Hi everybody, I'm trying to build a new system that will last me for a while, and need help with choosing a good motherboard, ram, and hard drive. First of all, I am not interested in overclocking, maybe a little, but not a big concern. Here is what I have so far for my new system:
1 - antec 900 case
1 - antec 850w power supply
1 - xfx 9800gtx black edition pci express 2.0 video card

What motherboard, ram and cpu would you recommend? I would like a system that is going to last as long as what I am using now has - I built this 4 years ago and it still runs pretty strong - asus pc800e-deluxe, 3.0ghz cpu, 2 gig ram, I have changed the video cards, and hard drives over the years.

I'm looking for a good quality, stable board and ram. I have always had good luck with Asus, but I don't have to stick with them. Should I go for ddr2 or ddr3? The boards for ddr3 are pretty high but newegg has an open box asus striker nse for $260? Or should I just go with ddr2 and something like an asus p5n72 or EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1? Or do you have a better recommendation? if the board recommends ddr2 800 can I go with ddr2 1066 and have a little play for overclocking if I decide that?

Also, I guess I need a pci ex 2.0 for that video card, I'd like to have an SLI path, so that I can get a little boost from a 2nd video card when they get reasonable. Or is the gain from SLI not even worth it?

Also, I know I'm going to get the intel c2d e8500, if that helps.

Sorry for so many questions, it wasn't this hard 4 years ago when I built the last one!

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Charles

also wanted to add - for the hard drive, I'm thinking of the seagate 500 gig with 32mg cache? or is western digital the best to go with? also need to add that I have about $800 left to spend on these parts.

Thanks again.

get a intel q6600 if you want the pc for a 3 or 4 years. get parts that can oc because your going to hate not being able to do it a month after you get it. i did that on my first sytem

Since you've already got an nVidia card and a huge PSU, you might as well get a SLI board. eVGA 750i or eVGA 780i are pretty good, for example.

RAM - 4 GB DDR2-800 (2x2GB), Corsair or Mushkin for example. Pick a mobo, find it at newegg, see what RAM is mentioned in the 5-egg reviews. That gives you a better chance of getting compatible modules. No need at all for DDR2-1066 if you don't overclock. DDR3 is not worth the cost yet, maybe next year.

CPU: if you're thinking long term then get a quad. For non-overclockers, the best choice is Q9450 IMO, if the budget allows. If not, Q6600.

Both are good. I'd pick the WD6400AAKS, mostly because it has an excellent price/GB.

thanks for the replies guys, I'll take a look at the q9450 and the evga board. Any other suggestions???

-Charles

what about the q9300? would that be better than the 6600/6700? that would probably fit in my price range better?

Q6600: 2.4 GHz, 8 MB cache, $195 (newegg retail), multiplier 9
Q9300: 2.5 GHz, 6 MB cache, $270 (newegg retail), multiplier 7.5
Q6700: 2.66 GHz, 8 MB cache, $275 (newegg retail), multiplier 10

With overclocking, Q6700>Q6600>Q9300 thanks to the multipliers.

Without overclocking, Q6700=Q9300>Q6600, but they are all very close. That is, the Q9300 about matches the Q6700, despite the lower clock and smaller cache, thanks to some architectural improvements it's got.

Keep in mind that most of the time the HDD will bottleneck the CPU and all these 3 CPUs will do the same job in exactly the same time, regardless of their theoretical maximum speed and benchmarks.

If this is a gaming machine, my advice is to get the Q6600 and put the extra $80 toward better video cards or disks.

If you do video encoding with SSE4 software get the Q9300.