Advice on motherboard for Wolfdale E8500

Atlus

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Jan 15, 2011
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Over the next 6 months, somewhere in that time slot I plan on upgrading my motherboard and processor.

As of right now I have

Inspiron 530
Current Mobo: Dell 0RY007
4 gigs of ram DDR2 pc2-6400x2/DDR2 pc2-5300x2
Current processor: Intel Pentium Duel CPU E2180 2.00GHz
Radeon HD 5770 PCI-e
CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-500CX 500W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply

I plan on getting a
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
or
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

I have no idea or anything about what type of motherboard would go best with my system. This computer is mainly for gaming, and I intend to play high end games later in the future such as Diablo 3, FFIV, Fallout 3 New Vegas. I would like the price to be under 200, but as any other person I want the best value per buck for what I intend to use this computer for. I'm not really very savvy with hardware and such so if you need more information, be specific.
 

stingstang

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May 11, 2009
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I agree with the above. If you're going to buy a new motherboard, then bite the bullet and buy ddr3 ram as well. It's very cheap now, just 50 bucks for 4GB. The upgrade to a cheap Sandybridge will be worth it's weight in uncut diamonds. (I say so, because the chip is very light, so...right, yea) You don't need to buy a top-end K-series to see performance that will last, so keep an open mind.
Let me reiterate. Buy a Sandybridge processor and DDR3 RAM.
 

Atlus

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Jan 15, 2011
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So I know I should get some sort of Sandybridge processor, and some DDR3 Ram

I was thinking of this for the ram
[CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL011111&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL011111-_-EMC-011111-Index-_-DesktopMemory-_-20145260-L0A

For the processor I can think on it some more later, but for the motherboard I'm still thinking of what to get.

ASUS P8P67-M PRO LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS P8P67-M LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

All I do is game and watch movies, so should I go with a ASUS p8p67-m PRO or just a regular p8p67-m
The regular ASUS p8p67-m seems to be cheaper, by about 20$, but would it be worth it to just get the m-Pro if the benefits outweigh the price?