Help me build my new PC

[TremblingBluStar]

I'm planning on building my next rig sometime within the next month or so. And while I know that I've made posts about purchasing the Quad Core 2 for around $286, I began to think about whether I should save some of that cash and go with an Athalon X2 6000+ ($170).

I use my PC for mostly gaming, some photo editing, and web browsing.

Should I spend the extra cash for an enthusiast board, like the Gigabyte P35-DQ6 ($240), or go with something cheaper? I'm not concerned with having SLI, but would like to have a highly overclockable setup.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Edit: I'm also looking at the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R, at $130, that has everything the more expesive board has except one PCI-E(x16) slot, no support for DDR3, and minus a wierd cooler on the north bridge controller.

 

[Deleted 2]

Well, no-one can make price performance deliberations for you

I'll just say that, having recently played with a two-way Quad Core Xeon system, that those things are fast. I knew that intellectually, of course, but it didn't hit home until I saw the beast easily handle a workload that made the two-way Dual Core NetBurst Xeons it replaced sweat hard.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Yeah. I was looking at some benchmark comparisions, and the 6000+ actually comes remarkably close to the Quad in performance.

However, there's always the issue of future programs that take advantage of 4 cores - in which case all two core CPU's will be spanked.

I don't know. I generally go for mid-range parts, but at the prices most CPU's are, all of them are midrange. I guess the biggest debate is whether to get an expensive motherboard.

 

[Deleted 2]

TremblingBluStar said:
Yeah. I was looking at some benchmark comparisions, and the 6000+ actually comes remarkably close to the Quad in performance.

However, there's always the issue of future programs that take advantage of 4 cores - in which case all two core CPU's will be spanked.

I'd take a close look at how those benchmarks are set up. It may well be the case that they're already taking advantage of those four cores.

And keep in mind that while some tasks are easy to parallellise, others are a major PITA, or simply uneconomical.