble with 1600. The card initially reads 1333 and they are able to relatively easily reset it to 1600. So I believe that this memory would be fine (that and they sell these together as memory motherboard combos, I imagine that they wouldn't sell a combo that wouldn't work with each other). I think that I am going to use XP until windows 7 comes out so 4 Gb is all I will get initially. When adding new memory, does it have to be the same speed as the other memory in the computer? If so then I want to be able to plan for the future.

Thanks for the advice

Oh and one other thing, are PCI Express x4 or x8 slots really necessary or they more of a luxury that I likely wouldn't use?

+1 on the Asus. I was going to get the exact same board as you, but the combo deal is better with the Asus and it is very comparable.

Thanks for the input guys. It is very helpful. I have been perusing some other forums (and I asked a friend) and they seem to indicate that I should go with the i7 920 over the i7 860. They are saying it might be better for upgrading and there will be more options with the socket 1366 than 1156 in the future. The setups seem relatively comparable in price. Any thoughts?

^ They are partly right about the CPU options for the LGA 1366...But you should ask yourself that whether a 6 core or an 8-core CPU would be of any use to you ?
And the X58 mobos do add up additional cost too...

The LGA 1156 socket would also get newer, powerful CPUs too...

The LGA 1366 are better buys if you want to go SLI/ Crossfire...as they would scale better on the X58...And you want the extra bandwidth of the Tri-Channel memory for Pro-video and photo editing/ rendering...

Apart from those, I dont see any major point going with the X58(920)

I looked at those deals a little bit close and man those are some sweet ones. Thanks again for finding those.

I don't plan on much intense photo editing but I do enjoy gaming when I have the time and would like to be able to play a few games without much hassle. I figure that if I am going to do SLI or crossfire in the future I will be doing it will middle of the road cards (like the GTX 275) and I don't think those would have bandwidth issues with x8,x8 (please correct me if I am wrong).

I guess some people had me freaked that the 1156 socket would lose support. I had heard rumors of newer sockets like the 1156B or 1156C replacing it soon and am worried that buying into that line would be a dead end quickly. On the other hand, I made my last computer last 5 years on minimal upgrades. If I build it correctly right now it should last a while.

I've found that those who purchased the 920 and the expensive X58 board months back will defend their purchase to the death, even when something comparable for much less money comes out soon after  . Alright, I'm asking for it right?

In all honesty, sure you'll have X58 for the 6-core, but do you really want to spend near $1k to upgrade to that chip? Unless you really need the cores for work or something. Also, by the time 6-cores are used in the mainstream, there will be other features like USB 3.0 that you will want to get a whole new board for anyway.