I ended up grabbing the BFG 9800 GX2 which should be about 475 for the card which is not bad.

I also picked up the new Antec Twelve Hundred case and the ABS Tagan 700 Watt power supply.

I then finished it off with a Intel 2.4 quad core q6600 processor.

With my already nice Abit board and 4 gigs of Corsair dd2 and Dell 2707 monitor running at 1920 X 1200, I am hoping this should be a pretty peppy system for gaming.

The 9800GX2 is really overpriced but it should be a really nice system, enjoy.

Well considering Frys and some other retail stores had it for 529 - 599, i thought 475 was the best price to go with heh.

I'm not saying you paid a lot and I do wish I had one but I think it should be in the $375-$400 range and not where it is.

i think you should have waited a month

I agree.

But still, he'll definitely enjoy what he got, and it should serve him well for quite a while.

why wait a month? what's coming out?

GTX280 and 260 from nVidia and 4800 series from ati, June 16th and 18th...

Nice setup. Perfect for 19x12 gaming. Enjoy it.

To best match up with that 9800GX2, you could OC the Q6600. 3.0GHz should be possible even with the stock Intel fan. With proper cooling way beyond that.

$475 isn't bad for the GX2. Depending what your MOBO is I would have gone SLI but if you don't have that option the GX2 is your best bet. Enjoy, that thing should scream.

Well I could wait, but then after those cards out, another card is going to come out better... ext ext lol Why not just get this one card, and when prices come down maybe for christmas, SLI 2 9800 GX2s

yea never OCed a processor before, I saw a lot of people now using the q6600 or higher in their gaming rigs, and im just using a 1.8 duel core i bought a year ago, so I figure a good cpu upgrade with a better fan could do better as well heh Im also excited about that new Antec Twelve Hundred Case that just came out, it is going to be sick looking with that ABS power supply.

Quad cores are overrated for gaming rigs. They are number crunchers and really video encoding and apps that are made to take advantage of multiple cores only benefit. 95% of the time a faster dual core will outperform a quadcore for games. What 1.8MHz CPU do you have? just curious.

You are absolutely righth with the cards coming out. There will always be a new card coming out, and they will always have a premium price when they come out and people will pay it then be angry in a few months when its $100+ cheaper. But by the time they wait it out a new card comes out with the same premium. It's a neverending cycle. I bought an 8800GTS/512 for $300 W/ $20 rebate, so $280. I can get the same card for $220. Oh well I've had it several months and am happy. I didn't buy it for $399 when it first came out or whatever it was, I never do that. I'll be happy for a year then sell it for $100-$150 and get another $300 card. That way I only ever pay about half the price of the card and reclaim the rest from the old. I did that with my x1900xtx.

lets just say you wont be needing to upgrade any time soon

though...would have been nice to wait for a few more weeks to see how the 4000 cards from ati stack up.

Eh, if you have the Q6600 then just keep it, if not, get the E7200 or E8400 and save some money and gain performance!