X58 or P45 or P55 thats the question?

Hi All,

I like many others used to be on top of my game when it came to hardware, overclocking and gaming rigs. Now I'm just an old married man with a mid life crisis trying to get back into a scene that I'm far to old for

I have read the reviews from this site, and other but still can't get my head around the way to progress.

Do I go for X58 putting in an i7 2.66 and await the dreams of faster processors being released next year so therefore having a longer life of mb and upgradability.

Or are there enough legs in the P45 to throw in a Q9550 and still have room to grow?

Or go for the P55 and pray for some more money to be able to afford the new i7 processor?

I'm a UK lad, but living in South Africa, and decent equipment is hard to come by, and when you do, you pay 3 times the price of the US / UK!! which is nice.....

Current quotation I have looks like this?

INTEL SKYBERG C2E ATX DDR3-1333 W/GBT (P45)
YORKFIELD CORE-2-QUAD Q9550
2 x 2G PC1333 DDR3
SEAGATE 750GB 7200RPM
NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800GTX
WINDOWS VISTA H/PREM
550W PSU

OR

INTEL SMACKOVER CI7 (X58)
BLOOMFIELD CORE i7 2.66
2 x 2G PC1333 DDR3
SEAGATE 750GB 7200RPM
NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800GTX
WINDOWS VISTA H/PREM
550W PSU

Please hear me..........I'm going on a few weeks of reading reviews, so please direct me to greener pastures!!

Thanks in advance

Ian

if you intend on going the 1366 i7 route, you'll definately need an aftermarket cooler. If you don't, you won't get too much of an overclock without your processor getting really hot. Even if you run that one at stock settings, I bet you'll be running 70C full load.

that's why I'd recommend the p55 and go with the socket 1156 i7.

The performance of the P45/Q9550 is close in performance to the P55/i5 750, but you won't have much of an upgrade path. At close to the same price as the P55/i7 860 you can get a X58/i7 920 which performs better, has an upgrade path and overclocks very well (check benchmarks both here at Toms and other sites). Because of your location you may find prices to be much better one way or another, but i'd probably avoid the LGA 775/P45/Q9550 if you can.

Well at the moment in time we dont know if they'll continue with 1156 socket or not. We only have info on the 1366.

There are a couple of discounted X48 boards out there (Foxxconn Blackopps for example) so you should look at them as well as leser P45 boards.

right, I've got the complete looking PC here.

Again, please can I have ur input.

OCZ PC3-12800 DDR3 6GB Plat Low-Voltage Triple Channel 3x2GB Kit Coolermaster V8
Corsair TX750W, Eps12V, ATX 12V V2.2 - 750w (12v : 720w)
Intel i7/Nehalem 920, 2.66ghz box cpu
Asus ENGTX275/HTDi/896MD Geforce GTX275
LG GH22LS30, 22x, Lightscribe
Seagate barracuda 7200.12 st31000528as, 1TB/1000gb, s-ata2
ASUS Rampage 2 Extreme - Republic of Gamers
Coolermaster RC-690, CM690 + Windowed side panel

Total Price: £1,387