[nearmiss]

1) The Q6600 is going through a "fire sale" period because it is the hottest (pun definitely intended) processor on the market. I bought my wife's at Outpost.com 2 weeks ago when they had one of their sales -- 179.99 -- As long as you see Q6600, you are good to go.

2) The 8800GTS 512 is an excellent choice as well, I'm partial to the 8800 GT because I do not feel the G92 GTS 512 offers enough of a significant increase in performance. My mate bought 2 of them and my rig is every bit as fast as his in games, not in benchmarks, but in actual gameplay situations. I played Crysis through from front to back (very disappointing game, from a gameplay and story perspective) with all settings on high with a single 8800 GT OC. The framerate rarely went under 15-20 which is quite playable in Crysis as they make good use of motion blur, and most of the time it was well over 30. Plus, when I purchased my 8800 GT the 8800 GTS 512 was 70 dollars more. If the price is the same, obviously the 8800 GTS 512 is superior.

3) No current video card can take advantage of more than about 3.2ghz -- There have been many debates about C2D vs C2Q and this is the point on which the discussion always ends. Buying a C2D that can clock 3.8 is irrelevent because when a new card comes out that can take advantage of those extra clocks, the quad will still be faster because, as we speak, dozens if not hundreds of games are being designed to use multiple cores. And the C2Q will be the best CPU of this generation for every one of those games. Having a 4 lane highway is just inherently much higher capacity than having a 2 lane, even if the 4 lane has a slightly lower speed limit.

Edit: I have yet to personally see a Q6600 that won't do 3.2 right out of the box with very little hassle. In fact, we got all of ours here locally to do 3.6 but we don't like how hot they run with air cooling. If I want 3.6-4ghz in the future I will switch to wc.

The Abit Mobo you recommend doesn't appear to have a PCI-E 2.0 - the EVGA 8000 GTS 512M video card calls for a PCI-E 2.0. WOuld a 2.0 VC work in a PCI-E 1.0 slot?

Also, knowing what you know about the system would you think it better to go to another Mobo?

If so, what do you recommend as a best choice Motherboard. You did mention gigabyte as a good choice, but nothing specific.

Also, I found I can acquire the E8400 3.10GH Intel processor for the same amount of money as the Q6600.

There recommendations by gentle killer effectively are so close in price (like less that 20.00). Naturally, I'd like to build the most uptodate (competent) system for the money.

I do, however respect your opinon on this or I wouldn't have asked. So, I'm going to follow your guidelines as close as possible. I really don't want a repeat of my previous misadventures.

Thanks for your input

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Psssst I did buy the parts you recommended.

iNTEL Q6600
EVGA 8800GT 512M PCI-E
Corsair Ram XMS2 4GB PC6400 DDR2
Abit Mobo IP-35 PRO

I bought the above at Microcenter. The did not have the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
Maybe you could look at the http://www.Microcenter.com site and see a fan you would recommend.

I have NOT taken any of the system components out of their seales boxes. I can probably exchange them easily, if you think of a better solution you would recommend.

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