title is self explanatory =)

e6700
320 8800 gts
evga 680i mobo

OR

e6700
hd2900xt
asus 975x mobo

OR

x2 6000+
640 8800 gts
asus nforce590 striker mobo

OR

x2 6000+
hd2900xt
asus amd580x mobo


all with:
thermalake 750w psu
150gb raptor hd
20" 1680x1050 widescreen samsung lcd
2gb ddr2-800 patriot ram


all cost about the same so im wondering which would be best to buy

thanx

Maybe the E6700 with the HD 2900XT would be the best choice.
But if you could pair that E6700 with the 640MB GTS, that would be even better

e6700
320 8800 gts
evga 680i mobo

My choice. This is because there is this nagging chance that performance would be bound by the CPU now, with the 8800 series. I wouldn't doubt it if someone said that the x2 6000+ with a 640 8800 gts will perform better than my choice, its a tough call.

Either way, I can be quite sure that right now, without any further driver updates (the effects of which we cannot be certain yet), the HD2900XT cannot be the choice over the 8800gts (both 320mb and 640mb versions).

yea i took in account the bad drivers of the hd2900xt
do u think that good drivers will give that much of a performance increase?



also when u consider the monitor i picked the max resolution is 1680x1050, i read at that resolution there woudnt be much of a difference between the 320 and 640 gts

We cannot tell for sure how much of a performance increase we can see with updated drivers....

Difference between more GDDR RAM would be the ability to put a really high AA/AF.... which may be beneficial...

The 320MB version of the 8800GTS loses performance as you up the resolution. That being said, the 680i is a good chipset but the northbridge runs very hot and any performance difference between it and the 650i is non-existent. So why not pair the 640MB 8800GTS and the E6700 with a 650i-based motherboard? It would give performance as good as that of a similar system with a 680i-based mobo. Just my 2 cents.

I don't see why most people would go for the 680i mobo for exactly that reason.

u guys were right
the 650i+640gts came out to be the same price!


1 more question...will it matter if i get an e6320 instead of the 6700 and just OC it? cuz thats another 200 bucks i could save

I agree with Wolfram, or my choice:

8800 GTS 640, E6700, P5B Deluxe, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme w/ Scythe SFF21F fan.

I don't think so, coz the E6320 has the same amount of L2 cache the E6700 has, so it would give you equal performance (once you OC it) to the more expensive processor.

stick with Core 2, but if I were you i'd save the money by getting an E6600... overclocking an E6600 will yield good results and you'll be faster than an E6700 for sure.

To the above poster, isn't the E6700 a Core 2 Duo processor? And the E6700 has a higher multiplier than the E6600 so it can be OC'd tremendously. My E6700 is sitting at 3.4GHz right now with an aftermarket HSF and I don't doubt it could reach that with the stock one. I reckon I could push mine to 3.8GHz without problems.

true the E6700 has a higher multiplier and can theoretically hit higher clocks, but the E6600 costs less than $250USD and will hit 3.6ghz all day long. my E6600 runs 3.6ghz 100% loaded on BOTH cores 24/7/365... all on a cheapo air cooler. my Xeon 3060 (rebadged E6600) does 3.69 under the same conditions and my E6400 does 3.6ghz under those conditions/

the reason i didn't suggest a cheaper E6400/E6300 is because they have only 2mb of L2 cache, and the reason i left out the E6420/E6320 is because their multipliers would force someone to overclock pretty high to reach the same speeds of the E6600.

the main reason i chose to recommend the E6600 it is simply the best bang for your buck. what's the point of buying a processor that costs ALOT more just to overclock to the same speed that the E6600 can.

[color=blue]Edited by Moderator: Removed quote. There`s no need to quote the post directly above your own, unless you`re only replying to a specific section, in which case you would only quote that section. [/color]

Point well made. But in that case, the E6320 is a better buy, since it will not need to be OC'd too much to reach E6600 speeds. OCing wouldn't damage a C2D chip in any way (not in any way I know of at least) and the chips seem to be made for OCing so I think that would be a better "bang for your buck", per se.

thanx for all ur feedback guys =)

here is my final list of things i decided to get
http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/...Number=3814129

once the cpu is oced i think this will be a VERY good performer (especially for 1800$ =P)

I concur that would be the superior buy.