I'd like some expertise please...

Ok here's the deal.

My birthday is in 2 weeks and I can't wait to upgrade anymore and want to do it by then. Considering that, what is the best quad core/mobo/ram combo for ~$300 total?

It can be a bit over 300 but I'm trying to avoid spending more than that. This is an upgrade I want to last me for a couple years realistically but I know it wont be cutting edge. Im waiting for later to do a huge upgrade.

Also, I currently have a socket 939 amd 4400x2 with 2 gb ddr 400 so anything really is a step up from that. I dont care about intel or amd im no fan boy.

My primary focus is multitasking and gaming, specifically at the moment running GTA IV smoothly. Believe it or not but my old amd and my new radeon 4850 are getting me a lil under 20 fps consistently at 1680x1050, rendering on highest, textures at medium, and detail settings above the console defaults of 20 something. Oh and vsync off too.

Sooo... regarding that, I was leaning towards a q6600 G0 and an asus p45 chipset board of some kind. Should I wait for cheaper Phenom IIs and i7s? I don't want to make a mistake buying aging inventory when $20 more gets me something fresh. Keep in mind I'm aware of the limits of my budget. I'd consider open box specials, etc.

So let me know what you guys think, I appreciate your efforts.

thanks for the tip. I'm not afraid to overclock as well, so keep that in mind. And if you suggest something could you please tell me if you think it is better than a q6600 setup? Im going for the most bang for the buck here but im worried about getting something as old as a q6600.

How about this combo:
http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ [...] mbo.153682

AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz Socket AM2+
# BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI

$295. It is a few % faster than a Q6600 setup and it consumes less power.

RAM: G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 20DDR2-800

Ok cool. Thanks for the info so far everyone. More opinions are welcome as well. And for comparison's sake, what mobo/ram/q6600 combo for around $300 would you guys recommend?

either an asus or gigabyte mobo with a intel p45 northbridge would be good for the q6600.

Alright, now that I've got some ideas, I want to know what you all think about these boards, I'm going to go with the q6600 setup.

So, opinions on this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 813131347R

which is a ASUS P5Q SE PLUS LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX



or this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128345

which is the one mentioned by the previous post


and also, does it really matter if i go with 800 or 1066 ddr2?

+1 for the P45-DS3L + Q6600

I'm with aevm on the UD3R, but it's all a matter of budget, by the looks of it.

One minor point though, UD3R only has 1 video slot. If you want the same board with Crossfire, it's the EP45-UD3P for $12 above the UD3R. I get confused about this notation all the time...

I'd stay away from open box--just too many potential hassles.

With a Q6600, you won't need DDR2-1066 and 800 is just fine.

cant go wrong with the q6600 or the p2 but since you are upgrading board/cpu/memory i guess in that budgent constraint i would be leaning toward the newer tech rather than the end of life CPU. the motive for ending the q6600 i am sure has more to do with cutting into the 45nm sister product than any shortcomings. good luck silver! no wrong choice to make here. both fairly equal CPU's.

Ok. I'd prefer to stay quad core just because I multitask using my dual monitor setup but I am aware of dual cores reaching higher speeds. I dont mind going for a slower quad however because Ill just OC it. This setup is just to get me through the next 2 years or so till I have the budget to go big and cuz my old 4400x2 939 and ddr1 is showing its age finally. by then Ill get something fancier but for now im not too worried if what im getting isnt future upgradeable because next time i upgrade it will be a whole system change all over again. All I care is that I spend my ~$300 best to give me the power i need for that interim time period. I dont plan on upgrading this setup significantly after i buy this stuff.

therefore, considering that, you guys think i can get by for the next 2 years on a single 4850? if so i dont mind saving the money and losing out on the ability to have crossfire because when i overhaul everything down the road ill just get a shiny new gfx card too.

Cool cool. Alright well I think I've got enough info from you guys, I appreciate the opinions. I'm a computer technician myself but I wanted to hear advice from many opinions just to be sure. Cant go wrong there.

So I've decided I am going to get a q6600 G0 stepping, a gigabyte UD3R, and some ddr2 800 2x2gb and throw some watercooling on top of it all.

Last question, what's the best ram to pair with this setup with OCing in mind? Im out of the loop for knowing about ddr2 timings, latency, etc, so to a ddr1 guy seeing latencies like 5 and 7, etc make me cringe but I know its only because i dont understand.

sounds like you now have a plan silver. when you get it up and running, come back and tell us how it compares to your faithful old rig. aevm pointed out some good RAM there for you as well. first time i bought gskill i was reluctant because of the low price but it does a great job.

Haha thanks everyone for helping me decide , this is my first experience posting for help on a forum, I've always just posted replies or searched for similar situations. It's encouraging to see such a response on such a large forum. Was afraid my request would be lost amidst the fanboy debates and more exciting announcements.

So, here is the result. Detailed below are what Im upgrading from and to.

Current - built Oct 2005

4400x2 socket 939 @ default 2.2ghz w/2mb cache 1000mhz HT
oem amd hsf
2x1gb ddr 400 corsair xms3200
Asus A8N-sli Premium (i never used the sli! bah. oh well w.e)

New - going to be built on my birthday Jan 24th 2009

q6600 lga775 (plans to OC with WC. any idea how far i can push this baby?)
2x2gb ddr2 800 gskill
Gigabyte EP45 UD3R


Honestly Im surprised how reliable and tough this old AMD box has been for me, not a single failure in any of the components and the only change in those years was graphics cards. This is a big step for me going intel, not that im a fanboy but Ive always had AMD desktops and Intel laptops. It just worked out that way based on my budget and market timing. Interesting side note in case anyone is interested, my current laptop is a Dell Mini 9 with an Atom 1.6, 2 gb ddr2, and an 8 gb SSD with OS X 10.5.4 installed. Thing flies, damn fast and is silent, no moving parts! Plans to upgrade to a 32 gb ssd and dual boot xp too. I use this thing for house calls from the repair shop i work at.

Ill post respective benchmarks on both systems for you guys too. Keep your eyes out for a return of this post in 2 weeks!

You're getting great value there--enjoy!

If you can hit 4 GHz, then I take back what I said about Duos.

Regarding your Mini 9, how's your experience been with the SSD? Any problems? And any particular reason you run OS X?

To Akebono98:

I think ive seen people reach 4 on the q6600 so we'll see! though id be perfectly happy with even 3.something because hell, thats a huge jump from stock like ive never seen.

Regarding the Dell Mini 9 SSD, it is not as fast as a traditional 5400 rpm laptop hd, its only something like above half the speed in mb/s but newer SSDs are getting faster and i plan on poppin in one of those in the 32 gb flavor later on. Besides, i dont really notice any slowdown because all its for is web browsing and word processing at the moment. no difference in battery life yet but at least as far as impact is concerned im safer with an ssd if i drop my laptop than a hd with discs spinning at thousands of rpms.

Im running osx bc the version i installed is optimized for netbooks like mine and is faster than xp. Also, it came with Ubuntu 8.04 installed but it was a special lpia kernel for netbooks which limited the max ram to 1 gb and required special binaries for standard 386 .debs and so on so you couldnt just go download skype for linux for example, you had to do a bunch of bs first. im profficient with ubuntu beyond the average user but i preferred to have something that "just works" and also wanted to expand my osx knowledge because its severely lacking compared to my linux knowledge, let alone my windows knowledge.



To EXT64:

Nice, I'd like to see some benchmarks when you have it up and running so i can compare my q6600 because i was deciding between what youre doing and the q6600 but decided to give intel a chance to be "inside" my desktop. hmm.. in retrospect that grammatical pun looks wrong thanks to my perverted brain.. whatever you get the point

yep. you should do it. its real simple. theres tons of guides on the net, usually for your specific model too, and many even tell you exactly what torrent u need to dl

I would much rather you get an E8400 which is better than the Q6600 in gaming and you can overclock them to 4GHz+ which will make up for the lack of cores.

I just got mine up and running, and trust me, you won't be disappointed by your Quad, especially since you are coming from an Athlon X2 like I did. Originally I would have said stick with duals for gaming, but I think now the performance and price gap is narrowing (and some games are going quad) so now it is an acceptable choice.

btw, just got the wc kit from my buddy. paid $57 and got a Thermaltake Bigwater 735 liquid cooling sys, 400 L/hr pump, 3/8" tubing. is it any good? was that a good price? oh and got a VGA block for my 4850 as well for $10 heh

Should see the Q9's with full cache around the price of the Q6600 ... or they aren't serious about the stockholder's concerns ...

Just read this news that came out 11 hrs ago.

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtrade [...] estimates/

Intel plans to cut prices on its quad-core, dual-core and Xeon processors on January 18

cuts of 15%-40$ on quad-core processors, 13% on dual-core chips and 15%-40% on Xeon quad-core server processors.

Yes, but with the i7 and P II, demand would also be down.

The Q6600's seem to have good staying power, probably because they have a high multiplier and overclock real well, and they are low priced.

yes ... they just run a bit hotter than a low end Q9 but have more cache.
A Q9 has about a 6% IPC advantage over a Q6.

Since the Q6600 has an 8Mb cache and the low end Q9's only have 6 and have lower multipliers with higher FSB they are a bit harder to overclock ... extreme overclock that is ... not mild.

The Q6600 is an easy choice since it is cheaper.

You just have to make sure it doesn't overheat - so make sure the case cooling is good, and all of the cables are tidy and don't block the airflow.

Q6600 is a jewel. Too bad I can't afford one =(