hi i have decided to upgrade from my dual core opteron
this is what i plan to buy and i need help deciding about what would best suit my needs.
cpu--e8400
q6600
q9300/q9450
motherboard--something that would complement my cpu perfectly.
ram--gskill ddr2 800 2x2=4gb/corsair xms2 2x2=4gb/OCZ Platinum Revision 2GB DDR2 800MHz-2x2gb--wht would be the best amongst these three brands?
i would be using my old 8800gt to handle the games
i plan to play games and use it for general stuff and would probably look to load os x leopard on this pc.

What is your budget?

Hello sunny long time no see

Well betwee the RAMs go for the one which has 4-4-4-x or lower timings + a good voltage like 2.1 or 2.2

aslo between the CPUs, go for a Q6600 and OC it

btw, how do u want to run Leopard? Apple doesn't allow any "NON-APPLE"Useres to use MAC OS X LEOPARD

hey maziar!
damn engineering exams!! hate em!
so the q6600 it is!!
as for the mac leopard-i've run it on my pc!!! didnt work properly with a few patches it did! i know i cant legally install it! bt then mac hardware is seriously limited but i love the OS!!
as for the ram wht brand to get--all of them look solid and are equally priced!

Well if all of those RAMs have the same specs and same price, then go for either u want!,all of them are good brands

You can check the chips used here. Prefer Micron over others.

http://ramlist.ath.cx/ddr2/

It still seems to me that the Q6600 seems to be the bang for the buck leader right now, but is there any news on when the big price drops for Q9550 etc. will be? I'd heard it could be as early as next week (I hope and pray)!

Hmm, seeing as you do like to game, i would actually recommend the E8400. It can be overclocked far past the Q6600. E8400 can do about 6GHz, with the right mobo. (No water cooling needed!)

Yes, its true that quad core support is slowly expanding, but really, for you, a blazing fast dual core is your best bet. You will have to upgrade sooner or later anyways, with those new LGA1336 Nehalem processors coming out.

E8400 can be OC'd to 6GHZ without Water cooling?!!!!!!!!!!!!
are u sure ?????

Nope, that is a dream. You can hit 4ish pretty easily though, probably a little higher with decent air cooling.

Never heard of a Wolfdale hitting 6... maybe on liquid nitrogen, as that is technically air!

An E8400 on a Asus Striker II Extreme or a 790i

E8400 is better for Gaming than a Q6600, and for simple tasks it is overkill. Corsair 2GB xms2 is great. Q6600 appears to be older 65nanometer technology, but compatible with older, cheaper boards. An Asus Striker II Extreme is a high end, pretty new board. A 790i might out perform a Asus Striker II Extreme, but the 790i doesn't have as many high tech features.

I'd probably go for an E8400, but this guy must be smoking something if he thinks it can go to 6ghz. 3.6ghz would be a fairly easy overclock though.

wht would be the best board for an E8400/q6600? i would love to have a board tht would be future-proof.

Need CrossFire or SLI support?

sli!!--don't tell me about nvidia chipsets -an intel chipset would do.mac osx leopard is generally incompatible with nvidia based chipsets--i had loads of trouble with my existing nforce4 ultra chipset with tiger.leopard keeps crashing and doesn't work properly.

If u need CrossFire go for a X38 board if u dont need CrossFire go for a P35 board like ASUS P5K-E WIFI(I have it and love it ),GIGABYTE P35 DS3L,ABIT IP35 PRO

Sunny, are you building a Hackintosh?