'lo all,

Going to start ordering the parts for my new system in 3 weeks time, leaving me 21 days to gather information and make the right decisions on parts.

Going to be a Conroe (of course) .... possibly E6600, but my thinking is increasingly going towards a lower end Conroe CPU, due to all the noises coming out about Penryn. I know no-one knows if Penryn will work in current motherboards, but my gut says it will....and on that basis my thinking is…get a heavily overclockable chip now and upgrade in 12-18months. I know this is a technical gamble, but one that I'm willing to make.

To minimise the risk I want to get one of the very latest motherboards, based on the 'tentative logic' that the newer it is the odds become slightly better that Penryn will work with it when the time comes (again I appreciate however no boards are being specifically designed with this in mind at the moment).

Graphic card for the new system will either be a 8800GTX or a R600 (depending on how good the imminent reviews of the latter are), but no SLI or Crossfire support is required....I’m a one card man

Onboard sound not needed, especially those 7.1 versions, as I will look to add a Fatality Creative card or something of that ilk, although, like onboard wireless, it seems like a trimming that comes with most new decent boards? (but if it only saves me a few pounds/bucks then I might as well have it I guess)

Other minor considerations - I will also be sticking in a TV Card (not that I believe that changes anything), and I do like the idea of having up to 10 USB 2.0 to play with.

Before offering your advice, remember I have 3 weeks to play with, so if you know of any motherboards ABOUT to be released, keep those in mind too.

You people are a goldmine of information and I now prostrate myself before you in anticipation of your wise council....in other words, thanks very much for any help you can offer

hmm.. I feel exactly the same tension you do about a new build right now.

That being said, I think a nvidia 650 sli chipset motherboard like asus' p5N is a pretty good choice if you are gambling on penryn support. They have already stated they will support 1333 fsb chipsets (penryn) WHEN they are available....

If you have the money to spend maybe a 680i? BUT, from what I have seen you are better investing your money in a better video card or CPU vs. 680i.

good luck with the build. I plan on assembling a computer w/ e4300, 650 sli, 1950xt (because I certainly don't plan on upgrading to vista before the year is up! too many bugs to work out) when I do upgrade to vista maybe I will go quad core and some dx10 video card. I don't like to be on the bleeding edge.

Watch for Gigabyte Rev 3.3 boards with the 965P chipset. Also check out the ABIT/Gigabyte/MSI 650i SLI boards. Both chipsets should hit the shelves at the start of or towards the middle of February. (personally Im hoping they come at the start of February ) Oh, hey if you have the pecuniary power then check out ABITs 680i motherboard. Its available right now.
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/m [...] &model=333
Only bummer there is it has 2 PCI slots so your soundcard and TV tuner will fill it up. :? Though the sound that comes with it should be excellent and may more than fit your needs.

These boards will leave plenty of room for overclocking. The 650i SLI boards will have support for 2 IDE channels (4 devices) though. That might be a consideration if you have some IDE drives you'd like to keep.

k, I shall keep an eye out for those boards, and certainly make sure I get one supporting 1333fsb. As mentioned, will have to keep an eye on the number of PCI slots, soundcard and TV card, along with a giant GPU will quickly fill up space!

Cheers for the input guys, any other thoughts from anyone else?

Maybe ATI/AMD will release an "all in wonder" version of their DX10 card . Of course, you can always get a USB external tuner as well. But depending on your cable company, it may have a limited lifetime - my cable company Comcrash is moving away from analog to DTV/HDTV so that they can jack their prices up another 10 notches.

I started my new build this morning. I got the CPU installed, Artic Silver spread, Zalman cooler installed and 4 sticks of memory slotted, and the standoffs and mobo screwed into the case before my wife started complaining about my missing work . So now here I am at the office wishing quitting time were here already.