Ok so as you can see in my sig im not ready for any advanced gaming. Needs an upgrade me thinks, probably you to. My plan is to upgrade in the end of october, hoping that prices will have gotten a little bit better by then. There are some things i can't decide though so help me out with your elite knowledge of computers.


CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3,0GHz /or/ Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2,4GHz

quad or dual, top dual or low quad... same prize. Some people might say why not Quad, like the most obvious thing to choose, well yeah maybe. There is a great test/article on these 2 processors.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_12.html#sect0
Small conclusion from the 3dgames test.

QUOTE:
Summing up the results we have just seen, I can conclude that if the gamers don’t feel like overclocking their processor, they shouldn’t go for CPUs with more than two cores. Gamers-overclockers should definitely decide in favor of the Core 2 Quad Q6600, although a strong opposite opinion exists these days.

Well i have never OC:ed anything in my computer. Not that i don't know how but, i don't feel like pushing the hardware. I've never used any special cooling either, just the regular, couple of fans.
So the text says buy a Duo, but if games like Crysis, CoD4, Hellgate, and whatever will have multi-tasking support, then Quad feels like the most obvious choice. Looking at the test on Supreme Commander Quad "owned" Duo even when not OC. I mean I don't plan playing quake4 or fear for years forward . Meeeh... hard to choose
.

Motherboard: omgihavenoidea 5000/socket 775

Yeah I haven't really taken a look at this yet. Socket 775 anyway.
Any advice here would be helpful. what's the best board out there?..

Graphic card: GeForce 8800GTS 640Mb

I would really like a GTX but so expensive , and i've heard they get pretty hot. So i had decided for a gts 640, until i read Vairos "Latest drivers of 2900XT BEATS 8800GTS640 for sure" thread. damn you ... . But I also read that 2900xt can get pretty loud, been there done that, i don't want another loud graphic card. I'm not really sure but isn't nvidia more widely supported then ati?.. so 8800gts would work better in general?.. (expecting Vairo to stand up for his lovely card<3)

Coming down to one card, what brand should one choose? Asus.. Leadtek.. Albatron.. ? is there any greater difference?
Read something about 8800gts640 from leadtek was working a little bit better then asus and seeing leadtek being a bit cheaper then asus, leadtek looks great.

Memory: Corsair XMS2 Xtreme TwinX DDR2 PC6400/800MHz CL5 2x1GB (TWIN2X2048-6400)

CL5 or CL4?, prize is pretty much the same. Better with CL4 then maybe.
Or if there's some better memory to choose, plz tell me.

Other stuff:

I'm guessing i'll need new power supply, just don't know what kind or how much?

I'm also wondering about soundcard. I now have a Soundblaster live! audio [E800], it's kinda old yes. Don't know if i need to upgrade this but sound to me is really important. I have a 5.1 speaker system, nothing special but it works out great IMO.

As for monitor i'm thinking Samsung SyncMaster 206BW.

On the harddrive part i guess i'll go for some seagate 500Gb or something.


well this got quite long, thx for any help.


UPDATE:

ok then.. im starting to get finished. so far it looks like this

cpu Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2,4GHz
motherboard Asus P5K-E/WiFi-AP
gpu Leadtek GeForce WinFast PX8800 GTX TDH 768MB
memory Crucial DDR2 BallistiX PC6400 2048MB CL4 2x1024
powersupply Corsair CMPSU-520HXEU 520W
harddrive Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 16MB 500GB

still wondering a little bit about the motherboard so let me know and powersupply, I might also change to a GTS gpu just because i dont have much money, but we will see.

well yeah... comment. something wrong?.. speak up. thx

Go for Quad 2,4ghz, you have 2x2 cores (new AMD will be true quad core CPU), so it's even faster than C2D 3ghz
As for MoBo - if you are thinking of ATI crossfire in future you should choose one with intel's chip not nvidia.
If you are more nvidia than ati fanboy - you can easily get 8800 GTS + nvidia chipset MoBo.

But I can't give you specific model of MoBo, because I never had one with soc 775, sorry. (But from my experience, MSI and ASUS have awesome motherboards).

cheers
truly

yeah it has double the cores but there's more in to it. read this http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_12.html#sect0

How near is this ATI crossfire future?
And i'm not enough in to this so i haven't become a fanboy for anything yet , just that 8800 has been the new awesome thing for as much that i've heard .

Well you already sold yourself a quad core once you said the latter(e.g Crysis) games are being designed to use all the multi threads they can, id say take a quad core just like i have. It does make sense seeing as these games will be taking advantage of the threads. I have not over clocked before, I'm not quite sure how, but i know theres a lot of people who do so if i ever need to i can, and there is a lot of places and tutorials to find out how, the quad cores are meant to be good over clockers.

I have a BFG 8800GTX if your expecting to buy late October prices can change so look at the prices then and make a choice.

Motherboards, i wouldn't worry too much about SLI or crossfire as i haven't heard much good stuff about them and heard of no big improvements. A P5K Series are good motherboards Ive heard a lot of good thing about them, and Ive got one myself and its been pretty good. And has good over clocking potential if i need to use it.

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=110267

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1G DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz, is a pretty good memory kit, not to sure if you look around some hardware forums to help you choose the right memory, id always go on good feedback.

A 520 watt power supply(true power) should be enough.

Sound card, i wouldn't bother or save the extra and get a 8800GTX, On board sound is usually good enough and a lot of boards support 7.1hd audio, you have a 5.1 setup so this should be fine.

Monitor is personal choice, size and look.

Hard drive i was advised to get a western digital caviar drive, they are suppose to be quite reliable ive had no problems with my Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB. Seagate usually do good drives too so not a bad choice of brandname.

hope that helps a little bit.

-Dual

QUOTE:
that 2900xt can get pretty loud, been there done that

hell yea it is really loud, i got even scared first time it went up to max speed Via Ati tool

QUOTE:
until i read Vairos "Latest drivers of 2900XT BEATS 8800GTS640 for sure

yep that is true !!! I love my card i might go crossfire one day ^^

I am not sure which one is the best mobo for you from new ones but the one i got from Asus check in the sigg has everything you need really.

cheers

vai

well thank you all for your help, much virtual love to you all